WavesForeword
From the remote North with four seasons to the deep South with two dry and wet ones compensating harmoniously one another, our country—Vietnam—stretches its well-rounded S shape along the Pacific Ocean.
Despite thousands of miles from the northern frontier to the far-reaching South, the Vietnamese still understand one another through a single mother tongue. So, through countless vicissitudes, their four-thousand-year cultural heritage is still preserved and perpetuating.
Either in the areas planted with bamboo, areca, and coconut trees, in the immense dense woodlands and the golden rice fields, on the sparkling sand under the summer sun, or by the silver cascades, we always find ourselves in our fatherland. As long as we live on that soil, on the fertile delta, or in the swamp, we still feel a deep attachment to our ancestors’ heritage.
Our land has thousands of scenic aspects. In exploring them, the photographer may hesitate to direct his blue-coated lens at sights which seem to be very common; yet the photographs deeply move us since they are the very images of Vietnam.
This book has been conceived with that love. Thrilling beauties are innumerable and ever present, but individual efforts very limited. Aware of that shortcoming, we strive to offer our insignificant contribution to the great cultural heritage. Therefore, this album only reflects our love for Vietnam; it cannot be considered as an art work. This is our modest hope.
Plains and Meadows
Among the prize-winning photographs, including those that have brightened the Vietnamese culture in international photograph contests, most have been pictures of our scenic countryside.
Here, the photographer is at ease selecting lines and colors that bear national features. The aspects may differ a little from one area to another, but common traits still persist: boundless green rice carpets undulating under the lightest breeze; lofty clumps of bamboo whose domes cast their shadows on endless paths at the burning noontime; slender areca and coconut trees whose tender green swaying palms silhouette against white drifting clouds from the horizon; or thatched and tiled roofs, crop-drying yards, and mushroom-shaped haystack where clucking chickens are scratching for food and a fat mother hog is resting, surrounded by her squealing piglets.
This familiar environment, adding the whine of a hammock, the drowsy voice of a mother singing a lullaby, the cooing of a cuckoo echoing from a distant orchard, is typically Vietnamese.
In some villages we still find antique pagodas with massive wooden pillars and curved roofs bearing moon-and-dragon allegories. The village community house used to be the meeting place for men in festival days to discuss village affairs; the market, the shopping area for women of all ages. A few minutes from the market, under a leafy banyan tree, is a shaky thatch-roofed shelter where some country food is sold.
In village life, the neighborhood unity is strengthened at the village well. Around this antique stone structure, while water is drawn, harvest or family news is exchanged as well as teasing jokes between boys and girls. The home pond, with squares of floating duckweeds, is like a private mirror witnessing all the happenings in the lives of those simple-minded people.
The landscape of South Vietnam is characterized by a complex network of small waterways. People paddle from house to house in little boats. Immense, lush green orchards are a real Southern feature. The camera enthusiast may get lost among rows of trees loaded with tempting and juicy fruit, or in vast gardens where betel is grown. The rural flavor may be considerably altered without areca nuts and betel since they enhance the color of girls’ lips and cheeks, and add taste to tobacco chewing.
In case he is exhausted after having taken a variety of new subjects, the photographer newly acquainted with the country sites may have a rest by the haystack. He then may listen in the silence of the twilight to the wooden bells calling water buffaloes back to the stables, to the Angelus from a church, or to the melancholic sound of the kites. In the darkness, softer sounds come from the fields such as the rustling of stork wings moving over the carpet of rice.
Refreshed by the cool breeze, he may follow the children’s calls from behind the bamboo hedge toward gray-brown thatched roofs from which curls of smoke rise into the purple sky. The sound of splashing water is heard around the village well or the home pond where people wash themselves after a day of labor. Tortuous paths, all perfumed with the countryside fragrance, lead him back to his friend’s house. All the familiar aspects sketched above are only a part of innumerable rural sites which deeply move the photographer and help him in his creation.
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