She solo-traveled as a woman with a disability in Vietnam. Then, a man rolled down his car window to pick on her legs: ‘She sure goes fast’
She just wanted to walk to the coffee shop without being bothered by men.
Madeline Qi (@say_qis) took a solo trip to Vietnam as a woman with a disability. Instead of describing the sights she saw on her travels, Qi shared several disturbing experiences she had overseas.
“The moment that shattered for me that I was less safe as a woman in this world because I have a disability. It happened while I was on my solo trip and I was in this disability flare,” Qi told TikTok. She was walking with a cane and braces for support on both of her knees in an undisclosed part of Vietnam.
“I’ve been standing and walking for far too long. I was in pain, it was hot, and the sun was blaring down on my phone, so I couldn’t even see it,” Qi described her struggle. She was about to call a car when she heard a man sitting at a plastic outdoor table, drinking a beer. Qi said the man saw her struggling and asked her to sit in the shade and have some water.
Harassment during her trip
“I didn’t want to go sit with this strange man, but I physically needed to sit,” Qi explained. Women aren’t always safe in public spaces, even in broad daylight. Another woman from Portland said a man randomly sprayed her with a suspicious liquid while she was walking down the street. To make matters worse, she alleged that the cop was reluctant to take DNA evidence of the alleged crime. Similarly, Qi didn’t want to sit near the stranger but was already at her physical limit. So, she sat down, and the man grabbed a bottle of water and handed it to her.
But then, the man allegedly told her, “I thought to myself, over there, that’s a good girl to go after. She can’t run very far.” After which, the man allegedly gestured to her disabled knees. As Qi recounted the experience, a stranger off-camera told her to “say hi.”
“Why would I say hi to you?” Qi asked, confronting the person. She repeated herself, and the person asked, “You don’t want to?”
“No, I don’t want anything to do with you. Look at yourself. F****** look at yourself,” she bit back, frustrated by the stranger’s remarks. After the stranger walked away, she joked, “What beautiful timing.” Despite the short interruption, Qi wasn’t done recalling her disturbing experiences in Vietnam.
“I needed somewhere to sit, and so I sat there, and I called my car,” Qi said. Although she was disgusted by the man’s remarks, she politely nodded and waited. When she got home, Qi said she rested for four to five days because of her flare-up. On October 15, she finally left her lodgings, believing she was ready enough to get up and walk with braces on both of her knees to get a coffee.
Qi recalled that on her way to the coffee shop, another incident allegedly happened. She was slowly crossing an intersection because of her disability and accidentally blocked a turning car. Then, the man in the car allegedly rolled down the window and started catcalling and mocking her.
“Oh my god, look at her go. She sure goes so fast, look at those legs,” the man allegedly remarked.
“The fact that a woman, incapacitated in any regard, whether that is her drunkenness, her physical body, financial hardship, any way that a woman could be disadvantaged or incapacitated, will be exploited by men,” she argued. Even women who are not facing a disability aren’t free from danger, as one explained why she didn’t leave her friend at a Cornell frat party.
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