Ugh. I hate to end my reading year this way, but what is this book.

I was expecting to cycle from the US to Vietnam, but actually, there are a few planes being boarded here, and while that's OK, it didn't make a very interesting journey.

This centres around a young man whose family left Vietnam for the United States after the war and his epic return to the fatherland.

While the back story of the family is fairly interesting, the journey is a bit of a flop.

Two stars.

Andrew X. Pham’s Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam tells the story of Andrew Pham, a young Vietnamese-American man who travels to his hometown in search of “finding himself” due to a conflict between his adoptive land and his native land. The book is based on a memoir that uses flashbacks during the war, when Pham’s family were imprisoned in Vietnam. However, escaping from Vietnam by boat, the family was able to start a new life in America. In search of Pham’s identity, he sets out on a bicycle voyage, facing obstacles and experiencing a sense of adventure, Pham tries to discover himself by comparing the American culture to the Vietnamese culture. Pham explores the grounds of Vietnam despite the guilt of his sister’s death, Chi who took her own life. The book examines the similarities of culture and family, which intertwines with the search for cultural identity.

A particularly memorable scene is early in the book when Pham tells a story of a starting family, Thong and Anh who lives in a shack in a back alley of a fishing town in Phan Thiet, Vietnam, struggling to support their first new-born baby. With no money to afford medicine, a doctor, or clothes to keep their baby warm, their little girl became too sick and eventually died during the night, not even a year old yet.

Ultimately, the story of Pham’s adventure in Vietnam helped him discover his true cultural identity, bicycling from one city to another, being overcharged for being a Viet-Kieu, and reminiscing about his family’s past. It all adds up to a tale of discovering one’s self, a reality check for all that makes us realize who we really are. Catfish and Mandala tells the story very uniquely, reminding us to stay true to yourself, an insight of never forgetting where you’ve come from.

During the course of my reading, not only was I able to enjoy the adventurous trip, but I was also able to spice up my geography skills, learning about the different cities, the history and the aftermath of the Vietnam War. As a Vietnamese-American myself, it’s shameful to say that I had no idea a city like Phan Thiet existed in Vietnam until I read this book. Following along the book, I had the chance to pick up the Vietnamese language as well as new vocabulary that I didn’t know beforehand.

From chapter to chapter, the bicycling expedition had me reflecting on myself. Catfish and Mandala had me question about my own true identity of whether or not I had lost my Vietnamese roots. To have the fortunate opportunity to live the “American Dream,” adapting to the English language was essential which made me forget my native language. Because of this book, it got me thinking of traveling solo to Vietnam in the future to regain my cultural identity, just like how Pham did.

I would definitely recommend this book because I believe it showcases a lot of emotional flashbacks and realistic events that everyone can relate to, especially from one Vietnamese-American to the next. Pham shares his bicycling trip to Vietnam to show his readers the country he grew up in, a place not only where he was born in, but where he came to visit to find his Vietnamese roots. The book gives the reader a sensational, imaginative ride to travel alongside with the author as each chapter is read, which, in my opinion, is something not many books can give to a reader.

I liked this book. I would have loved this book except that after "Eat, Pray, Love" and "Wild" it is one more memoir in which the author takes an exotic journey to "find himself."

In this case, Andrew Pham bicycles through Vietnam in search of his cultural roots. Along the way we are introduced to his family and a past that includes abuse, scandal, shame, and regret. Pham was a boy when his family emigrated from Vietnam via a rickety fishing boat in the middle of the night. He is in his mid- to late-20s when he returns retracing his steps to his eventual escape, trying to come to terms with the world he left behind.

The food scenes were among my favorite passages. Clearly food is a memory trigger for Pham and those passages were my favorite.

I wish I'd read this before "Eat, Pray, Love" and "Wild" because the author writes well and his story is compelling. (And I think I like this book better than either of those.) I hate to say that reading other books in the same genre diminishes this one because this one isn't like the others exactly, but it was close enough in theme to give me deja vu. And I don't think that's the kind of mandala the author was referring to in his title.

Non-fiction. Memoir, travelogue, and history. Andrew X. Pham leaves his life in the US to ride his bicycle through Vietnam, the country where he was born, the country that put his father into a labor camp, the country that forced his family to flee to America when he was ten years old.

This took me a while to read because it was a difficult book. Not difficult to read -- it was almost too easy to read, Pham's humor and lyricism made his ride through Vietnam so accessible I could feel its beauty as easily as I could feel its poverty and corruption, but that was the problem. I could only read a few chapters at a time before I got too depressed to go on. It's an excellent book, well written, descriptive, and painful. As a warning, it does deal with suicide, gender issues, torture, and forced internment. Also gastrointestinal distress. It was hard to read, but worth the discomfort.

Four stars for its beautiful language and storytelling.

Quite an eye opening book. Written by a man whose family escaped Vietnam when he was 10 years old. He returns a couple decades later to visit and see his homeland. Unfortunately while he doesn't feel at home in the United States, he also didn't find a home in Vietnam. The book goes back and forth between his journey on his bike through Vietnam and past memories growing up in Vietnam and the United States.

Lets just say that the author did not have the greatest experience on his return to Vietnam for many many reasons. I expected a more romantic account of his return home and did not get that at all.

My mother-in-law has met and continues to interact with Vietnamese Americans through her work and she said reading this book really helped her understand them.

While I was reading it I expected to give it 5 stars, but it dragged on a little bit too much for me.

overall a very well written book that takes you through Andrew Pham's journey for self identity, rediscovering his past all the while trying to come to grips with his life and family in the US. The chapters alternate between his past and present, which keeps you hooked. His descriptions and adventures through Vietnam are very vivid and has even helped me understand the culture and etiquette of Vietnam more thoroughly, I highly recommend it.

Catfish and Mandala is a lovely book. I read it slowly so it wouldn't end. From the first page, I was engrossed in the story of one man's attempt to make sense of his past and his present by integrating the two parts with a return trip to Vietnam, twenty years after his family fled. A gifted storyteller, Pham describes unflinchingly the details of his childhood in Vietnam, family life in a traditional Vietnamese family, the struggles of being an immigrant in southern California and the poverty and corruption and sweetness of modern Vietnam. Reading this account while traveling through Vietnam as a first-time visitor, it feels like Pham got it just right. He describes his adventures as a viet-kieu (expatriated Vietnamese) with the voice of an insider looking at it from the outside - and the result is very compelling. I was happy to find it among the collection of badly photocopied books available from a Hanoi street vendor...

Loved it!

It occurs to me that this is my first travelogue! Anyways, I'm not sure why I wasn't drawn to this genre before, but if this is what travel writing is about - I'm completely hooked.

My rating is likely influenced by the fact that I've spent a lot of time in Vietnam this year, and finished the book in one of it's cafes. But beyond that, I felt the writing was fantastic and the identity crisis at its heart was truly engaging. I have a much richer understanding of Vietnam, and the struggle for Vietnamese Americans following the war.

As an aside - I think the entire section on Japan could have easily been skipped.

I read this many years ago, around the time it first came out. From what I remember the language is beautiful. It is heartfelt and touching, yet somehow still remaining distant. I feel this is the point. After all, no matter how close humans get to figuring our own lives and humanity out, we never receive full disclosure, do we?

Sometimes I wonder if I went overseas to the places of my ancestors would I feel more at home? Would I find some lost part of my self that I left there? Would I make more sense to myself?

This type of personal searching and eloquent language (some thought provoking lines and beautiful descriptions) are what I remember from reading it long, long ago.

I'm a little biased as an expat living in Ho Chi Minh City and a bicycling enthusiast, but I really enjoyed this. It was interesting learning about the life of a Viet Kieu, an exile after the fall of Saigon returning to his home country and his various perceptions and interactions throughout various big cities and small villages. I learned a lot about my new place of residence although much of the information seems less relevant now than it would have been ten years ago.

I started reading this on a trip to the beach in Vung Tau, having bought a photocopied version from a street vendor as I sat in the backpacker area of HCMC drinking Saigon Green. I finished reading it a few weeks later at a resort in the mountains of Dalat, a place whose climate and landscape are unrecognizable as Southeast Asia. It's possible that my experiences and environment have clouded my estimation of the book.

Despite all of this, it's a very well written work: part memoir, part travelogue, told in disjointed order about Pham's family's escape from Saigon, his father's time as a prisoner, Pham's upbringing in the US, his dysfunctional family life, his sister's gender reassignment and subsequent suicide and, most interesting, an ambiguous revelation told in pieces of how his mother and father made their original fortune.

Highly recommended.

2.5 stars

What a dreary, narcissistic book this is! Here he is, in one of those most interesting travel destinations on earth, a place that challenges and inverts the ideas of any Westerner whose history meshes with Vietnam because of the Vietnam war, and all he does is moan about himself. Coming from the wealthiest country on the planet, he has the temerity to scorn their energetic efforts to improve their pitiful standard of living: he thinks they're too interested in making money. He hasn't made the slightest effort to learn about the history and culture of the country before arriving, and he doesn't learn a thing while he's there.
Don't bother.