Salvador del mujer en el mundo

The title is actually longer, Los Tres Salvadores de las mujeres del mundo (three redeemers of women of the world). I was a “C” student in Spanish so I am not parading command of the tongue of Cervantes, though our title was actually bestowed upon my two brothers and I by a colleague familiar with our personal histories. She thought that we had gone beyond the call of duty in one or two actuations to some “damsel in distress,” “a maiden in a mess,” which might be the closest we come to Cervantes who penned the famous story of Don Quixote de la Mancha, his sidekick Sancho, and his muse, Dulcenia.

Of the colorful characters, you may Wiki them up. Of my brothers, I will leave them to their own stories. Though privy to their history, I am hardly at liberty to write of them here, or even elsewhere. In a time when we value “privacy” above all else, managing self-image has become a matter legally protected, held closely to the chest, so we will not intrude into their domain. But as has been the practice in the past, I will rehearse some of mine so the reader might recall theirs.

First, I hardly fancy myself as a protector, let alone a savior of womankind. In fact, in my own assessment of my journey, now being scribbled in a literary bio-profile that is a work in progress until 2021, it clearly shows that in my lifetime, I have been more dependent on feminine affection and ministration rather than leaning out my shoulder for any of them to cry on.

It is true that numbered among my own assessment of the seven revolutions in my time, that of the liberated women join ethnic minorities, Third World countries, awakened youth, universalized academe, globalized business, and the energized gray panthers in an act of detachment off the restrictions of the past to the fresh new possibilities of the future. What is popularized as the feminist movement in awakened societies is actually now casting a wide shadow across the planet.

Only since 1920 were women allowed to vote in the U.S. so feminine assertiveness is not that old, and there are still countries that not only would not allow their women to vote but also would prefer that they not be publicly seen nor heard from. Chattel servitude, they are!

Changes that have transpired had not been out of the saving graces of males like me either. It has come about with the relentless efforts of women whose manners were not called or considered in polite circles as being “lady-like.” Even Mao’s revival of the old Chinese saying that “women hold half of the sky” did not influence much of contemporary China to make it easy for women to join the rarefied echelons of corporate management, nor of preferred positions in the political system.

“Saving the ladies,” as our title seems to imply, occurs no thanks to me. The function of saving and the role of Salvador are passé in our time. Ladies do not need to be saved nor to be liberated. They can manage their own flowering by themselves, thank you. Perhaps, “flowering” itself is too condescending, a leftover from male chauvinism, for in many instances, it is the “in your face” assertion of their rights and prerogatives that females get their way.

As to being a “savior,” though the religious metaphor of my upbringing encouraged us to adopt that role as appropriate to being a disciple of certain exemplars, role models, and mentors, it is a patronizing role. Being a savior to many is really an obnoxiously arrogant stance.

In January 2009, a Chinese lady who paid dearly for a trip to Saipan waited for a husband from NYC to join her in a U.S. territory. His immigration petition for wife and stepson to join him in NYC was denied the year before. The lady wanted to find out if they can rectify the matter, if at all. He failed to show up.

I had a trip scheduled for the mainland so I volunteered to look him up. It turned out that he was in an advanced debilitating condition that required a care facility. To bring him to Saipan where the medical attention he needed was nonexistent would have been unconscionable. Nor would wife and son joining him in NYC do him a favor for he would lose the medical service he was receiving by having a caregiver at home.

The lady returned home to Shenyang and mutually agreed with the husband to end three years of marriage. The husband died a short time later after the judgment was inked. Having led the Oleai Marianas Resource Center for the United Methodist Church in various causes, including that of imported garment factory workers, I visited former clients in China, and met our Saipan lady’s parents, brother with wife and son, and her son.

Why am I in China? I joined the faculty at Shenyang Aerospace U in one of my visits, agreed with our lady’s family to invest a seventh of the cost on a new dwelling for a third of the space as my residence for the remaining 17 years of my existence. I am warmly welcomed into their fold, actually and figuratively.

Savior? Nope. I was the one saved!