Does this Vietnamese caption contain an attribution?

July 9, 2012 5:03 PM

Can anyone who reads Vietnamese make out the caption below this photograph? (Warning: gory and/or potentially NSFW war photograph). I'm specifically interested in whether any of the information in the caption could lead to a potential attribution.
posted by Dr. Send to Society & Culture (13 answers total)

Looks like a bad link or was deleted.
posted by nevercalm at 5:08 PM on July 9, 2012

It's a referer redirect. If you copy the URL and past it in the address field of the browser, it loads properly. (And it's a horribly gory picture.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:11 PM on July 9, 2012

(And it's a horribly gory picture.)

Yeah, I can't recommend anyone look at that. Disturbing in the extreme.

Perhaps the OP could upload an edited version of the pic with just the Vietnamese caption, excising the extremely disturbing content.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:18 PM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Here's the caption by itself (no gore at all). The original had the last line cut off and the resolution is poor but I reckon legible to a fluent reader.
posted by exogenous at 5:36 PM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks exogenous, much appreciated. I didn't have any trouble with the link in my browser, but future clickers be forewarned..
posted by Dr. Send at 5:43 PM on July 9, 2012

Google translate (with phonetic typing on) can get you a rough idea (nowhere near anyone who actually speaks it) but in the meantime, it doesn't look like an attribution is there. The last bit says Infantry Division 25, in Tay Ninh (the location).
posted by cobaltnine at 7:38 PM on July 9, 2012

Tineye is useful in these situations--here is the search for similar photos.

I agree with cobaltnine, nothing looks like an attribution there. But some of the other photos have different captions or other interesting information.

It looks like the photo is displayed in the War Remnants Museum in Saigon (and maybe other places as well), so that might be one attribution you could use.

Here is another photo showing a different caption, with the caption translated into English. It doesn't give a photographer or attribution.

This photo shows yet another, longer, caption--unfortunately far too small/blurry to actually make out.

I'm not sure what the deal is with all the different captions--whether it is displayed in a lot of different places or whether the caption & display details are changed a lot, or some combination of both.

Here is more about the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, including yet another version of the photo.

You might be able to find out more if you search through more of the image matches at Tineye.
posted by flug at 7:50 PM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Here is another view of the area with the photo in the War Remnants Museum in Saigon. This time, no caption at all!
posted by flug at 8:20 PM on July 9, 2012

Best answer: American soldier/GI takes a piece of the liberation soldier's corpse who just died by grenade. When I see this I don't know if this person is a human or a demon. July 1967. 25th army regiment, Tay Ninh District.

Rough translation, clearly written from the POV of a VC reporter.
posted by therewolf at 8:49 PM on July 9, 2012

This page has yet another photo, which shows yet another caption. It's in a few different languages, and the English version reads: "A U.S. soldier, from the 25th Infantry Division, holding a part of a corpse of a Liberation soldier killed from a grenade launcher (Tay Ninh - 1967)".

What is more relevant to your specific question, however: If you look closely at the photo itself, the caption also includes a photo attribution. It reads:

Photo by Vietnamese (?) reporter (?) [first name] [second name]

It looks like the photographer's first name starts with a "B" and has a "y", or "g", (or maybe "j" or "p" or "q") in it. It is written out in three languages besides English, so maybe someone can make it out in one of the others, or maybe someone familiar with Vietnamese names could recognize it more easily.

Maybe someone can de-blur the caption to get a better grasp of it--though it's pretty small and fuzzy.
posted by flug at 9:17 PM on July 9, 2012

Best answer: OK, here is the answer:

Photo by Japanese reporter Bunyo Ishikawa

This photo, found on this page, has a brief biography of Ishikawa from a display in the War Remnants Museum.

According to this web page:

Bunyo Ishikawa, a photographer during the war, wrote about this event in his book 'The war for the liberation of Vietnam':
The American soldier laughed satisfactorily while carrying a part of the body of a liberation soldier, that had just been hit by shells from a grenade launcher. In my feelings I wondered, 'Is he a monster or a human being?'

(That sounds like an English translation of the caption above from the museum, so it's not really independent verification of a quote from Ishikawa's book, just a little more info & context from the caption in the museum.)

Here is an ebay listing of an Ishikawa book including the photo.

This ebay listing of an Ishikawa book also includes the photo (unfortunately, though, not the caption) and also a little more biographical information about Ishikawa.
posted by flug at 10:33 PM on July 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

FYI, page 242 of this book has more information about the photo and quotes the captions of the photograph from the museum and from two books it appears in (The War for the Liberation of Vietnam and War and Man).
posted by flug at 12:07 AM on July 10, 2012

Response by poster: Zomg! Therewolf gets a best answer for strictly answering my question, and flug—a thousand bowls of internetz for going the extra mile. Thank you! You're a gentleman/woman and a scholar!
posted by Dr. Send at 8:28 AM on July 10, 2012