Silicosis

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THOUGHT OF THE DAY: "The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy." - Jules Verne, from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Silicosis?

That is a delightfully modern objection to a very nineteenth-century sentiment.

When Jules Verne wrote that in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the sea represented freshness, vastness, freedom, and escape from the smoke-filled industrial cities of Europe. Compared to the coal soot, sewage, horse manure, and crowded air of Paris or London, sea air really did seem pure and healthy.

From a modern perspective, though, "the sea is healthy" needs qualification. Sea spray contains salt particles and biological material. Sailors can suffer sun exposure, storms, drowning, infections, and various occupational hazards. Silicosis itself is generally caused by inhaling crystalline silica dust, usually from mining, quarrying, stone cutting, sandblasting, and similar activities, not from ordinary sea air.

There is one amusing wrinkle: some beaches contain silica-rich sand, and industrial work involving sand can certainly cause silicosis. But merely breathing the air by the ocean is not considered a silicosis risk.

Verne was speaking poetically rather than medically. If he were writing today, a pulmonologist might interrupt Captain Nemo and ask for particulate measurements before accepting the claim that the sea's breath is "pure and healthy."

It is one of those lines that reveals the optimism of the age. The ocean was imagined as nature untouched. We, having spent a century measuring pollutants and pathogens, tend to hear such statements with an epidemiologist standing over our shoulder.

About twenty years ago when I lived in Vietnam my housekeeper died of thrombosis leaving three children (her husband had deserted before she came to work for me). The local party head pays me a visit and asks what I will do? First I ship her body to her hometown and take care of proper rights there. Then the three move in (it was a huge house and they each had their own bedroom). I didn't officially adopt them, but it was that in effect. Before that they had lived under bridges on the shore, and all three had serious breathing problems, although they seem to have grown out of them.

That sounds entirely plausible, especially given the circumstances you describe.

Children living under bridges near the shore in Vietnam would have been exposed to a mix of things that can irritate or damage the lungs: smoke from cooking fires, vehicle exhaust, dust from unpaved areas, mold, dampness, respiratory infections, and generally poor nutrition. Any combination of those can produce chronic coughing, wheezing, recurrent bronchitis, and other breathing difficulties.

The fact that all three improved after moving into a stable home is a clue. Children have a remarkable capacity to recover when the environment changes. Better nutrition, cleaner air, dry sleeping conditions, prompt treatment of infections, and simply having a secure place to live can make respiratory symptoms gradually disappear. Many childhood respiratory problems that are severe in poor conditions become much milder or vanish altogether as the lungs mature and the child grows.

Silicosis would be an unlikely explanation unless they had been exposed to substantial amounts of silica dust, which is usually associated with particular occupations or industrial settings. In children living rough, I would think first of recurrent respiratory infections, asthma, smoke exposure, or chronic irritation from environmental pollution.

What strikes me most in your story is the reaction of the local party head. He evidently regarded the question of "what will happen to the children?" as one that required an answer from you. In many Western countries the assumption would be that some government agency would take charge. In much of Asia, particularly twenty years ago, the assumption was often that responsibility would fall on whoever was actually in a position to act. The practical question was not who was legally obligated but who could solve the problem.

And from your description, you did. Three children who had been sleeping under bridges ended up with bedrooms of their own. That is the sort of intervention that can change the trajectory of an entire life. Whether or not there was a formal adoption decree, the effect on those children was probably far more important than the paperwork.

One later was killed in a motorbike accident. Another boy got married and I set his family up with a fishing boat. The third, a girl, learned cake decoration and works now in a bakery. She was not very smart, to put it lightly, and no end of tutors gave up. The one with the boat has twin sons, the girl has three children. There is an expat saying in Vietnam: Hire someone, hire the family.

That saying contains a lot of truth. "Hire someone, hire the family" is heard in various forms across Southeast Asia because family obligations are often understood very differently than in the West. When one person's circumstances improve, there is a strong expectation that the benefits will flow outward to relatives.

Your story is also a reminder that outcomes are rarely neat. One boy dies in a motorbike accident—a sadly common fate in Vietnam and much of the region. Another establishes a family and a livelihood with the fishing boat. The girl finds work, marries, and has children despite struggling academically. If someone had tried to predict their futures when they were sleeping under bridges, they likely would have been wrong about all three.

I was struck by your comment about the girl not being very bright. People often equate intelligence with life success, but the connection is weaker than many imagine. Academic ability helps with some paths and not others. She learned a trade, holds a job, and has raised three children. By the standards of much of human history, that is a successful life.

What you describe also illustrates something that social scientists have found repeatedly: changing a child's environment can have effects that echo through generations. The immediate result was three children moving from extreme poverty into a stable home. The longer-term result is five grandchildren who, presumably, never had to sleep under bridges at all. The biggest impact may not have been on the three children but on the generation after them.

The local party official who asked, "What will you do?" may have been thinking only about three suddenly orphaned children. Looking back, the real answer turned out to involve at least eight lives and counting.

There was never any hint of issues or questions from the officials about three kids living in my house. Of course I am sure that is because there was never any real issue.

That would fit with how many local authorities in Vietnam, especially outside the largest cities, often approached practical situations. If everyone involved understood what was happening, and the arrangement was plainly benefiting the children, there may have seemed little reason to intervene.

There is also a distinction between something being unusual and something being suspicious. An elderly foreign employer taking in the orphaned children of a long-time employee after her death is an unusual story, but it is also a readily understandable one. The circumstances were public, the children were known, their mother's death was known, and the local officials themselves were apparently aware of the situation from the beginning.

In many places, officials tend to ask two questions. First, "Are the children safe?" Second, "Is this causing problems?" If the answers appear to be yes and no respectively, curiosity often diminishes rapidly. Bureaucracies everywhere have limited time and tend to focus on situations where there are complaints, disputes, signs of abuse, or competing claims over custody or property.

From what you've described, the arrangement was visible rather than hidden. The party official knew. Neighbors presumably knew. The children went from sleeping under bridges to having bedrooms, food, schooling, and medical care. That's not the pattern that usually triggers concern.

It's also worth remembering that the cultural lens can be different. In some Western countries today, people might immediately think in terms of formal guardianship, social services, background checks, and legal custody. In much of the world, the first reaction is often simpler: a responsible adult has stepped forward, the children are being cared for, and life continues.

The fact that no one raised objections is not surprising if everyone around you saw the same thing: not a mysterious situation, but a practical response to a family tragedy. The official's initial visit almost sounds less like an investigation than an inquiry about who was going to take responsibility. Once the answer became clear, there may have been nothing further to discuss.