I gave a little introduction note at the opening POY Asia Exhibition and this is an extract:

I have only applied to one university in my entire life and that was to the University of Missouri. The reason was simple – as an aspiring photojournalist, I wanted to be surrounded by the best journalistic images in the world. Missouri School of Journalism is not only the birthplace of the word ‘photojournalism’, the world’s first, oldest, and most prestigious competition for photojournalism and documentary photography – Pictures of the Year(POY) – was created by Missouri Professor Cliff Edom 80 years ago.

In the four years I was in Columbia, Missouri, I seized every available chance to be involved in POY. As a student assistant, I helped to catalog entries for contest, assisted with projecting the images during the judging, played host to famous editors and photographers when they came for the judging sessions.

Very often, I would skipped my regular classes during the two weeks every February, where POY is still judged annually.

There were no better ways for me to learn about my profession than to look at the images entered from all over the world and to listen to the comments from the judges.

Even after graduating and returning to Singapore, I tried to make trips back to Missouri to recharge myself.

One thing is very clear to me – I need the regular shot of inspirations and POY is the perfect platform.

When I was graduating, Bill Kuykendall, my professor and POY Director for many years, told me that I should go somewhere where people may not know as much about photojournalism. He added that if I did things properly and needed help, people would come to me. It was clear then that I wanted to be back in Singapore, and to cover my part of the world for the rest of the world to see.

Over the years, after returning to Asia, one other thing became obvious and started bothering me a lot – as an Asian, I knew so much about western photojournalism and their heroes. But I knew so little about Asian images and imagemakers I ought to know.

So I started researching Asian photographers and stories about them. Sadly, they were (still are) rather rare and hard to come by.

But I was lucky that one of the first Asian heroes I learned about was Mr Ki-Ho Park. I was particularly intrigued by how he ‘invented’ his practice. I really thought the name he called his company – Kistone – was really inspiring. I was most encouraged by the fact that someone from Asian who was educated in America, could go back to Asia and make a difference.

Learning about Mr Park really made my journey back to Asia less difficult.

So it has been a very very long dream I have – to do something for Asian photojournalism, meeting early trailblazers like Mr Park, and have the chances to share ideas with friends with common goals.

When Lynden Steele, current Director of POY asked me three years ago about starting Pictures of the Year Asia(POY Asia), I said yes without even thinking.

So here we are, two years after creating POY Asia. It is so wonderful to have an exhibition after only two years. It is so encouraging that everyday, more and more people are finding out about us and what we aspire to do. Everyday, I am thinking about what else we can do as an organization. I hope more people will learn about Mr Park, about Koo Bohnchang, about Lee Gap Chul. I hope POY Asia can help Asians and the world understand that in this part of the world, there are brilliant visual storytellers too.

It is especially meaningful that I’m back in Seoul again to work with Suejin Shin, someone I have no reservation calling a 친구 (qin gu, 亲故) which I know in Korean means a dear old friend. We didn’t have to spend much effort convincing Suejin that this show needs to happen. She knows and understands our shared dreams from day one.

Sitting in a cafe in the Seoul Arts Centre while trying to write this little note, I was reminded about the connection between Missouri and Korea. When I was in college, my neighbors were mostly Koreans, they told me Koreans love Missouri because of President Harry Truman, the only US President from the state of Missouri.

On behalf of the POY family, I thank all of you for making history together today.

Thank you.