Thoreau, Theroux, Kerouac, Steinbeck, Mark Twain and William Least Heat-Moon—the roster of those who have turned to their travels for inspiration includes some of America's most noted scribes. Now add Andrew X. Pham to the list . . . Catfish and Mandala records a remarkable odyssey across landscape and into memory.” —The Seattle Times
“An engaging and vigorously told story . . . a fresh and original look at how proud Vietnamese on the war's losing side reconciled having their identity abruptly hyphenated to Vietnamese-American.” —Gavin Scott, Chicago Tribune
“A modern Plutarch might pair Pham's story with that of Chris McCandless, the uncompromising young man whose spiritual quest led him to a forlorn death in Alaska. Pham, instead of seeking out remote places where he could explore fantasies of self-sufficiency, instictively understood that self-knowledge emerges from engagement with others. In his passionate telling, his travelogue acquires the universality of a bildungsroman.” —The New Yorker
“A trip so necessary and so noble makes others seem like mere jaunts or stunts.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Part memoir, part travelogue . . . Catfish and Mandala [is] a visceral, funny and tender look at modern-day Vietnam, interwoven with the saga of Pham's refugee family.” —Annie Nakao, San Francisco Examiner
“Far more than a travelogue . . . Catfish and Mandala is a seamlessly constructed work deftly combining literary techniques with careful, evenhanded reportage . . . A gifted writer . . . Pham opens readers to the full sadness of the human condition on both sides of the world, marveling at spiritual resilience amid irreconcilable facts.” —Roland Kelts, The Philadelphia Inquirer
“No small achievement . . . Scenes of [Pham's] wild road adventure [are] worthy of Jack Kerouac.” —The San Francisco Chronicle
“Stunning . . . A brilliantly written memoir in which a young Vietnamese-American uses a bicycle journey in his homeland as a vehicle to tell his eventful life story . . . Pham (born Pham Xuan An) fled Vietnam with his family in 1977 at age ten. Raised in California, he worked hard, went to UCLA, and landed a good engineering job. A few years ago, rebelling against family pressures to succeed and a patronizing, if not racist, work environment, Pham quit his job. Much to his parents' displeasure, he set off on bicycle excursions through Mexico, Japan, and, finally, Vietnam. 'I have to do something unethnic,' he says. 'I have to go. Make my pilgrimage.' In his first book, Pham details his solo cycling journeys, mixing in stories of his and his family's life before and after leaving Vietnam. The most riveting sections are Pham's exceptional evocations of his father's time in a postwar communist reeducation (read: concentration) camp and the family's near miraculous escape by sea from their homeland . . . An insightful, creatively written report on Vietnam today and on the fate of a Vietnamese family in America.” —Kirkus Reviews
“[Pham] fuels his memoir and travelogue, full of both comic and painful adventures, with a broad appreciation of the variety and vividness of creation. The people, the landscapes, the poverty and grime of Vietnam live for us through him, a man full of sadness and unrequited longing and love . . . a powerful memoir of grief and a doomed search for cultural identity.” —Vince Passaro, Elle
“In narrating his search for his roots, Vietnamese-American and first-time author Pham alternates between two story lines. The first, which begins in war-torn Vietnam, chronicles the author's hair-raising escape to the U.S. as an adolescent in 1977 and his family's subsequent and somewhat troubled life in California. The second recounts his return to Vietnam almost two decades later as an Americanized but culturally confused young man. Uncertain if his trip is a 'pilgrimage or a farce,' Pham pedals his bike the length of his native country, all the while confronting the guilt he feels as a successful Viet-kieu (Vietnamese expatriate) and as a survivor of his older sister Chai, whose isolation in America and eventual suicide he did little to prevent. Flipping between the two story lines, Pham elucidates his main dilemma: he's an outsider in both America and Vietnam—in the former for being Vietnamese, and the latter for being Viet-kieu . . . In writing a sensitive, revealing book about cultural identity, Pham also succeeds in creating an exciting adventure story.” —Publishers Weekly
“Perhaps the most American writing theme is the road trip as search for identity. Pham has written a memoir (and, in the process, a travelogue) that will be widely appealing. His family immigrated to the U.S. after escaping from Vietnam, where his father had been held in a communist 're-education camp' after the war. Once in the U.S., his parents worked grueling hours to afford to educate their children. During those years Pham's sister ran away after being beaten by her father, and when she returned years later, she had become a transsexual. Eventually, she commited suicide, and her death was a dark, unspoken family secret. Pham, who had become an engineer, had an identity crisis and left his career to bicycle through the U.S., Mexico, Japan, and, eventually, Vietnam, to examine his roots. Seeing his native country through Americanized eyes, he finds it both attractive and repellent. Ultimately, he must reconcile to being an outsider in all cultures.” —Eric Robbins, Booklist
I took a break from reading Andrew X. Pham's brilliant, haunting memoir of his trip through Vietnam, Catfish and Mandala, to watch TV. My remote control landed me on MTV, right in the middle of a Road Rules: Semester at Sea marathon. Confession: I am a Road Rules junkie. This travelogue-cum-voyeuristic adventure soap opera series has the power to reel me in like nothing else on television does.
And as I sat on my couch, savoring this mind candy, I got an extra treat. I had happened upon the episodes where the cast is in Vietnam. These episodes of Road Rules were full of images to complement my day's reading.
Pham's descriptions of riding his bicycle through the clogged streets of Saigon were made all the more vivid when I watched the cast trying to race around the congested, polluted city. The cast ate many of the Vietnamese delicacies that turned Pham's stomach. The cast was confronted by beggars, as was Pham, who was plagued with guilt about them throughout his trip.
As the episode drew to a close, I realized that surprisingly, despite a massive difference in perspective, the Road Rulers and Pham had similar observations of Vietnam that stemmed from the bizarre experience of being an American in a country America was at war with. I also realized that not only is Pham's book wonderful in its own right, but it's also an important addition to the growing body of literature about the relationship between America and Vietnam.
However, Catfish and Mandala's premise -- Pham bikes from California to Vietnam, the land of his birth, in an attempt to make sense of his trans-national identity -- renders it a challenging and extremely complex read. There is more here than just a story of a native son returning home.
A recurring theme throughout Catfish and Mandala is the fact that Pham doesn't feel at home anywhere in the world. His ethnicity and familial obligations prevent him from truly assimilating in America. In Vietnam, his American passport earns him the moniker Viet-kieu, a term that means "foreign Vietnamese" and that is highly stigmatized. Often in Vietnam, his claims to his ethnicity are challenged violently.
But epithets, fists and dysentery don't stop Pham from traveling to through Vietnam on his bicycle; the town of his birth is his final destination. Although the places of his youth bear no resemblance to the country he remembers, Pham draws a grounding sense of knowing, and ultimately, closure from them. It's as if seeing how different Vietnam is from his memories gives him the courage to make peace with the role his roots play in his American life.
Pham is a "boat person" who came to the US in 1977. His father, a former Nationalist Army propagandist, is a survivor of a communist reeducation death camp. His mother meticulously plotted their family's harrowing escape from Vietnam under constant threat of incarceration.
Pham spends most of his life trying to reconcile his desire to live his own life with the remnants of the life his parents' left behind. "Our father sacrificed for us as his father had sacrificed for him, each one of us racking up a debt so large we'd never dare to contemplate pursuing our own dreams. No, there are no independent visionaries in a line of sacrifices," Pham writes.
His decision to pick up and bicycle to Vietnam, something he views as wholly "unethnic," stems from these frustrations. Pham's journey is also prompted by the suicide of his transsexual sister Chi.
Intertwined with stories of his time in Vietnam, Chi's troubling relationship with Pham's father is recounted throughout Catfish and Mandala, as are the tales of his parents' personal histories, and Pham's own life story. This makes Catfish and Mandala less a travelogue and more an autobiography. But Pham's narration, and the stories themselves, make Catfish and Mandala breathtaking. In Vietnam, Pham bridges the gaps between past and present, and leaves with a true sense of himself.
And along the way, he gives the reader a painfully intimate look at whom he is, and what Vietnam has become, that a reader will be richer for taking the time to understand. Pham's fascinating book is a very heavy, but ultimately an incredibly worthwhile read.
—Emily Burg
Emily Burg is a freelancer who reads travel books during the commercials.
A brilliantly written memoir in which a young Vietnamese-American uses a bicycle journey in his homeland as a vehicle to tell his eventful life story. The veteran-penned "going back" book has become a subgenre of the American Vietnam War canon. So, too, has the multigenerational Vietnamese-refugee family saga. Now comes a stunning first: a family tale by a Vietnamese-American that centers on an eye-opening trip to his native land. Pham (born Pham Xuan An) fled Vietnam with his family in 1977 at age ten. Raised in California, he worked hard, went to UCLA, and landed a good engineering job. A few years ago, rebelling against family pressures to succeed and a patronizing, if not racist, work environment, Pham quit his job. Much to his parents' displeasure, he set off on bicycle excursions through Mexico, Japan, and, finally, Vietnam. "I have to do something unethnic," he says. "I have to go. Make my pilgrimage." In his first book, Pham details his solo cycling journeys, mixing in stories of his and his family's life before and after leaving Vietnam. The most riveting sections are Pham's exceptional evocations of his father's time in a postwar communist reeducation (read: concentration) camp and the family's near miraculous escape by sea from their homeland. The heart of the narrative is Pham's depiction of his five-month adventure in Vietnam, often not a pretty picture. Because of his unique status as a budget-minded Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese), he runs into significant harassment from the police and many unfriendly civilians. For every moment of self-discovery and enchantment there seem to be ten of disappointment and dispiritedness—plus nearly constant physical pain fromhis journey and a bout of dysentery. But Pham perseveres. He returns to his home, America, with a smile on his face. An insightful, creatively written report on Vietnam today and on the fate of a Vietnamese family in America.
