Newspapers: Antic English in Saigon

Saigon’s two English-language news papers — the Daily News and the Post —cover the Viet Nam war in considerable detail, but what really excites them is activity on the home front. Without leaving Saigon, their reporters uncover weirder and wilder stories than the battlefield could ever produce. Crime and sex are embellished with garbled gram mar, misspellings and typos. One typically zestful Post story began last week:

“Quick as the wind that often stirred the banana trees with utter ferocity in his home town, where his favorite horse had died an alcoholic death, the smart copper jumped on the thief just as the sinister individual was about to ride off on his faithful vehicle.”

The Post runs a daily column of lo cal events called “Everything Is News,” and apparently everything is. “A young tailor recently tried to commit suicide in his employer’s backroom,” reported the Post, “by strangling himself with his wife’s brassiere. Rescued just in time by one of his fellow workers, the tailor fled out of the door with the black lace brassiere between his teeth.” What made him do it? “He had become engaged to a bar hostess,” the Post concluded, “who was endowed with a most enviable bosom. However, after several months, he found his bride-to-be gradually diminishing in the curves he admired most. One day he saw her entering a house, from which she emerged with her bosom once again restored to their former significant proportions. Confronted with the evidence of one of Saigon’s latest medical booms, his disappointment was so great that he tried to put an end to his life.”

Advice in Pubs. A story in the Daily News sheds unexpected light on Buddhist suicides by fire: “A 16-year-old apprentice monk soaked himself with gasoline and burned himself to death. He was believed to have taken his life out of discontent with his superior, who had reproached him of listening too much to radio music.”

Both papers carry advice for U.S. servicemen. The Post was happy to tell its readers how to get quick service at the local pubs: “A soft-shoe dance on the bar with combat boots is generally recommended for immediate attention from the establishment’s personnel. Other attention-getting devices are obscene noises, self-immolation on the bar stool, a quick change into a bedouin sheik in the toilet, riding in on a water buffalo, faking an epileptic seizure.”

Perfect Relation. Entertainment does not end with the news columns. Both papers run suggestive ads. For a marriage counselor: “To all Americans and foreigners who would like to marry Vietnamese young girls and would like to know carefully all the national customs of the young ladies and also to prevent you from getting all the troubles, we are at your disposal.” A hotel: “The best for relation in perfect security.”

The antic English of the papers’ translators leads to frequent apologies in print. Recently the Daily News ran a correction: “In yesterday’s issue, due to a printing error in the item on the Philippines, ‘U.S. to Pay $6 Million Cost’ was printed ‘U.S. to Pay $6 Million Loot’; and on the same page in the item on Billy Graham, ‘Asks Audience to Give L.B.J. Standing Ovation’ was printed ‘Asks Audience to Give L.B.J. Standing Nation.’ We sincerely regret these misspellings and ask our readers to accept our sincere apologies.”