Boy photographer seeks danger as others flee (1968)

138 points by senorqa 1 year ago | 27 comments
  • 2-3-7-43-1807 1 year ago
    beautiful but also sad for obvious reasons. having been to vietnam (a couple times by now) one of the first things i noticed was how life and work are not just seemlessly connected there but in fact appear inseparable and in some cases practically identical. this is somewhat common in many developing countries of course but for vietnamese people entrepreneurship seems to be part of their dna. even in other asian countries i didn't see so regularly families having dinner in what was a shop for clothes or a garage just an hour ago. almost every business there is a family business. so, it's no surprise that this young fellow just naturally decided to financially support his family by following in his father's footsteps when he got sick. i'm absolutely sure there was no sensationalist interests or seeking of danger at play. he probably would have preferred to go to school and play with his friends. it was simply the natural decision to take in times of uncertainty and danger.
    • makeitdouble 1 year ago
      Mostly agree, just a minor nitpick

      > he probably would have preferred to go to school and play with his friends.

      Not all kids want to do kiddie things. At 10yo or so, if I had the competence and choice between doing actual work for 8 hour at my dad's office, and going to school with the other kids, I'd totally have chosen the former.

      I don't think kids should work or skip school, but their personal preference is probably more varied than we account for.

      • LtWorf 1 year ago
        > I'd totally have chosen the former.

        Yeah, for 1 day… then you'd know what it was about and would have preferred the less boring alternative.

        • qball 1 year ago
          >and would have preferred the less boring alternative

          Work pays a wage and you're actually doing something objectively useful. That money can be used to make the time you're not at work much better.

          School [for the people who don't need to be there] does not pay and you're doing nothing objectively useful; it's a time-suck that leaves you broke anyway.

          • makeitdouble 1 year ago
            Honestly I always preferred to be doing something than sitting in a room listening to lectures.

            In college I pulled all the tricks in the book to convert real projects/internships into units, and I'd be seriously depressed if I had to go back to school. I think that's also why I have such a hatred for regular in-person corporate meetings.

        • Saigonautica 1 year ago
          I think that's a fair judgement!

          There's an expression I've heard here that amounts to "If you lose your job, start a business". People prefer steady jobs, but if that's not available, you either start a business or join the family one.

          A side effect is that when I go to industrial markets, a lot of the shopkeepers are working for family, and aren't really being "paid" per se. So they can be a bit cranky at times, there are indeed places they would rather be. So I make sure to have my order ready and zero questions :)

          I'm actually setting up a family business in Vietnam right now. Many families have one, but mine does not. I've got relatives coming back from jobs overseas and I want to offer them something better than being a receptionist for USD 250 a month. Or at least something in addition to that.

        • songeater 1 year ago
          what happened to him? quick google-fu doesn't seem to answer the question...
          • bitdivision 1 year ago
            I found a vietnamese blogpost [0] seeming to say he was active until 1975? But also mentioned at the end:

            "Then the boy seemed silently disappeared from the Saigon newspaper village. No one knows the fate of What about the special reporter later"

            There's also a comment saying that someone worked with him in San Francisco later on.

            "That young reporter, also known as Hole M Cuong. Me and Cuong, worked in a San Francisco Wash Lab in 1977 until 1981, when I On vacation, I still work there and now I have the pleasure of mastering the Pentax-shaped machine that Cuong used to take pictures of at that time."

            Perhaps someone more familiar with Vietnamese names could work out if he pops up somewhere else.

            [0]: https://www.quinhon11.com/2016/08/lo-manh-hung-phong-vien-ch...

            • keane 1 year ago
              Thanks for this link! That 2016 comment appears to say he was known alternatively as Lỗ Mạnh Hùng or Lỗ m Cường. "Cường and I worked in a photo developing lab in San Francisco (image processing lab) … Cuong still works there". I'm not sure how many photo labs were still operating in the city in 2016 but Google Maps is listing only 20 there now. If he was 12 in 1968 he would be around 68 today.

              We also know his father was AP photojournalist Lỗ Vinh so possibly the Associated Press or NPPA might have a lead. 13 results here from his father: https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos/search?query...

              • cholmon 1 year ago
                Scribd has a PDF of "Vietnam Magazine" from February 2016 (https://www.scribd.com/document/325931427/Vietnam-February-2...). Page 40 of this PDF has the following quote that supports the San Francisco shop story:

                "Hung eventually left Vietnam and ran his own photo shop in San Francisco, where he met former AP photographer Horst Faas in 1998, according to the San Francisco Examiner. 'They paid me $10 a picture,' Hung told Faas. 'It could support my whole family for one month.' A selection of Hung’s photos follows."

              • yorwba 1 year ago
                The article isn't saying that he was active until 1975, but only indicating that it is talking about history that precedes the surrender of South Vietnam to the North in 1975.
              • tshanmu 1 year ago
                same - I tried unsuccessfully to find his eventual story.
                • 2-3-7-43-1807 1 year ago
                  he probably left the camera behind for a steady job as soon as circumstances allowed for it. that would be quite in line with vietnamese work ethics. maybe even got a degree given that his father was also a scholar and switched to photography only for the sake of making a living in times when his academic education was not in demand. he also probably suffered from traumatizing experiences.
                • aaron695 1 year ago
                  [dead]
                • imwillofficial 1 year ago
                  I’ll read a story like this and can’t even comprehend what living that life must be like.

                  For all our gripes in the modern world, we have it really really good.

                  • sema4hacker 1 year ago
                    I get the impression he was generally tagging along with his photographer father, who was taking so many of the photos of the boy we see in the article.
                    • weinzierl 1 year ago
                      A somewhat similar story from the other side of the world is told in the semi-autobiographical novel "Cidade de Deus" by Paulo Lins.
                      • yrgi 1 year ago
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                        • bluSCALE4 1 year ago
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                          • vvpan 1 year ago
                            Here is a list of journalists killed in the conflict: https://cpj.org/2024/04/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-...
                            • wddkcs 1 year ago
                              There's a modern version of this on YouTube, I've tried finding him in my history but his channel might have been deleted. Hes an Israeli that took camera into Gaza and interacted frequently with Palestinians in forbidden zones. Mostly it was anticlimactic, but he did have some very striking interviews, especially post Oct. 7th. I think near the end of my viewing he was forcibly interned by the Israeli government, either in prison or a mental facility, I'm not sure. People are out there sharing such material, but it seems mostly limited to private servers.
                              • techdmn 1 year ago
                                Maybe not just to its AI:

                                https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/gaza-palestini...

                                • gotoeleven 1 year ago
                                  Well besides hospital patients and perhaps orphans, hamas has decided that journalists are the best human shields.

                                  https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-says-gaza-t...

                                  • defrost 1 year ago

                                        "Israeli authorities maintain that the building housing our bureau was destroyed because of a Hamas presence that posed an urgent threat. We have yet to receive evidence to support these claims," the AP said in a statement.

    "AP continues to call for the full release of any evidence the Israelis have so that the facts are public."
                                    Three years on and Associated Press is still waiting.

                                    A cynic might wonder if Israeli authorities simply dislike journalists covering Gaza first hand.

                                    • imwillofficial 1 year ago
                                      Oh yes, it’s the “terrorists” fault they bombed that school, decimated that hospital, and gunned down escaping hostages.

                                      That logic is wild to me.

                                      • bluSCALE4 1 year ago
                                        Next level victim blaming.
                                      • terminatornet 1 year ago
                                        very funny posting an article from 2021 about hamas using human shields after israel has spent 6 months claiming every hospital in gaza has hamas tunnels running underneath them, blowing them up, then killing and starving everyone
                                    • sirmike_ 1 year ago
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