New trip to an old land, Vietnam

NEW YORK - Jan. 21, 2016 - PRLog -- New Year 2016 is not yet over---in fact, it has yet to begin---for countless thousands of Vietnamese (and their descendants) at home in North America or in their homeland.  This year's celebrations of the Buddhist New Year---known as Tet in Vietnam -- begin on its eve,  February 7,  and continue for a week.

Bouquets of flowers, outdoor floral canopies,  parades delineated by  floral standards  and bloom-bedecked altars infuse Tet with fragrance and color.  This is much as Tet was for centuries  and is again.  It's a season  for remembering ancestors and looking forward, for celebrating the new with such ancient games as balletic-wrestling and footraces, of gathering extended families and friends for multi-dish meals and laughter and gift-giving.

In Vietnam, paper boots and coats are burned so their smoke may climb to departed loved one and shelter them from the cold.  Gifts for those still among us are appropriately more substantial, in forms the living can enjoy.  This year, the handsome coffee-table book, Timeless Vietnam, whose stunning images are by Hue photographer Canh Tang ,makes a fitting present.   Months  ago, Canh Tang died, far too young, just as his international reputation was forming, launched by photography prizes in Italy and Japan, and the publication of this book.

His 21st-century lenses focused on  what  has endured over millennia in Vietnam: the rice farmer and water buffalo, the varieties of fishing craft and the patterns  of thrown nets, , the layered meanings of straw hats, the puddle-games of small boys in the rainy seasons, the fervent hymns of ancient kings protesting foreign rulers (most often, Chinese), the earthy humor and delicate love lyrics twined in Vietnamese folk songs woven centuries ago,  and the fresh and silk-fabricated flowers of Tet.

The fan base of Timeless Vietnam includes Jan Scruggs, founder of the VIetnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. and others who remember Vietnam in the flames of war.   Vets on both sides of the Pacific  are  joined  by much younger patriots, poets and  and  new travelers in their admiration of this book.  To see more,  take a minute's journey to www.TimelessVietnam.com.