Andrew X. Pham

An Pham arrived in America in 1977 at the age of ten. His father, who had worked for the Americans, had recently been released from a deadly prison, and the family hastened to escape from Vietnam before he could be arrested again.

Eighteen years later, after his older sister Chi committed suicide, An, now Andrew, headed on a bicycle into the Mexican desert, where he encountered a Vietnam veteran and realized that he needed to go back to Vietnam to understand where he had come from and what he show more had left behind. He decides to go by bicycle -- riding up the coast of California to the Pacific NW whence he flies to Japan, which he tours by bicycle, and finally to Vietnam.

As his journey progresses, his family history slowly unfolds -- in a skillfully constructed, novelistic approach. The book alternates between a fascinating travelogue of Vietnam's cities and countryside, and the difficulties of a proud immigrant family struggling to adjust to American life with its new freedoms, racism, and contrasts of poverty and prosperity. As Viet-kieu in his homeland, Pham faces a mixture of suspicion, affection, envy and very real danger. His descriptions are visceral and sensual: he is particularly cognizant of food, and the reader's reactions veer from mouth-watering to stomach-churning. His connection to Vietnam is anything but sentimental -- although he empathizes with its inhabitants, he has a love-hate relationship that is complicated by his knowledge that but for chance, their fate could have been his.

The slow unraveling of his family history is riveting -- from his parents' disapproved-of marriage to his sister's anguish in trying to come to terms with life in America and with her sexual identity. In many ways Catfish and Mandala is a quintessentially American tale, beautifully written, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful. Highly recommended, especially for anyone who is interested in the history and culture of the Vietnam War and its aftermath. show less

I probably would not have enjoyed this book as much as I did if I hadn't been in Vietnam as I was reading it. He's a Viet-kieu, one of those "boat people" who left as a child and returned years later. As a result, he was experiencing the country as I was, but also as someone who understood the language. An outsider and (somewhat looked down-upon) insider at the same time.

I shared so many of his impressions. The streets of Hanoi jammed with motorcycles loaded with everything conceivable going show more every which way, ridden by masked men and women on cellphones with babies and small children riding along; not to mention the trucks and the people and the cars and the constant car horns and the pollution. The food, some delicious but some quite questionable (e.g. organs), and the water you can only drink out of the ubiquitous plastic bottles, both of which eventually gave him dysentery. The people, welcoming and (of him) scornful at the same time.

I liked the interwoven strands of his previous life and his journey, and how he discovered himself in the process. show less

Catfish and Mandala is more than an adventure story about biking across Vietnam. It's a cultural exploration and by turn, an explanation. Comparing American versus Vietnamese differing viewpoints on mundane topics like when a child should move out of his parent's home after reaching adulthood. And yet. Noticing similarities: we all want our fathers to be proud of us, in any culture.
The story of Pham's father's imprisonment in the Labor Camp is brief, but heartbreaking just the same. After show more reading pages 16-20 I will never look at catfish the same.
Pham's ability to weave past with present is brilliant. He recaptures his family's flight from Vietnam to the U.S. when he was a small child seamlessly while recounting his own journey from the U.S. back to Vietnam as an adult. His confusion over what he remembers is intertwined with his inability to articulate what he is really looking for. Pham finds himself asking "what am I doing here?" time and time again. As he faces prejudice and violence and corruption I asked the same question. show less

All memoirs have an element of self-indulgent navel-gazing about them, but I found this worse than most. Maybe it's because Pham's insights are obvious and predictable, or that his whole "journey" is so blatantly engineered to serve the purpose of his narrative. Or maybe it's just that the writing is overblown and self-consciously "literary".

The best and least expected parts of the book were when Pham talked about his transgender sibling -- that story, which we see only in glimpses, is far show more more compelling than the author's. show less