In 1990 I spent a few days on the Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi train, the Reunification Express. The train linked north and south Vietnam, symbolizing that this was one unified country, not the two parts it had been during and prior to the war.
The train had been moving at a snail’s pace in that July heat for days. For days, I walked up and down the train, meeting people and photographing them. I was sometimes with Lewis, my Vietnamese-Australian friend who helped translat. Finally on the third day, we approached the mountains in the central part of Vietnam. I knew as we climbed the Hai Van Pass that it would be a great shot when we came down the mountain if I could hurry and get to the front of the train, and shoot out the window. I knew you’d see the train curving around the bend as it came down the mountain.
I came upon a young woman and a couple of children. My translator friend was not with me, so I had to gesture my request for permission to photograph her. She nodded smiling. The train started to pick up speed as it descended the mountain, and we finally felt the first breeze in days. I leaned way out the window to get the right angle, and we were all laughing, feeling the joy of the free-fall. Afterwards I gave the children a box of crayons and promised to send photos to the woman. Somehow I lost her address and was never able to send her any of the photos.
Over the years this photo ended up being published a lot. It was on the cover of the Lonely Planet guide for years, (but a pirated version without a photo credit.) I was sad that I could never share the success of the photo with the woman on the train. Then in 2010, there was an article about me in Tuoi Tre, one of Vietnam’s leading newspapers and this photo was published. That same day I got a Facebook message from someone named Rosalyn Vu who wrote, “the woman on the train is my mother.” She said she and her mom, whose name was Trần Thị Điệp had seen the photo on the Lonely Planet guide and always wondered how to get in touch with the photographer.
And the following year, we met again after 21 years. I could finally thank her for being part of the success of the photograph. I told her that it was I who had made the photograph, but she had made the photograph beautiful.