THE CRY IN THE MORGUE (*)
Nguyen Xuan Quang
-“Paternal Grand Father”! Paternal Grand Father”! (1) You have a phone call.
I hear the medical student calling. I’m still awake but I try to stay in bed to get as much rest as I can.
-Can you answer the phone for me?
-The emergency room’s mid-wife insists on talking to you personally. She doesn’t want to talk to me.
With a sigh, I get out of bed and drag my feet to the phone. I know there is an emergency. The mid-wife on call when faced with a life threatening emergencies usually wants to bypass the inexperienced medical students and talk directly to the on-ground residents in order to save time and save lives.
-What time is it now?
I don’t know if I was asking the medical student or myself? It is murderous, if a serious case arrives at this time. What’s a hectic on-call day! I worked all day and night without a real break.
-Hello, this is resident on-call speaking.
-Hi, “Master” (2), did you take a short nap?
-How can I shut my eyes and “rest in peace” for a while when pairing up with such a beautiful, sexy and gorgeous mid-wife like you tonight? Every time I start to fall asleep, you wake me up and order me to carry out a duty!
There is a sweet, warm laugh on the other end of the phone line.
-I will make you “exhausted” tonight!
In the medical field, it is a well known fact that the mid-wives have the most spicy and wild language.
-It’s a bad luck to be paired up with you tonight! There have been three cases of surgery so far and now comes another one, right?
-“Retention de la tete”! (**).
- Head retention? Really? Another case from the “Square-Circle” maternity clinic? (3)
-Who else?
-Send her immediately to the O.R., give me a call when she is ready for me.
Mad, I slam down the phone. We would usually call that maternity clinic a “Black Triangle” instead of “Square-Circle”. I’ve heard a lot of rumors about that maternity clinic. It is the busiest maternity clinic in Saigon. Its parking lot always looks like a Grand Central Station, it is congested with all means of transportation. The owner of that maternity clinic is a crook. At present time, Saigon is in curfew from dusk to dawn. All pregnant women in labor holding a storm-lantern walking to the public maternity hospitals for free deliveries are picked up by the police and delivered to that private maternity clinic for costly deliveries. She has a tight connection with the authority of the government and of course, with the director of this public maternity hospital where I have training in OB-GYN program. Some residents and physicians of this public maternity-hospital are the staff members of her maternity clinic. All difficult cases or medically mismanaged cases are dumped here. One rumor states that, one night, a burglar stuffed the stolen goods under his coat to disguise himself as a pregnant woman in labor, holding a lantern, walking back to his den. He was picked up by police and brought to the Square-Circle maternity clinic for a “square and circle” delivery. He gave birth to a bunch of stolen objects in the rest room and then vanished.
-An emergency case? Grand-pa!
The medical student asks me. I “wake up” and come back to the reality.
-Maternal Grand Father and you find something to eat in order to get some energy. You go to O.R. to assist me with surgery. The Maternal Grand Father covers the “outside ring” while I do the surgery.
-Why does the patient have to undergo the surgery?
-The fetus is in an abnormal position, the head is stuck inside the uterus, a case of “retention de la tete”.
-?…
-A breech presentation.
The off-ground resident explains.
-Yes, a breech presentation. The butt is delivered first instead of the head. His lower extremities, body and shoulders already came out but his head is still stuck inside the uterus. That’s why we call it “head retention”.
-Is he still alive?
I look straight in the eyes of the medical student.
-Let put your head in a tightly sealed bag and see how long you can survive. It takes only five minutes without oxygen to cause severe brain damage. If the newborn survives and grows up, he or she will be a heavy burden for the family and to society. He or she becomes a vegetative being or a gangster or a tyrant leader, etc. If he or she is dead, it’s a blessing for him or her and for society.
After gulping a cup of milk down to the alimentary tract, I call the attending physician on call to notify and discuss the case. With a sleepy voice, she wants me to takecare this case for her. I try to get off the hook. I know this case is beyond my responsibility.
The medical student and I go to the O.R. to take care of the pre-op. The patient looks pale. Dry lips. Sunken eyes. Labored breathing. She is lying with her legs spread open as if she is afraid of crushing her unborn child’s head and that makes him dead of asphyxia. It is obvious that the fetus has already died for asphyxia. But in her mind, he is still alive. The unborn fetus is a chubby, big male. His birth weight is estimated to be more than four kilograms (8.8 lbs). His ankles, thighs, neck are bruised. The mid-wife at that maternity clinic attempted to pull him out with all her force and left the bruised marks on his body. Does he refuse to join the human world? In fact, he is a stubborn unborn baby. He chose the reverse way to enter life. Does he make a mistake? Or does the mid-wife make a mistake? A Vietnamese proverb says: “Big head is stupid, big testicle is smart”. Obviously, in front of my eyes, his testes are small. Evidently he is not smart. He is stupid to have turned the wrong way. So, his head may be big. It is true, when the head is big, it is unable to engage to the pelvic ring, the bottom end usually has to come out first. Therefore the big head is frequently associated with the breech presentation. He may have a big head due to macrocephalia or hydrocephalia or tumors, etc. It is no doubt that the mid-wife is stupid too. She made a mistake because of her stupidity due to her “big head” and her negligence. Despite what happens, the child is dead, the goal now is to save the mother’s life.
-Master, let try to pull his head out one more time before “soaking your hands in the blood”!
The O.R. mid-wife suggests. She is a middle age mid-wife. She is experienced and also lazy. She wants to avoid the surgery if possible. In many cases of head retention, the uterine cervix acts like a coil of the constrictor boa. The cervix squeezes tightly the neck of the unborn baby when it is stimulated by the pulling. The constrictor boa acts the same way. It squeezes violently when the prey keeps trying to escape. If let the cervix to rest for a while, it relaxes, dilates and allows the head to come out easily. The surgery is avoided.
Before agreeing with the O.R. mid-wife’s recommendation, I examine the patient’s abdomen. I shake my head.
-Is the uterus ruptured?
-I am not sure. But the uterus is asymmetric and firmer on the right side.
-To avoid trouble, my favorite Mater, it’s better to wait for the attending physician’s decision.
I agree with her. I write the emergency orders. When the attending physician on call arrives, everything is ready.
-Did you try to pull him out?
-Not yet, Doc.
-So, what do you think?
-We’ll have to crush his head to take him out.
-Craniothripsy? It‘s a horrible procedure!
Craniothripsy is a procedure of crushing the fetal head with a special instrument like crushing of a nut with a nut cracker.
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
I act as if I don’t hear the attending physician.
-The mother is exhausted, we have to act fast. We are running out of time. There is no other choice. We have to save the mother.
The physician rolls up her scrub gown’s sleeves. She locks her fingers around the neck of the fetus and pulls it out with all her force. His neck is stretching and cracking. It looks like a goose’s neck. The neck is strangulated by the cervix. In the quiet O.R., only the moaning voice of the mother is heard.
Tiredly, the physician looks at me:
-Do you think a shot of Buscopan will help?
-I don’t think that antispasmodics will help.
The cervix is already extremely edematous and can not dilate anymore. Hesitantly, the physician looks at the surgical team present in the O.R. She hopes to get suggestions to help her find a good solution.
-You are a general in the battle field now. We have to choose a “bloody way” to save lives.
-Let me cut off his neck.
I want to take off my gloves and scrubs and walk away. But I have to “swallow down” the anger. I know if I do that, my name will be put on the black list. The O.R. mid-wife puts a big stainless steel bowl underneath the baby’s body. With two sweet cuts done by a sheer-like pair of surgical scissors, the neck is cracking like a dried tree branch. His headless body falls into the bowl. The mother gives a sign of relief. She is happily moaning. The pressure is relieved with the weight of the baby removed. The physician inserts her hand in the uterus and tries to remove the head. .
-He has short hair. It’s hard to hold on.
-It’s better to find his mouth and grab firmly his lower jaw, Doctor.
The O.R, mid-wife suggests. I know that clearly there is no way to get the head out. The head now, is like a marble in a bottle. The marble is bigger than the orifice of the bottle neck. While the head was still attached to the body, it is easier to pull it out by grabbing the neck. Now the head is freely rolling inside the uterus like a slippery soccer ball. It is impossible to get the head out. Impossible. Impossible. Impossible. The physician, soaked in sweat, gives up:
-Do you want to try?
The edematous cervical sphincter is already retracted. I use my finger tips to dilate the cervix in order to pass my hand into the uterus. Instead of finding the head first, I do a “revision uterine”. I carefully examine the inside surface of the uterus. A crack is found at the right upper corner of the uterus. The head is moderately big. I feel a big tongue protruded out of his mouth.
- I think, I found a crack at the right upper corner of the uterus.
My finding gives the physician a way to get out of the dilemma. She orders to do Ceasarian-section. It is a heartbreaking surgery. A C-section is performed to remove a fetus’ head! When the uterus is exposed under the light, a big bruise appears on the right side of the uterus. The head pops out when the uterus is opened. His swollen, dark blue face looks like a giant blue berry. His black tongue is stuck out. His face is similar to that of someone who has been hung or strangulated. The uterus is already ruptured by trauma. A hysterectomy in order to remove the damaged uterus and save the life of the mother is a must. After two hours of surgery, the physician leaves the closing phase of the abdomen for both of us in order to go home to get some sleep. A busy day is awaiting her at the office tomorrow. I show the medical student how to close the abdominal incision.
-To close the abdomen, we must suture layer by layer from the peritoneal layer, muscular layer, fascia and finally the skin. If you suture only one or two layers, the patient will eventually develop an “eventration” or abdominal hernia.
Totally exhausted, I leave the O.R. and let the medical student take care the ill-fate “mort-ne’ “, a newborn dead at birth.
-Can you do me a favor, my Young brother, suture the head onto the baby’s body before sending him to the morgue.
-?
-I don’t want him to become a headless ghost. Our country already has too many misshaped spirits. More than that, it is our duty. We are studding and making a living through the use of the cadavers and on the living being as well. Keep in mind that both of them are our real teachers. We have to respect them as long as we practice medicine.
In a moment, I recognize that my voice is filled with emotion. Back in the room, I throw my exhausted body onto the mattress. I sleep like a log. A chilling air stream brings a sickening smell into my room and wakes me up. Nauseate. I hear the papers shuffling on the floor. Putting another pillow under my neck to lift up my head, I rub my eyes. Two pieces of paper are shuffling on the floor. There is an invisible person standing on these two pieces of paper, using them to skate across the floor. It may be a young child, a mischievous child. Is he just playing with the papers or is he trying to disturb my sleep? Silently, I watch two pieces of papers skating, dancing across the floor in the hall way.
A noise is heard from the stairway. Two pieces of papers scatter and take off, flying over the balcony, down onto the court yard below.
Lazily, I crawl out of bed and go to the window for a breath of fresh air. Now, I recognize that the two pieces of paper are two Under world money bills which usually are called “hell money” by the Vietnamese. The hell-money is offered by the living people to the deaths to use in the netherworld. Two hell-money bills rest peacefully on the grass. Few tiny fire spots on the tops of the joss-sticks planted on a rice cake are flashing in the wind. I remember the patient with breech presentation. Deep inside my heart, I don’t think she can make it. The Death Lord will win. She had a difficult labor and underwent a long operation. She is like a gas lamp which is running out of gas. The off-ground resident and medical student may be busy in the Delivery room. At this maternity-hospital affiliated to the Saigon Medical School, we have more than one hundred deliveries each day. The phone rings. I lift up the receiver and expect an emergency call.
-Hello, resident on call speaking…
-Master… Come to my ward…
A soft voice murmurs in my ear.
-Oh! Ma belle! Give me “a word of peace”!
-Master… There is something very strange thing in the morgue!
-I’m not a mortician.
-Please come down here, Master.
-I’m tired tonight…
-You will feel better I have some sweet thing for you! Hurry up…
I hung up the phone, and flung the white coat over my shoulder to keep my chest warm. On an instant spirit altar in a corner across the court yard, there are a “dead” candle, few candies and cookies, a stack of multicolor Under world paper diapers. It is the summer time, so the paper diapers are fashioned in “bain de soleil” mode. It is no doubt that these offerings are sent to the newborn spirits. I usually add a few bottles of formula, given as samples from the pharmaceutical sale representatives, to these offerings.
The taste of the baby formula is terrible for an adult like me. I hate to drink baby formula. I’d rather die of starvation than drink baby formula. In no time, my offering of baby formula is gone. Only the candies and cookies are left untouched and become stale. Surely the toothless newborn spirits can not eat candies or cookies. Of course, they like baby formula. But, later, I found out that a few bottles of baby formula are life-saving meals for a hungry baby born to a poor family. Two hell-money bills are stuck to the wet grass. Two tiny wet foot imprints are clearly seen on the papers. The Gynecology ward of the mid-wife who just called me is separated from the morgue by a low brick wall. A crowd of frightened patients are gathered in front of the nurse station. I know immediately that the mid-wife told me the truth.
-There is a cry in the morgue!
A frightened voice from the crowd hastily informs me. I try to keep stone faced. The crowd moves apart to make way for me.
-The cry in the morgue!
The mid-wife repeats with a gasp.
-Nothing’s wrong. It’s normal to have ghosts in the morgue. Do you hear the cry yourself?
-First, the patients told me but then I heard the cry for myself.
I look into the eyes of the crowd. Terrified eyes. Frightened eyes. Horrified eyes. Panic stricken eyes. Stupefied eyes. Stunned eyes. Angry eyes, etc.
Under the dim yellow light, the morgue appears behind a row of hibiscus.
-The cry of a newborn, right?
-How do you know, Master?
The mid-wife with a sleepy face looks at me, amazed. The most beautiful moment of a woman is at the time post mid-night when without make-up she has a sleepy but lustful face.
-A child just came to my room and awakened me!
-Really?
-The cry…
A horrified voice exclaims. Everyone holds their breath. I hear my heart galloping. A cry. A cry of a newborn. An urgent cry. A begging cry. A cry for help.
-Tell the orderly to open the door of the morgue for me.
I dash out in the dark and rush into the morgue. The cry stops. Certainly, the headless fetus cannot cry. In fact, he was not born yet, he is not a “real” human being.
The orderly has chronic bloodshot eyes due to lack of sleep. He shakes the key chain to make squeaky noise.
-What’s the problem? Master.
-There is a cry in the morgue.
-A cry?
-How many people are died today?”
-About four or five babies.
Both of us climb up the veranda of the morgue. The orderly looks for the key. A cry for help is repeated. This time I hear it very clear. Certainly, it is the cry of a newborn infant. The orderly’s hands are shaking. The key chain is squeaking. He cannot put the key into the keyhole. An urgent cry. I grab the key from the hands of the orderly:
-Let me open it.
The cheap, rusty, cold lock freezes my hands. The cry makes me nervous. I try several times. Finally the door, like a pair of wings flies open with my light push. The cold, stagnant air in the morgue rushes out onto my face. Nauseate. I rush inside. The orderly hesitantly follows behind me. The blinding, yellow light in the morgue hurts my eyes. I am astonished. The long hall way is used to store the deformed fetuses and dead newborns. A museum displays the congenital human malformations. There are fetuses without brains called anencephalia. Their faces look like the Chinese or Japanese opera masks. Some have two heads. Some have big heads called hydrocephalia. Some have multiple limbs that look like crawling creatures. Some have undeveloped or partial limbs resembling seal’s limbs which are called phocomelia. Some are twins with their bodies fused together called Siamese twins. Some have only with one eye called Cyclops. Some have elderly faces called progeria. Some have witches’ faces… In a very short time, the microorganisms, the mildew flourishing in the morgue stick on my moist, warm nasal mucosa and start germinating, growing, “flowering”, “fruiting”. Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! I sneeze to uproot that microscopic forest and blow it out. The orderly follows quietly. Walking into the cadaver storeroom, the sound of our footsteps scares the rats, makes them run for life. The rats live in some maternity clinics steal and eat the placenta. This makes them very big and strong. Some of them weight as much as a few kilograms. These rats are the proof to confirm that the human placenta is a tonic medication. The extract of the human placenta termed in French “extrait placentaire” is widely used in Europe. The Russian doctor Filatov is the author of the Filatov’s placenta graft therapy. The communists praise the human placenta as a cure-all medication. At night, in the mating season, the male rats fight each other in order to gain the control of the harem. The fierce, bloody fight in the ghetto areas of the hospital terrifies patients and staffs. The further I go into the morgue, the more chilling it is. A crash. Stunned, I turn my back. The orderly drops the key chain. A small bundle wrapped with a white sheet is moving. I hold my breath. A cold, chill runs up my spine. A big rat under the white sheet runs violently to find a way out. It runs from under the sheet, dashes onto the floor and disappears. A head rolls out from under the sheet and drops to the floor and continue to roll. The orderly is screaming. It’s the head of the fetus from the breech presentation. It rolls across the floor and rests on a pot hole. His widely opened eyes stare at me. The black tongue is wiggling and looks longer than before. I feel lightheaded. I try to stand steadily on my feet. Is this head crying? If it is the case, it must be a ghostly thing. “Troi dat qui than oi”! Oh my heaven! Oh my earth! Oh my devils! Oh my gods!
-I am throwing up.
The orderly holding his mouth with his hands turns his back and flees through the door. There is a drawing force, I turn my back and want to follow after him. My eyes are blurred, everything looks fuzzy. Several white sheet-wrapped bundles are moving, squirming. A cry near by is heard. A warm, lively cry of a newborn. The cry saluting life. The cry of birth. The cry of the grand opening of life that is heard thousand of times when I help a baby entering the human world. The cry makes me feel that I am alive. I look around, searching. Within seconds, I see a moving bundle. I am unaware of anything else around me. I grab bundle and unwrap the sheet. A male newborn is squirming and screaming. He wants tender loving care. I hold him tightly against my chest so he can get the warmth of my heart. I feel his heartbeats respond to mine. The fire ants fall in all directions. His face, body and extremities are covered with a papular rash caused by fire ant bites. I dash out and run to the nurse station. The crowd disperses.
-What is it, Master?
-A newborn is still alive!
- Is he crying?
-Yes, he is crying. Immediately start right away the resuscitation for him.
-An alive baby is “threw” in the morgue!
The exciting news spreads by word of mouth, in all directions, as fast as a lightning.
Now I feel the stinging in both arms. The fire ants are now attacking me. I take off the white coat and shake off the fire ants. After a long period of resuscitation, the newborn’s cry is unchanged. Finally, I decide to put him in the incubator and send him to the Nursery room. The crowd gathers back and discusses the event.
-Doctor, the baby is still alive. Why did the mid-wives send him in the morgue?
Looking at the excited crowd, I know that I have to explain the event to calm them down.
-Be calm. In fact, the newborn was brain dead at birth. He was really dead. Now he is crying but not a living cry. He cries by spinal reflex.
The crowd is listening to me with astonishment. I recognize that they do not understand a word I am saying. Again I try to explain it in a simple way.
-The ants bite him, by spinal reflex, he cries. It’s the same as if the head of a duck is chopped off. The duck is dead. But in some cases, the headless duck is still able to run and finds its way to the pond. That’s due to the spinal reflex.
-Can we save him, Doctor?
-Not much hope. We tried but he is not responding well to treatment. Everyone go back to bed and get some sleep.
I want to say good bye to the mid-wife.
-I need some rest too.
-Master, stay here for a while, I have some sweet thing for you as I promised.
-Every man likes sweet thing!
-Don’t push your luck too far!
The Vietnamese language has the terms “hao ngot” (“like sweet”) meaning “sexual craving”. She gives me a cup of “che hot sen”, a sweet drink made of cooked lotus seeds in syrup.
-Let me take care that rash caused by the ant bites.
-I need some Hydrocortisone cream.
This beautiful mid-wife is still single. Rumor has it that, she once loved a medical student, but they had a bitter love and she decided to stay single to take care of herself. She is still not so old as to be labeled as an “old maid”. The phone rings. I hold a lotus seed in my mouth and wait.
-Master, Big Sister in the Delivery room wants to talk to you.
I hurriedly chew and swallow the lotus seed. It is nearly stuck in my throat.
-Master, I heard that a “mort-ne’“ was crying in the morgue.
-Yes, it’s true. I witnessed it with my own eyes and ears.
-Really? You must be kidding?
-No, I am not kidding. It is like a ghostly story but it’s true. Now, you can go and see him in the Nursery.
-Oh, my heaven! He was really dead at birth. He did not cry. We tried to resuscitate him for hours but he did not cry at all.
Teasingly I say:
-I don’t believe that your team resuscitated him for hours. It’s too long! May be just a few seconds!
-Master, don’t say that. We really did a complete resuscitation.
She then bursts into tears.
-Ok! Ok! Ok! just kidding! Was there a doctor there when your team performed the resuscitation?
-Yes, Maternal Grand Father was here. At that time you were tied up in the O.R.
-Perhaps, he was dead at that time. But now he changes his mind. He wants to join the life time human game. Maybe he was rejected from hell and heaven. He is too innocent to be sent to the hell. He has not yet been baptized so he could not be sent to the heaven. Our wicked world is the only suitable place for him.
-If he survives, I will die…
-You’re not the only one, me too, the whole nation and even mankind will too! Let silent your conscience. I will see you soon.
I pass the phone to the mid-wife. The phone rings immediately after it is hung up.
-The post-op woman is agonizing…
I spring up onto my feet. I know she cannot survive. The woman with two lifeless eyes, is moaning: “Doc… save me… my husband … in the battle front… for months … haven’t heard from him… my children… young… hungry… Doc… save me… save me…, I beg you…”
I am petrified and become a stone statue.
“Doc… save my newborn… raise my baby for me…sav. . “ I close her widely open eyes. Resuscitation is attempted routinely although in vain.
I drag my feet back to the on-call room like a defeated soldier. The medical student who assisted me in the surgery is sipping coffee at the dining table. Angrily, I yell at him.
-I told you to suture the head of the fetus to his body before sending him to the morgue. You didn’t do it. The rats used the head as a soccer ball to play with in the morgue…
-No, Big Brother, that’s not true, I did suture… I swear…
-How many layers did you suture? I told you to suture layer by layer. If you suture only skin to skin, it is not possible for the neck to hold the head in place. If you do not believe me, you can go to the morgue and see what’s going on in there.
After exploding with anger, with a soft voice, I pamper the medical student.
-I am exhausted. I need to close my eyes for a while. Both of you take care of minor things for me.
I slept like a comatose man until awakened by the medical student. In a guarded voice, he tells me:
-The mid-wife in the Nursery room insists on talking to you…
-That’s Ok. I was expecting this call.
The mid-wife on the other end of the phone line informs me that the newborn cried in the morgue is now having difficult breathing. I go quickly but calmly in the early morning. The baby is in respiratory distress. After giving him a “cocktail” of life saving medications, I decide to go to the Delivery room to get a suture kit, and then go to the morgue to suture the head of the baby back to his body before eight o’ clock. It is then that I have to report to the oncoming on-ground medical resident on call. At the turn of a hallway, I step aside to give way to an orderly who is pushing a gurney carrying the cadaver of the women who had died from complications of her breech delivery. I don’t know why, but I lack the courage to look at the cadaver. On her body are many sutures that I had done. I recall her condensed tear drops oozing out from her sunken eyes… her begging voice… I talk to the orderly:
-Tell Mr Ba to leave the door of the morgue open for me.
-He threw up and became ill. I am now replacing him. I will leave the door open for you, Master.
I sit and chat in the Delivery room until the dawn appears on the horizon. With the suture kit tucked under my right armpit, I walk slowly to the morgue. Although I am on the same path that I walked last night, it is different. It is different because my heart feels different now. I also feel my steps different. The door of the morgue is open wide enough for me to walk inside. I walk with my head down. I don’t want to see the collection of the deformed fetuses again. I feel uneasy. When getting in the cadaver storeroom, I direct my eyes to the pot hole on the floor where the head rests. What happened? The head is not there anymore. The rats mauled it? And ate it? I am certain the orderly did not dare return to put the head back into the bundle. A wet choking cough. Goosebumps cover my body. Numb. Dizzy. My unsteady feet are peeling off the ground. I think I am going to fall down as a rotten dead tree. The woman with breech delivery is sitting on the floor, with her back towards me, as if hiding her face. The headless body of the baby is lying on her lap. His head keeps moving as if he is in distress. She tenderly taps the head calm him and keep him still. One stitch after another, with love, she sutures the head back to the body. Each stitch is followed by a deep sigh. A cry of a newborn. Is the head crying? I close my eyes tightly. My tears are smearing my face.
A huge dome is falling down on me. Nothing else but darkness.
———————
. (*) Translated by author from Tieng Khoc Trong Nha Xac in the short story book titled Nguoi Cam Thu Ruoi (The Man Who Hates Flies).
. (**): italic words: French words.
. (1) In the French medical system, in the last two years of training, medical students are divided into “interns des hopitaux”, or on-ground residents and “externs des hopitaux” or off-ground residents. The Vietnamese “interns” are termed “noi tru” and “externs’, “ngoai tru”. ‘Noi” also means “paternal line”. Therefore, the on-ground residents “noi tru”, in slang language are called “ong noi”, “Paternal Grand Father”. “Ngoai” also means “maternal line”, just like the off-ground residents they are called “ong ngoai”, “Maternal Grand Father”. The term “Paternal Grand Father” shows respect and at the same time hints some teasing.
. (2) In Vietnamese tradition, the members of the medical teaching body are called “ong thay” Masters.
. (3) According to the Oriental cosmogony, the Square symbolizes the Earth and Circle, the Sky or Heaven. When a pregnant woman is in labor, everyone wishes her a safe and sound delivery or a “Square-Circle” delivery. A Vietnamese proverb states “Mother Circle, Sibling Square” which means perfect birth for both mother and sibling.
