My Vietnam

Friday the 28th of September 2007 my wife and I went to a party arranged by the Nordic Chamber of Commerce. The party took place at Mr. Krister Kling’s residence, the Honorary Consul General of Sweden. To participate in this party entry tickets were required. I bought tickets for my wife and me through a colleague.

We arrived at the party together with a colleague of mine and his wife. Half an hour later another colleague joined our table together with his wife. All three of us comes from Denmark and were looking forward to this party where we would get the chance to get some snaps and some good food.

As the evening went on I got too much to drink, and ended up vomiting on the porch of Mr. Krister Kling’s house. This is of course enormously embarrassing for me to admit this, but it was what followed after this incident that really shocked me.

Almost immediately a woman came over to our table very angry and said that I was not allowed to leave the house before I had cleaned up after me. My wife answered for me because I was still rather sick; my wife told her to relax and that things like that happen when people drink too much. My colleague asked her why she couldn’t help us by asking someone working there to help clean it up, after that I believe she left.

My wife told me that it was time to leave and my wife headed for the toilet. What happened next I have only been told by my wife and by my colleague who saw it happen, because I was still sitting outside trying to get better. My wife told me that the woman from before seemed to signal to another big man, around 120 kg, when my wife entered the living room.

The he stepped forward, dragged my wife down to the floor and kicked her! One of my colleagues were entering the living room just in time to see this man kick my wife.

Afterwards we all ended up outside in the front yard, my colleague was insulted by the very same man who even insinuated that we did not buy tickets to enter the party, notice the following image which shows our tickets, notice the corner missing which were cut of when we entered the party.

My wife and me got into a taxi and headed for the nearest police station, my wife crying all the way because of back pain caused by the kicks delivered by the man. At the police station the police officer told us to get my wife’s back checked at the hospital and come back to the police station Monday to report the incident.

We arrived at the Columbia hospital in Binh Thạnh District to get my wife’s back checked, luckily nothing seemed to be broken only bruised, so we got some medication and was ready to go home.

Now I am sitting here on this Saturday afternoon and wonder how can anyone kick a woman like that? Is it just something that I should accept? My wife is not able to get of bed today because she is still in pain, and my clear answer is NO it is not something I should just accept! That is the reason I am now writing this.

It also goes out to the many people present at the party to let them know what really happened! Nobody tried to stop this man except for my colleague who almost got into trouble as well as the man tried to hit him twice without any luck!

I, for my part, am sorry about the incident at the porch, but I cannot figure out how such a thing which could be removed with water and soap required such a countermeasure!

Thomas Bindzus
Tan Binh District
Ho Chi Minh City