Quotes

There is a problem with these quotes where some only appear if you triple click the white boxes. After attempts to solve this problem, I have found no solution.

“I am a chameleon. And the best chameleon has no center, no truer sense of self than what he is in the instant."

“I have a wild urge to marry them all, take them to America, give them American citizenship, and tell them they will never have to walk barefoot on hot asphalt again."

“When it's all over, you'll realize that the answer is already within you.”  

“The perfection of intention. In the end, it is all that matters.” 

“I am quick and deft, for there is no greater fear than the fear of being caught wanting to belong." 

“He was forever forced to rewrite his paradigm, even if only to survive.”

"Fate is an obligation I don't understand--the reasons that random beast passed over her deserving soul in favor of mine."

“No. But someday I’ll go back ... to visit.”

"One way or another, the price had to be paid. No family made it through unscathed."

"Maybe I am wrong about heaven not lying across the Pacific."


Review of Catfish and Mandala

CSPAN Reading with Pham

Symbols, Metaphors and Motifs

Clay Pot Fish- symbolizes the nature of relationships: The more time and effort one puts in, the more "flavorful" the relationship becomes.

Gaping Fish- symbolizes the trauma Chi (and later Minh) experienced due to her failure to belong. She is "paralyzed" and "fried;" forced to watch as her very identity is stripped from her, powerless to stop it.

Catfish- Catfish, in the context of the memoir, are a representation of the Vietnamese people. The cycle of catfish consumption is introduced very early. While in prison, An's father would eat catfish, then defecate them into the water, where the other catfish would feed on his leavings. Later, An's father would eat those very catfish, perpetuating the cycle. The Vietnamese, life the catfish, sustain themselves through what many would consider inhumanly vile ways. This reflects An's opinion of the country as a "whore".

Regret- An, the American Vietnamese War Veterans he meets, and Thong all feel regret over the things they have done (or not done) to others.

Exile- Just as An is exiled from Vietnam because he and his family no longer belong, he later returns due to his feelings of displacement experienced in the United States.

Food- Food is the enduring connection through which An connects with people. Nearly all of An's significant interactions, both negative and positive, revolve around meals. This is exemplified in his conversations with Tyle, Chi(star fruit), Anh(clay pot catfish),  Huy, and Colonel Van, and many others.

Survival- Repeatedly, survival is placed above all else. An harshly judges the Vietnamese people for their lives of squalor and poverty, but they do what they must to survive. As An says: "Dignity does not ride shotgun to opportunity."

Themes

One is often defined by how others see them:
- Chi is forced into the polarizing nature of American society. The way she identifies herself is complex, but to her classmates it is simple: Chi does not exhibit the characteristics of a girl; therefore she is a boy. This binary method of defining people's character contributes to Chi's unhappiness throughout her life. As Chi becomes used to being a boy, her personality shifts, exhibiting the influence of others' opinions on her own personality.

- As An is repeatedly referred to as a "chink," among other racial slurs, he stops feeling like an American. Because others have stopped him from seeing himself as an American, he can no longer call the United States his home.

No person is pure good or pure evil:
-  Even though An's father was abusive and, at his worst, cruel, An still respects and loves him. Despite his many flaws, his father worked very hard to give An and his siblings what little they had as children.

- An's mother is at first characterized as close-minded and chained by tradition, but it is later revealed how she sacrificed affluence and safety for the good of her family.

Summary

Catfish and Mandala is a memoir narrating An X. Pham's bicycle tour through Vietnam, as well as his childhood experiences. Through his journey, Pham grapples with the concepts of individuality, family, and the influence of one's heritage upon one's life. In his travels, Pham meets several Vietnam War veterans, soldiers from both sides of the conflict. In his experiences with these characters, Pham reveals his own ingrained sense of guilt and confusion that he feels when he tries to seperate himself from his Vietnamese heritage.

As Pham's journey through Vietnam progresses, he finds that little remains the way he left it in his exodus from the country as a child. With almost all of the famialiarity washed from his former home, Pham reaches a point at which he has nothing to tie himself to the land. Displaced and mentally transient, he does not feel at home in either of the countries that make up his place in the world. Pham's intense craving for a place to belong fuels him to continue trudging, both across Vietnam and through his memories; searching for himself in the lives of others. Pham's journey unearth's his families tragic past and the difficulties of being a foreigner in the United States.

Setting & Structure

During several flashback-vignette's, Pham switches to a third person narration. One may assume that this is because he is conveying stories of himself that he heard from another family member, or because he does not identify himself as the same person as he was in his youth.

When Pham inserts flashbacks about his exodus from Vietnam, especially on the boat, the sentence structure becomes much more choppy, almost frantic. The structure of these vignettes fits with the mood of the flashback.

 During the early days of his journey(in California, Japan, and the beginning of his travels in Vietnam), when An has money and energy to spare, he takes his time creating more thorough descriptions of his surroundings. Later in his journey, when he is both financially and emotionally bankrupt, he is much more brief, as he has lost his patience with the Vietnamese people.

Main Characters

Original Blog

An Pham- The author of the memoir, son of Anh and Thong Pham, and a Vietnam-born Vietnamese-American. Strives through the memoir to discover where his "home" is. An is the first born son of his parents, and feels, both toward his parents and his sister/brother Chi.

Thong Pham- A mathematician-turned-propagandist, Thong was forced into the Minh Long Prison labor camp after the fall of Saigon.  Scarred, both by physical abuse from his father and his own regrets, Thong lives out his latter years in a state of intermittent depression.

Anh Pham- A mother of six, Anh attempted to supplement her family's income in there hardest times. While Thong was in Minh Luong Prison, Anh was on the outside, trying to get him released. In the years directly after her family's departure to America, Anh rejected American culture in favor of her traditional one. Finally, after a long time in the United States, Anh begins to learn English.

Huy, Tien, Hien, and Kay- An's siblings. Huy and Hien are both homosexual, a fact that their mother is unable to come to terms with. Thong blames himself for this aspect of their personality. Kay is the only child born in the US, allowing her to grow up without as much Vietnamese influence as her immediate family.

Chi/Minh- Chi was An's sister who identified herself as a male. After accidentally getting her father arrested for child abuse, Chi runs away from home. Minh is Chi post sex-change. He returns after 14 years away from his family, a broken man. He has lost his job and his marriage has crumbled. Shortly after Christmas, Minh kills himself. Anh blames himself for this.

 Grandma Le- An's grandmother on his mother's side. Grandma Le serves as a savior throughout the novel. During Thong's internment in the prison camp, some of his children live with her at her home. After Thong beat Chi, she stayed at Grandma Le's house. Grandma Le also helps An with the "jigsaw pieces" of his parents' past.