By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter
When Brenda Paik Sunoo arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2002, bicycles and motorbikes dominated the streets and there was only one ATM machine in the entire city. More than six years later, Paik has left the city, drastically changed by the country's rapid economic development.
But before leaving Hanoi last week, she released ``Vietnam Moment,'' a book featuring 113 photographs accompanied by traditional Vietnamese proverbs, poem or song lines selected by co-author and friend Ton Thi Thu Nguyet.
``In a way, it's a time capsule of images I've taken from 2002 to 2008. When we arrived, it was raining, all chaos, and a lot of traffic. There was only one ATM. Now, there are many foreign banks and ATMs. I can go around the city and know what's changed,'' Paik told The Korea Times at a book cafe in downtown Seoul.
Paik is a third generation Korean-American who grew up in California. In 2002, she moved to Hanoi with her husband, Jan, who was on assignment for the International Labor Organization. It was a welcome change for Paik, who was still coping with the loss of her 16-year-old son, Tommy, who suddenly died of a heart attack a few years ago.
``By the time we came (to Hanoi), our son had been gone for 8 years. I felt stronger and prepared to jump back into life. … Vietnam was the perfect place to do that because it was all about change. We were witnesses to Vietnam's rapid change, and it matched us,'' she said.
Paik found herself captivated by Vietnam. Even though she was a journalist by profession (she worked at The Korea Times in Los Angeles for a few years), she did not want to write ``because (she) didn't know what to say.'' So she turned to photography, and over the next six years, took thousands of photographs around Vietnam.