Boy photographer seeks danger as others flee (1968) | Hacker News Reader

Boy photographer seeks danger as others flee (1968)

vintag.es

138 pointssenorqa27 comments

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

maybe you should watch a documentary about the vietnam war if you believe a child prefers that over a peaceful upbringing.

>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.

> objectively useful

I'm not sure most office workers feel this way about their work.

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.

what happened to him? quick google-fu doesn't seem to answer the question...

same - I tried unsuccessfully to find his eventual story.

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.

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...

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.

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...

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."

Amazing find. That mention of the Examiner led to the June 22, 1998 edition, front page of the Style section by Vietnam veteran Edvins Beitiks ("Ed"), "'Requiem' for A War, An Era":

"And at each exhibit, Faas has been approached by people with their own memories, people wanting to talk. In San Francisco, he was surprised by Jimmy Lo Hung, who took pictures for AP as a 12-year-old during the Tet offensive and now runs his own photo shop on Ninth Street.

Hung had brought a picture of himself in a helmet with PRESS across the front, and a laminated story headlined 'Boy, 12, in Dangerous Jobs'. 'They paid me $10 a picture,' he said, 'and that was big money in Vietnam. It could support my whole family for one month.'

Hung lost all his pictures and negatives when the North Vietnamese invaded the South. 'I only had a few minutes to escape,' he said, remembering that 'I was pulled aboard a helicopter filled with soldiers. They held my leg while it took off. So many soldiers trying to get on… some didn't, some dropped down.'

Faas, sitting beside Hung, said 'This kid, I didn't even know he was alive. I'm happy, really happy, to see him.'"

I wonder if the lab might have been Newtec Color Lab Inc at 122 9th St which appears to have been run by a Jimmy H Lo (Jun 1956–Jan 2018). There's also a tribute to Horst Faas at the Vietnam Reporting Project here: https://vietnamreportingproject.org/2012/05/remembering-hoor...

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.

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.

A somewhat similar story from the other side of the world is told in the semi-autobiographical novel "Cidade de Deus" by Paulo Lins.

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