Kaleidoscope (06-05-2012)
by Dat
‘Love means sacrifice'
They called her crazy and stupid, but Phan Thi Nga was not fazed.
She loved Nguyen Ba Ky and wanted to marry him, and though he refused at first, she prevailed.
On the wedding day, relatives and friends of the bride and groom were in tears as they greeted the 20-year-old bride, standing next to her husband immobile on a wheelchair.
Nga, a native of Ha Tinh Province's Nghi Xuan District, will have to take care of her paralysed husband like a baby for the rest of her life.
The woman, a graduate of Thanh Do University's accounting department, said she loves Ky with all her heart and is prepared to meet the challenges of living with her paralysed husband.
"I think love means sacrifice. Though I know many difficulties lie ahead, I think I am brave enough to overcome them."
Ky said that he had at first refused to be her husband, fearing that she would be miserable after marriage, but her love for him won him over.
Ky's mother said that she cannot believe that the wedding is real and has nothing but gratitude to Nga, who is brave enough to marry her son.
Ky, a resident of Nghi Phong Commune of Nghe An Province's Nghi Loc District, suffered from polyarthritis when he was 12. His family did not have money to treat him. He became a burden for his widowed mother because he could not move his legs and hands.
A relative presented him a computer. He was able to get connected to the world using the only two fingers that he could move. Soon, he set up a website for disabled people that attracted many people, and it is through the website that he met Nga.
Fifth time lucky?
When 19-year-old Mai Mai applied for a job at the Chi Linh Resort in Vung Tau, she caught the eye of its owner Le Aân.
As he listened to her recount her family situation during the interview, the 74-year-old proprietor remembered his own previous years. Mai was one of ten children in a poor family living in the central region, and he himself was the fifth child in a large family.
Two weeks later, Mai was invited to meet her future boss for the next round of interviews, and she did so in the hope of landing a job. Her boss had just one question: "Will you marry me?"
Mai was stunned, and stammered that she needed time to consider. A week later, he got the answer.
The wedding was a luxurious affair, attracting the curiosity, admiration and envy of many people.
It was not the first time Aân was getting married to a much younger woman. His four previous wives, one of them a Viet Kieu from America, had left him. His fourth wife, 25 years old, had emulated the previous three in bankrupting him.
Deep in debt and unable to repay his creditors, he had copped a stiff prison sentence and it was released after five years.
Will he be fifth time lucky? — VNS