17 Sept - 3 October 2009
This project ,“Girls from Mekong Delta,” takes place on a small island in the Mekong Delta area in Vietnam. Many girls from this island married foreigners such as Taiwanese and Koreans so it has been nicknamed as Taiwan Island. My photographic essay focuses on the idea that the way girls’ reasoning their self-identities may be unique given their Asian culture and familial relationships. There seems a conflicting signal to these young women that they are expected to take such a great risk of marrying foreigners for better life opportunities, and at the same time they are somewhat expected to be responsible for the family who were left behind by sending a small amount of money home. It appears that the girls need to be independent but they cannot be totally independent of their own life in order to maintain to be the ‘good’ daughter.
I am originally from South Korea. I have been living out of the country for 15 years now. At my last family visit, I noticed a growing population of Vietnamese women migrating to Southern rural area of South Korea. While driving around the countryside, I noticed a small banner written “Vietnam bride” with mobile phone number in the middle of nowhere. I called and contacted Korean families through city hall and community center, but social stigma prohibited these newly wed women to speak to outsiders. It was quite impossible to gain access to the Vietnamese women in Korea. My curiosity of finding out these women’s experience in Korea did not go away. Since I returned to my current residency, Singapore, I have made some contacts with several Vietnamese journalists and then travelled down to Mekong. I found this small island, Tan Loc, which locals indicated that many girls from that island had married to foreigners. I immediately feel the site was perfect for my photographic exploration.
As expected it took some time to gain access to the community. Past one year I have visited and photographed in that island every 4 months. At my each visit, I stayed in a local house that allowed me to get to know their daily life. As I felt comfortable with the community of people on the island, they gradually opened up their minds. They allowed me to photograph in their houses and helped me to create some of panoramic shots by posing in front of my camera. Hence, it can be said that this photographic essay has been developed in collaboration with the people on the island. And, this body of works reflects the shared experience and emotion between photographer and people on the island. Hence, some of the images are staged but they are completely fictional. The selected photographs were created mainly on that island with families who wish their daughters to marry foreigners or who had already daughters in foreign countries. In documentation of the people and place in this island, I intended to gain an in-depth understanding why these young women make such decisions.
