Word: bao
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Dozen Ping-Pong Balls. Last spring, the French proclaimed IndoChina's autonomy under the French Union (roughly designed as an equivalent of the British Commonwealth).* They also returned to the Indo-Chinese their plump former Emperor Bao Dai ("The Great Protector...
...exile at La Croisette, near Cannes, Bao Dai lived quietly in a 20-room chateau, occasionally visited a bar (drinking only coffee) and gambled modestly at the Cannes casino, 10,000 francs ($30) being his limit for one night. Early this year, the French government sent bluff Leon Pignon, French high commissioner for Indo-China, to persuade His Majesty that he must return to his country as "chief of state...
...Bao Dai did not look like the man to lead his people to independence and victory over the Communists. When he first assumed his Dragon Throne (1932), he was a playboy and a puppet. The French owned him, along with the 7,000 jazz phonograph records and the 100 dozen ping-pong balls with which he moved into his teakwood Palace of Supreme Peace. The young emperor, as "absolute master, father and mother" of his tough, diligent people, seemed only partly to fulfill the requirements of the Imperial Book of Rites which says that "the Emperor's eyes must...
...days, Bao Dai's favorite sport (in addition to chasing chorus girls) was tracking down tigers, elephants and gaur (fierce wild buffalo) on foot through the jungle. That took intelligence and guts. Both traits are needed in the fierce jungle of Viet Namese politics, and Bao Dai is displaying both. The Communist radio had predicted that he would be assassinated; the French authorities were so concerned that at public ceremonies they kept the crowds 100 yards from His Majesty and gave him an armored car. But Bao Dai scorned such protection. At Hanoi, which he proclaimed his capital...
Last week Bao Dai's carefree days in Hong Kong were at an end. Pretty little "Perfume of the South," his empress, had arrived in town with their five children. In her wake came a delegation of 22 Annamites. What the Annamites told Bao was enough to sober him. To the people of Viet Nam he issued a grave proclamation: "To avoid bloodshed, I renounced the throne of my ancestors. Since you wished to entrust the destiny of the country to new rulers, I decided to withdraw. Now in spite of the dictatorship which forbids freedom of speech...