1. Since last year, I have been worrying about, and searching mentally for, a person, or rather the shadow of a person, whose uncommon name reminded me, vaguely, that she was, perhaps, one of my students, from the prestigious Catholic all-girls Thanh Tam private High School, in Nhatrang. That person is now a victim, though oblique, but notorious and miserable, of the Viet Cong (VC, Vietnamese Communists) rulers viewed by their own people as dictators and traitors –ready to sell the country to the Chinese Communists (Chicom) for power and dollars.
Until one day, in 2017. I read, by chance, an informative article entitled “Angels and Monsters” by Pham Tin An Ninh, a great writer from Norway and one of my Nhatrang compatriots. In his article, the author confirmed that the person I looked for had, indeed, attended Thanh Tam HS, and her name is Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan. She is the mother of Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, alias Me Nam (Mother Mushroom), the illustrious political prisoner, who was sentenced in July 2017 by the Khanhhoa Courtto ten years in jail for her activities as a blogger having battled for, and dearly protected, the environment and human rights in Vietnam.
