As a Viet-kieu - a foreign Vietnamese - Andrew Pham had a lasting
memory of the war-torn country he left as a young boy. Arriving in
the States in 1977, he is provoked into flinging a storm of words
against his fifth-grade teacher: 'America left Vietnam. America not
finish war. One more day bombing, Viet Cong die. One more day! No.
America go home! America chicken!' A quieter, cooler and more
reflective Pham sets out, two decades later, to rediscover his
fatherland; it's been transformed by Third World capitalism, but
the old scars remain. Pham cycles around the Pacific Rim on a
year's trek, and meets family members and uncovers family secrets:
the claims of a fish-sauce baron, the great escape led by his
father, and the confusion of his trans-sexual sister, Chi. Pham has
a good eye for the dramatic, although some scenes seem
over-dramatized. Full of anecdotes and poignant remembrances, his
story draws a vibrant contrast between the flavours of Vietnam and
those of his adopted homeland, America. (Kirkus UK)
'Jack Kerouac meets "Wild Swans".' The Times. A voyage through
Vietnam's ghost-ridden landscape, at once a moving memoir,
travelogue and compelling search for identity. Vietnamese-born
Andrew Pham finally returns to Saigon, not as a success showering
money and gifts onto his family, but as an emotional shipwreck,
desperate to find out who he really is. When his sister, a
post-operative transsexual, committed suicide, Pham sold all his
possessions and embarked on a year-long bicycle journey that took
him through the Mexican desert; around a thousand-mile loop from
Narita to Kyoto in Japan; and, after five months and 2,357 miles,
to Saigon, where he finds 'nothing familiar in the bombed-out
darkness'. At first meant to facilitate forgetfulness, Pham's
travels turn into an unforgettable, eye-opening search for cultural
identity which flashes back to his parent's courtship in Vietnam,
his father's imprisonment by the Vietcong, and his family's
nail-bitingly narrow escape as 'boat people'. Lucid, witty and
beautifully written, 'Catfish and Mandala' evokes a Vietnam you can
almost smell and taste, laying bare the psyche of a troubled hero
whose search for home and identity becomes our own.
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