The novel The Ugly American is based upon facts of how Americans related to people in Southeast Asia. The insensitivity and arrogance of American government officials was generally depressing. One chapter of the novel, however, is particularly inspiring. An American woman, Emma Atkins, has come with her engineer husband to the fictional nation of Sarkhan. Emma is a curious, good-hearted person and she soon notices that in their small village all the older people are permanently bent over.

She struggles with the language in order to ask neighbors why old people in the village are stooped. No one can answer. For her fellow villagers it’s natural that old people are bent over, always have been. But Emma assumes there’s a reason that every person over sixty is bent in a constant stoop. By the…