Once in a Public Park
Several years ago in a local city of Japan, it happened.
A girl around 5 years old was playing in a public park alone, riding on a unicycle. There came a car, and a young man and a woman got out of it. They exchanged words so harshly.
Suddenly the woman took out a knife from the car. She threatened the young man at knife point, while shouting at him.
The young man turned pale; apparently he was seized with fear. But desperately he made a grab at the unicycle the little girl was playing with. Then he waved it at the excited woman, actually lashing hard against her head. The little girl was trapped in the middle of the affray. The wild and indecent couple didn't seem to care about the girl whose beloved unicycle suddenly turned to a violent weapon.
The little girl started to cry. People came around the scene, saying "Somebody must save the little girl! You, go and drag her out!" But nobody tried to jump in and take the helpless little girl out of the battle ground of the fighting couple who was beside themselves with anger.
Finally policemen arrived at the public park to arrest the young man and the young woman who failed to run away with their car. They were taken into a patrol car and brought to a police station. The little girl was saved and comforted. A policeman carried her on his back to another police car. Later, she was a kind of questioned about the situation in the police station and given candies. The police then sent her back home, explaining that the young man was a drug addict. He tried to make his girlfriend take some drugs. But she refused to use them. Instead she tried to call the police by phone. So, the young man was upset, blaming her badly. And their quarrel escalated into the fight involving a knife and a unicycle.
The police man who took care of the little girl said, "Please come to a police post (koban) nearby at any time you are in trouble!"
Then she started to visit the police box nearby so often when she had nothing to do. When she became a first-grade pupil of an elementary school, she was somewhat alienated and spoke ill of by her classmates. She got depressed, so that she asked for advice from a police man in the koban. As she carried out advice, the situation around her was improved. She came to have happy time in school.
This is a story of a young Vietnamese girl living in a certain local town in Japan. Her essay was commended by a certain news paper company in a nation-wide writing contest in Japan. Specifically this Vietnamese girl won the Prime Minister's Prize.
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