Une autre vieille chanson Française de temps en temps, j’aime particulièrement des percusions, et aussi de guitar, dans un tempo très modéré… La mer comme une preface, avant le desert, que la mer est basse, holidays! Tant de ciel et tant de nuages, tu ne sais pas a ton age, toi que la vie lasse, que la mort est basse, holidays!
Des mots faciles, des mots fragiles, c’était trop beau, bien trop beau… Des mots magiques, des mots tactiques, qui sonnent faux, oui tellement faux… Merci, pas pour moi, mais tu peux bien les offrir à une autre… Paroles et encore des paroles, que tu sèmes au vent!
Il ya toujours un sourire de plaisance sur mon visage en écoutant cette vieille (1956) chanson de Dalida. Et c’est deja très longtemps que nous étions comme ça, un(e) petit(e) Bambino / Bambina, naïvement (et profondément) tombé amoureuse… Regardez la vidéo pour voir la vraiment vivante, aimable Dalida… Je peux seulement dire: Ta musique est plus jolie que tout le ciel de l’Italie…
Mais lui il s’en fout bien, mais lui il dort tranquille
Il n’a besoin de rien, il a trouvé son île
Une île de soleil et de vagues et de ciel…
Une vieille mais très très belle chanson sur les marins qui ne reviendras plus jamais, et sur les filles, les femmes, qui seraient toujours l’attendre: Les marins d’Amsterdam, s’mouchent plus dans les étoiles. La Marie qu’a des larmes a noyé un canal… Seules Titine et Madeleine croient qu’il est encore là, elles vont souvent l’attendre au tram 33… Peut-être un peu trop tôt, mais lui il est content, il n’a pas entendu que des milliers de voix, lui chantait “Jacky ne nous quitte pas!”…
Chez ces gens-là (Dalida, Jacques Brel etc…), on n’est jamais parti!
Đến bây giờ anh đã là cánh trắng chim bay xa chân trời
Đến bây giờ em đã là bóng dáng cô liêu trong ngậm ngùi…
One miscellaneous linguistic notice, except for things borrowed from Chinese, which is largely unpopular to most people in daily, pragmatic uses, the Vietnamese language, in essence, is strictly postpositive, that is an adjective must be placed after a noun / pronoun that it modifies. So the following examples which are prepositive, are extremely rare, to the point of… bizzare, but they’re also very interesting, note the underlined, bold phrases. Add more examples to the list if you would find one! 😀
Đến bây giờ anh đã là cánh trắng chim bay xa chân trời. Đến bây giờ em đã là bóng dáng cô liêu trong ngậm ngùi
Rằng từ sau khóe mắt xanh bồ câu xâm chiếm tim anh, quên lãng sao đành
Ta thấy em trong tiền kiếp, với cọng buồn cỏ khô.
Some texts quoted from the book, the English translation can only partially convey this old, romantic French writing style: if there is one region in the world where the picturesque ancient sailboat has sheltered and prevailed in its multiple facets, it is on the coasts of Indochina. A vast array of colours, the old scent of wood from the past… Nautical Indochina shows contrast especially in its fishing boats: each province has its own type of boat, all shapes of hulls, all the varieties of sails do their utmost to give us an image constantly renewed of maritime culture too regrettably ignored by the French and the Indochinese themselves. Very few are those who attempted to preserve their images, to describe their shapes, to speak of their poetry!
Mr. Piétri was a biologist, and a biologist in the old days was trained in pen, ink anatomical drawing. His skill came into great uses for boats illustration. His writing style is that of a romantic, nostalgic, old – school sailor, he was describing something that would soon pass away in Indochina, as it already had in the Western world: large fleet of sailboats in their daily activities: fishing, cargo transporting… He provided various information into a beautiful world that has now gone, even today we still can find wood – workers who possess the knowledge of building traditional hulls in VN (the number of them can be counted with fingers on your hands), some in – depth details like blocks, tackles, shackles, lines, sails, rigging… can only be found in his book.
Monsieur Piétri was Director of Fisheries of Colonial French Indochina (Vietnamese: Giám đốc nha ngư nghiệp Đông Dương), his career may had taken him to many watery parts of Vietnam, but only his passion for boat and sailing that resulted in Voiliers d’Indochine (Sailboats of Indochina), a book he’d spent many years working on, in the 30s the previous century, first published in Saigon, 1943, two decades ahead of The Junk Blue Book. I was reading it through an English translation of The Vietnam wooden boat Foundation, and its foreword: dedicate to Mr. J B Pietri in recognition of his passion to accurately record the creativity and ingenuity of the Vietnamese people in the building of unique wooden boats…
Beau le bateau, dansant sur les vagues,
Ivre de vie, d’amour et de vent.
Belle la chanson naissante des vagues,
Abandonnée au sable blanc!
Pros: ruggedised, water – proof (to IPX – 7 standard only), good battery life (uses 2 AA batteries, I can usually make 4, 5 paddling “sorties” before having to recharge), good display (clearly visible under sunlight with low – LCD – backlight setting), doesn’t depend on cellular network to function like a cellphone, could use both GPS (US) and GLONASS⓵ (Russia) satellites’ signal, good 3D – stabilized digital compass to show directions (very useful for navigating even on rivers.
Sometimes, the river is so wide that I can hardly find correct heading based solely on its 2 banks’ landmarks), large internal storage space plus the ability to add an external memory card to store more maps. Cons: the Garmin’s default map is very vague on Vietnam’s territories, next to unusable, GUI responsiveness is slow compared to a smartphone’s standard. Most importantly, correct and content – rich maps are very much demanded:
I’ve replaced my Garmin’s default map by Open Street Map, which is much better. However, Open Street Map, and even Google Map, are somewhat outdated for many parts of Vietnam. I’ve found out some places which are not right, even in the very vicinity of Saigon.
Thanks to NASA’s satellite image projects, the topographical information is now available publicly for most part of the globe, in high resolution. I’ve found these data built – in into Open Street Map already, so “the contours” are available on my Garmin.
I’ve long been collecting hydrography data, but there’s very few of them for Vietnamese water, and most are for blue – water regions, not the brown – water. Also, I’m still seeking a way to convert those data into Garmin map format to make them usable.
Garmin supports displaying tidal information (given it is in the map), but unfortunately, those information for Vietnamese water is virtually zero. For me, this is currently the most important issue. Southern VN belongs to an area with complex mix of diurnal and semi – diurnal tides (Vietnamese: nhật triều & bán nhật triều). The highs and lows of tide within a single day can differ by 2 ~ 4 meters or more, which could make paddling very difficult, or even impractical at times (e.g: spring tide at new moon phase). For now, I consult this tides4fishing.com website to do the planning prior to going to the fields.
⓵⏎ From iPhone – 4S onward, Apple includes a GLONASS receiver into its hardwares, this explains the exceptional positioning performance of the devices. In term of precision, GLONASS is better than GPS at higher latitudes, but slightly behind GPS elsewhere. The use of both systems greatly extend signal coverage: GPS alone has 31 satellites, a receiver working with both GPS and GLONASS will have support from a total number of 55 (31 + 24) satellites, which improves signal fixing time, improves tracking performance and even precision would also receive a boost.
Non chéri, non chéri, tu n’aurais pas dû partir ce soir. Non chéri, tu rêves de folies, tu as brisé tout ce que nous avions bâti. Ma première nuit sans toi, ma première nuit sans joie, sans toi, mon amour. J’entends les pas dans l’escalier, mais ils ne s’arrêtent pas ici. Et quand le silence soudain revient, j’ai si peur qu’entre nous, ce soit la fin de tout. J’ai même perdu confiance en moi, oui, je t’imagine dans d’autres bras qui, t’emporteront loin de moi, et de notre idylle.
Non chéri, non chéri, tu n’aurais pas dû partir ce soir. Non chéri, dans l’espace d’une nuit, tu as détruit tout ce qui nous avait uni. Ma première nuit sans toi, ma première nuit sans joie, sans toi, mon amour. Je vais je viens seule dans la maison, où chaque objet me parle de toi. Hier on était là tous les deux, et en quelques heures l’avenir me fait peur. Pourtant j’espère que tu reviendras qu’avant le matin tu rentreras, j’essaierai de ne pas te montrer toute ma peine.
Non chéri, non chéri, tu n’aurais pas dû partir ce soir. Ma première nuit sans toi, ma première nuit sans toi, sans toi mon amour!
