Catfish and Mandala

This is a work by a Vietnamese American who lived most of his life in the States and then went back to Vietnam on a pushbike pilgrimage.It described as semi-autobiographical but the wonderful imagery, the characters, the real life events, leads me to say that just about all of it is based on the author's life.I felt I was on one of the most wonderful journeys to be taken on a pushbike - thousands of miles and reminiscing.Unputdownable and was much affected and was much saddened when I came to the end, as I was so engrossed and missed the world into which I was transported.

As an Australian who protested against their country's involvement in the Vietnam war this was a fascinating insight into Vietnam. Really enjoyed the book and will read more from this author. I read the one star review which appears to be written by a pompous, self-rightious, self-opiniated, sad little man who thinks his opinions terribly important. Get over yourself. This story, whether autobiographical or complete fiction is a good read.

This is an excellent book, written with a rare skill in marrying together a mixture of facts with honesty, in an engaging, witty, and stylish prose.The author spent the first eight years of his life growing up in vietnam, before his family emigrated to the states, one family of thousands who escaped across the seas as boat people.He returns to Vietnam years later, in a bid to find himself and to give his life direction. A life by his own admission had been littered with failures to himself and his family.He decides to cycle his way practically over most of vietnam and relates his experiences and the people he encounters along the way.Written with humour throughout, not least the chronic diarrhoea he's been crippled with for most of his journey.As returning "Viet Kieu" ( vietnamese who grew up abroad) he encounters hostility in some quarters from the locals who resent the opportunities they have never had. He also is frequently overcharged by the locals simply because they know he can afford it.From bent police to beautiful girls selling sexual favours, to filthy hotel rooms with rats and cockroaches, this book pulls no punches on the less desirable facets of Vietnamese society, together with the greed and will to survive in a very poor country, where everything is for sale.Although bad food was experienced on occasions, the readers descriptions of the best in vietnamese cuisine he aptly so describes, will give you a mouth-watering urge to sample some of the mouth watering treats, and delicacies for yourself. Roast dog not included!!Written about ten years ago the book in some respects is a little dated now. I was in Vietnam in august of this year and the standards have improved greatly in hotel rooms and food, although when you venture off the beaten track you will see a severe drop in standards and etiquette.Prices also nowadays differ much more expensively from the author's.Whilst bargaining is the name of the game, Vietnamese wages cannot keep pace with the country's rampant unceasing inflation.This book is a great source of information on the Vietnamese psyche,and understanding a nation with a tenacious will to survive, succeed and better themselves through industry, work, and in some cases through scams of various types.Perhaps most interesting and rarely told in other travel books, this book portrays in great detail how the vietnamese see all foreigners as being rich and a constant cash cow to be milked as often as possible.I wish I had read this book prior to travelling to Vietnam as it would have alerted me to many things i had to find out the hard way, through errors on my part.It's not all negative though by any means, Vietnam is a wonderfully hospitable country and this shines through the pages of the book on many many occasions, and costs although spiralling upwards remain very low by western standards.The book is written in three sequences, the first tells of the present, the second tells the author's family background and history including some shameful secrets, and the last deals with the author's own fears, failures, and insecurities in his past to date.I think this book should be required reading for any traveller going to vietnam, its an absolutely cracking read from start to finish.

It's the question of authenticity, yet again, in regards to memoirs. The list is long, from the complete fraud of  Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival  to the highly embroidered  A Million Little Pieces  The editors and the publisher never seem to have any idea that something is amiss, if the marketing department is convinced the public is gullible enough. The "professional" reviewers serve as faithful adjuncts of the big house's marketing team; Pham is compared with William Least-Heat Moon, Steinbeck, Mark Twain, with apparently a straight face. Fortunately, thanks to Amazon, "non-marketing department" readers can express their doubts. As one of the 2-star reviewers put it: How much of this is fiction?I would venture quite a lot. I am fairly confident that Pham is at least originally Vietnamese, that he and his family left Vietnam sometime after 1975, are now American citizens, and that he carried a bicycle back to Vietnam. Beyond that, there are a lot more questions than certainty. His trip back to his "roots" is a haphazard affair, from his own description. But what of his intellectual preparation? The reason he is an American citizen is the Vietnam War. But did he read just one of the standard accounts of the war by a Westerner, and even more importantly, since he claims that his family is originally from Hanoi, did he read one of the classic accounts of the war written by a Vietnamese, say, Bao Ninh, Duong Thu Huong or Dang Thuy Trang? He doesn't say, but based on his wild pastiche of errors of time, place, and facts concerning the war, I would assume not. His sources seem to be disgruntled Vietnamese-Americans and a hallucination of Hollywood movies. Consider:- Pham accepts uncritically "Colonel Van's" story of commanding a mixed unit of Vietnamese and American soldiers, and mistreating the Americans in the unit, by making them dig deep fox holes, and then moving, and claiming the Americans only ate rice. Furthermore, and he is referring to American soldiers, "...he turned the green foreigners into a ragged, jangling mess" (p274). There were no such mixed units, and if there were, the Americans would have fragged him!- He states that his father served as head of a propaganda unit in the ARVN (which he seems to like to call the "Nationalist Army"- does he realize that army was in China?) but never questions the validity of his father's statements about his post-1975 internment, and the number of prisoners that were taken out and executed, like an auto mechanic. (Chapter 2). Wildly exaggerating the "blood bath" that would happen when the NVA assumed power has been standard for apologists for the war. Next is: "On nights when it was very cold and the prisoners huddled together for warmth..." Pham claims his father was imprisoned in the Delta, near Rach Gia, where the coldest night time temperatures in the winter are 23 C. Next: "... a country outpost far behind the fighting front" (p19). There was a "front"?! And the Delta was very heavily VC.- Shortly before the fall of Saigon, a Buddhist monk is burning himself in the street (p112)! (No, that happened in the `63-`65 era.)- "It was the Americans who tried to maintain the tracks and the North Vietnamese who were adept at bombing and hijacking trains (p207)! What!- Pham is in the northern part of country, not that far south of Hanoi, with "Uncle Hu," who looks at the surrounding hills "where I've killed Vietnamese and Americans" (p267). Americans were not in North Vietnam, certainly not in that area.- One more movie image is the Green Berets, and sure enough, at the end of the book, he has a Vietnamese enrolled in this American unit for five years (p341).Ok, so he was utterly clueless about the war, carried a mishmash of fantasies in his head, and promoted additional one. But of his actual experience in Vietnam, it was equally implausible, and loaded with errors. It is quite telling that at no time does he actually say WHEN he was there, and his movements are often vague, in terms of time and duration. I went "back" to Vietnam three times, January of '94, '95, and '96. He describes a Vietnam that is hard to recognize. I traveled to remote places by jeep, such as Dien Bien Phu, and Dak To, quite freely, without hassles. For certain, he was there after at least my first visit, since it was "post-embargo," and yet he claimed that "Both natives and foreigners must register ever night. Bureaucrats still keep a record of travelers" (p173). Simply not true, we went anywhere we wanted, never "registered" nightly. We were never hassled, and stayed in very, very cheap hotels in places like An Khe, and Kontum, without the police awaking us at night. My children and I biked all over Hue. Where is this "steep downhill" Pham describes (p278). It was pancake flat, and if he found a hill on the outskirts somewhere, wouldn't the cyclo driver go around it?Then there is the really annoying matter about the money. If your funds are low, do you bike from the Bay Area to Seattle, and then stop for a tour of Japan? He admits he arrives in Vietnam with no gifts for his relatives, and seems to live off their meager resources for months. When he finally decides to go to Hanoi, he takes the train, with only a photocopy of his passport. Why? He is too poor to buy a regular passenger ticket, and rides in the caboose. For some reason money will be available in a bank in Hanoi (why couldn't it have been sent to Saigon?). He is still "poor" there, but manages boat trips in Hai Long bay (which are not cheap when you can't buy a train ticket!).But the biggest question is: Did he really bike the entire length of Highway 1, from Hanoi to his home at Phan Thiet, near Saigon? He never really states that he did, he puts the words in the mouth of his friend, Cuong, and does not contradict him (p325). But half the road is missing! From somewhere slightly south of Hanoi, he next pops up in Hue. Supposedly, he went through Vinh, devastated by B-52 strikes during the war, and passed the "real tunnels" that are far superior to Chu Chi, just north of the DMZ. He supposedly biked over the Ben Hai River, with its monument which says: "Temporary international boundary, 1954-1975," and says nothing!? Later, he bikes right past My Lai, in a rush from Quang Ngai to Qui Nhon, also without comment or interest. As another reviewer asked, where is the Vietnam in his book? The incredible beauty of that long stretch of Annam, one of the most essential parts of Vietnam, is never described. In fact, he does the opposite: "...pitying the Vietnamese who believe with all their hearts that Vietnam, indeed, is the most gorgeous place on earth" (p155).And then there is his patronizing, look-down your nose attitude towards the natives, without much contemplation for the fact that maybe 30 years of war against two imperial powers might have exhausted them and their resources. He is almost totally devoid of empathy, is constantly whingeing, and never seems to connect his attitude with some bad treatment he almost certainly received. Oh, and he is always describing the meals he has, all the ingredients, including the cilantro, but does not connect that with his bowel problems. At the end, though again he has "no money", he buys another one-way ticket home.He does indeed give the "viet-kieu" (expatriate Vietnamese) a bad name.I'm just warming up on the things I didn't like, but the above should be sufficient, and I invite others to identify other errors, discrepancies, and just plain appalling behavior. For the Vietnamese-American experience, I'd strongly recommend  Good Scent from a Strange Mountain  And I'll need to burn some joss sticks after reading Catfish which does not even deserve the lonely star.(Note: Review first published at Amazon, USA, on February 05, 2010)