Annie

Annie is an orphan but this is not the Annie from Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie comic strip (inset) which  had been turned into a musical film. This Annie is a masseuse whom my niece met, an elderly woman, who smokes as she talks about her life. At 16, she was an unwed mother and had given away her child and now, nearly 45 years later, lives alone in a rented room and earns a living as a masseuse. Annie surprising could chant Buddhist Sutras and this she had learned at a young age when she was living with Buddhist nuns in a temple. That could perhaps leave one wondering if there is a need for a proper Buddhist orphanage.