Overall I really enjoyed this book. It had a slow start for me, but once the author got to Vietnam it was fast reading. The story was captivating and was a great way to learn about current day Vietnam, some culture and some history. Can't wait to visit Vietnam!

Reading in preparation for my travels to Vietnam, and was blown away! Not only does it give a great vantage point for modern day Vietnam, it is a beautiful story about a personal pilgrimage. The author's descriptives about his travels on his bike, through the countryside is not to be missed! Serious at times, emotionally charged, but with just the right amount of humor! Loved it and can't wait to see Vietnam with my own eyes!

Catfish and Mandala is story about a Vietnamese-American who arrived in the US following the fall of Saigon in the 1970's, who returns to Vietnam to cycle from Saigon to Hanoi, visiting places of his childhood in an effort to learn more about his roots and himself.

Andrew Pham does a very successful job of juxtaposing the history of his childhood and flight from Vietnam/eventual settlement and youth in the US with the stories of his adventures and experiences while cycling in Asia and the Pacific Northwest of the US. While the overall story itself may not captivate the imagination like Riaan Manser's Around Africa on my Bicycle, Pham's story is not approached in the same way. His is an exploration of self, an inner-journey to understand more about his family and their experience. Also, Pham's writing ability is of an elite class; he is incredibly talented and the reader quickly becomes thankful that he traded his life as an engineer for that of a writer. He constantly takes us into to the dingy huts and one-room cafes of the Vietnamese villages he visits, and is able to elucidate the feelings of growing up without a proper mother-country to relate to.

This book is highly recommended for the reader of travel literature and personal adventure. The bicycle part of it seems to be more of a vehicle, no pun intended. The real journey we are taken on here is that of an innocent cast away exploring the shores from which he originally escaped while seeking insight and closure for his soul.

Eine Reise zu den Wurzeln und die Suche einer Heimat.

Andrew Pham, ein vietnamesisch-stämmiger US-Amerikaner blickt auf eine schwierige Familiengeschichte zurück. Seine Eltern flohen mit ihren Kindern in einem winzigen Boot aus Vietnam, nachdem Andrews Vater eingesperrt wurde, weil er im Krieg mit den Amerikanern kooperierte. Die Familie versuchte danach in den USA Fuß zu fassen, was ihnen auch mit vielen Entbehrungen und durch den Fleiß und Erfindungsreichtum der Eltern gelang - und doch gab es da immer eine große Differenz zwischen Herkunft und neuem Leben, an der die Familie ein Stück zerbrach. Zu viel ist passiert, das Andrew erst einmal hinter sich lassen will. Er schwingt sich aufs Fahrrad und radelt los, zuerst Amerikas Westküste hoch, dann durch Japan und schließlich quer durch sein Herkunftsland. Dort versucht er seine Wurzeln zu finden, muss aber feststellen, dass er sowohl in den USA als auch in Vietnam nicht so richtig dazugehört.

Der Autor beschönigt das einfache Leben der Vietnamesen nicht, nein, er beschreibt deren schmerzhafte Armut schonungslos und ehrlich, genauso ehrlich wie seine Gefühle den Vietnamesen gegenüber. Zu viele schlechte Erfahrungen muss er machen, zu viel Elend sieht er, aber auch nette Menschen kreuzen seinen Weg und schöne Landstriche durchfährt er. Trotzdem ist der Grundton des Buches eher negativ, enttäuscht - und am Ende zauberte er mir zu nichtssagend und schnell einen Sinn seiner Reise her. Trotzdem gefiel mir die Ehrlichkeit eines Abenteurers zwischen zwei Welten.

Prägendes Zitat:
"Eigentlich würde ich von ihm [...] gern hören, dass er dieses Land wirklich liebt und dass es auf eine Art zauberhaft und wunderschön ist, die ich noch herausfinden muss." (S. 395)

I am a huge fan of travel stories anyway, and Catfish and Mandala was not only an educational journey through Vietnam, it was well written as well. Pham writes with beautiful language that describes his environment so clearly one can almost smell the forest or the stench as the case may be.

Starting in the Bay Area, Pham rides his bicycle to find himself, first in Mexico, then up the California Coast, and finally in Vietnam. Interwoven with his adventures are stories of his past, revealing why it is so important to him to find his identity as a Vietnamese American, a Viet-kieu. The people he meets along the way, the family ties he rebinds, and the memories of his early years all add to the growth Pham experiences on his journey.

I chose to read this book because I am planning to travel to Vietnam and I wanted something more than a Vietnam War novel. This book definitely fulfilled that desire and even though Vietnam has doubtless changed in the last 20 years since Pham went on his journey, it is nevertheless an inspirational tale and a window into what was and what can be in Vietnam.

The book failed to grab me. After I've gotten over the half way point, I was unsure why it was still going. The narrator is unlikable, he touches on serious and interesting issues, but seems to lack insight to really dissect those issues. This book is nothing more than his self-indulgent account of drinking and whoring in Vietnam, while despising its inhabitants for being poor. His treatment of women as objects and light view of prostitution did not help my enjoyment either. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book.

This memoir has a lot packed in it. It tells the somewhat common story of those who are caught between identities as immigrants, in this case neither wholly Vietnamese nor, as a non-white immigrant, never fully accepted as truly and “American.” But it tells it in his particular way and situation. It tells the story of his particular dysfunctional, yet in other ways, typical Vietnamese family. It also tells the story of Vietnam. And at the same time, it is his travelogue of his crazy adventure. It does not paint a particularly flattering picture of Vietnam (nor his family), and yet he does manage to do it in a caring way. I enjoyed the book, but somehow it would not be one I highly recommend. I liked really it, but yet I did not find it that powerful. And one nit pick, was that while I do not mind the common style of chapters jumping back and forth in time, what I did mind what the chapter titles did not clue you in to when, where and who you were now at, and it could take a paragraph or two to figure it out. Not a big deal, but still a little annoying.

I couldn't decide whether this was a 3 or 4 star book. It's an enjoyable story and easy read about finding your own path in life. On the surface, it's a about a family displaced from their native land by the Vietnam war, Communist retribution and oppression, escape to the promise of America and the identity crisis of being the newest immigrant in a land of immigrants. Deeper down, the author explores the challenges of belonging, dysfunctional family dynamics, prejudices, and stereotypes. He is every kid whose parents expect him to become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer but want to be something truer to themselves. He's also every new immigrant who has arrived in the melting pot of the U.S. to find it is less the dream they had thought but also better than they had imagined. All of this takes place mostly in Vietnam where the descriptions of corruption, inflated prices for foreigners and loud-drunken-chain-smoking Vietnamese is a lamentable and common experience from my time in Vietnam and many developing countries where opportunity exceeds economic opportunities. Andrew Pham's similes are mostly beautiful and original but he does take so many grammatical liberties his writing feels like a Svengali usurping English for his own benefit. The stew of grammatical identity crisis sometimes grows tiresome with verbs becoming nouns, nouns becoming verbs, and too many invented words. Ultimately though, Catfish and Mandala is entertaining, entertainingly written, and a coming home story that leads to a greater understanding of how we fit into an increasingly globalized and confusing world.

Very poignant story. Pham is a very poetic writer. It has such sad moments and sad realizations of Viet Nam today and also gives great insight into the people who lived/ live there now.

An and his family escaped Vietnam in the 1970s aboard a barely sea-worthy fishing vessel. His father, a supporter of the defeated South, had spent time in a communist prison (“re-education”) camp after the war. The family eventually settled in California and grappled with their new status as Vietnamese-Americans, the all-too-obvious evidence of America’s great defeat. Many years later, after the death of a family member, and with his family apparently dysfunctional in, arguably, an appropriately American way, An (“Andrew” in America) sets outs out on a bicycle tour to and through Vietnam. Almost broke, he is unlike the the other returning Vietnamese - “viet-kieu” - conquering heroes who are replete, overborne by gifts, a sign of their victory, their wealth, their status as Vietnamese Americans, Capitalists, ultimate;y victorious. An carries none. He was an engineer but he quit his job to cycle penniless. His distant relatives in Ho Chi Minh City, presumably disappointed but not showing it, receive no bounty. Although his relatives beg him not to, fearing traffic accidents, he completes his oddysey anyway, finding an unofficial berth in a freight train to Hanoi, then cycling back to his relatives in Ho Chi Minh City. An is usually recognised as a foreigner - often mistaken for being Korean or Japanese, but when it is known that he is viet-keiu this often brings resentment - “you think you’re better than us?”. An, although able to communicate perfectly, is therefore a tourist, a foreigner in a land that should be his, but is no longer. In both the US and in Vietnam he is considered an outsider. Despite all surviving the war, seemingly all of An’s family are casualties of this catastrophic war, even 25 years after its culmination. Considering the potential sensitivity of some of the family material discussed - and this is non-fiction, though could easily be read as fiction, this is a brave as well an insightful work.

Pham’s personal odyssey and search for identity is one of the more poignant travel adventure novels I’ve come across. We undervalue the trauma of the refugee experience and the emotional and physical displacement it inflicts on survivors. While many keep their head down and plow ahead in their new world, Pham navigates through the family wreckage. He escapes by searching and seeking, arriving where it all began, back in Vietnam. The cultural imbalance is a familiar theme, but his personal challenges, the intensity of the journey, and the honesty of the prose makes this a fantastic read.

Compelling and very readable. Pham presents an honest portrayal of himself, his life, and his countries. He weaves narratives from throughout his life thematically rather than chronologically, which helps to build suspense and make his points more clearly.

It is also a unique perspective of Viet Nam - a Viet Kieu's experience of returning there, where he is almost seen as more of an outsider than the other tourists. I could relate to Pham's feeling of not truly 'belonging' anywhere. However, I have had it vastly easier as my experience is not reinforced by language issues, racism, military/political history, or socioeconomic difficulties.