Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/01/22

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Happy New Year - Tet, a personal note
From: "Joseph Low" <joelct@singnet.com.sg>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 07:38:54 +0800

Phong - this I readily agree - most Orientals view the passing of Lunar New
Year with great trepidation when seriously ill - it was therefore not
material that your uncle was in Montreal - his heart was in his homeland.

Joseph Low

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Phong
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 5:19 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] Happy New Year - Tet, a personal note

All that calendrical talk was not just idle talk for me.
Someone very dear to me died yesterday after several
months battling cancer.  He was 77.  As Tet approached,
he knew his final days were nearing.  His wish was to
make it past Tet, as you increase your age on Tet, according
to Vietnamese customs, not on your birthday.  He succumbed
at 6:00pm  yesterday, Montreal time.

Born in the late 1928 in North Vietnam, his lifetime spanned
an "interesting" junction in Vietnamese history.  He had to leave
his home when the Communists took over in the 1950's; and once
again when they took over the South in 1975.  An avid violinist
and photographer, he had to abandon his medical training when he
was drafted; he later had to leave behind a very honorable career
in law, where and when the law was not always the rule of the land.
Though he was a Nikon man, he appreciated my Leica and Rolleiflex
very much, as they were the cameras of his time; on the day he
evacuated from Saigon, he grabbed his camera bag, and shot with
that Nikon F until a burglar took it from his home in Montreal.
He continued to shoot, scan, and Photoshop until his very last days.

Yesterday afternoon, surrounded by his wife, sons, daughter and grand
children, he was told that at that moment, it was already Tet in his
beloved home land, and that, indeed, he made it thru Tet.  He passed
away shortly thereafter, with a faint smile.  He was the sweetest man,
and is missed by us all.

- - Phong


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