While leading a summer community service trip throughout Vietnam, this felt like the perfect companion memoir for the long flights and bus rides throughout the country. I expected this book to be a bit more about his bicycle adventure throughout Vietnam, which only sort of ebbed and flowed as the main theme. But Pham dealt with his personal and family cultural identity in this book, as he does not quite feel wholly American nor Vietnamese.

Andrew Pham, who was born in Vietnam but immigrated to the US as a child, documents his voyage on bicycle to re-discover the homeland that he never really knew.

He travels from the Pacific rim to Vietnam, biking 2,357 miles to arrive in to his final destination, the motherland, where he visits notable places such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, and Hanoi, to name a few.
Pham camps out most of the time in a pup tent, in ditches, and eventually meets up with friends in Vietnam that provide many andecdotal events involving food, rats, traffic, and places dear to his family's plight to freedom in the US.

Pham's writing style of first person means you often feel as if he is narrating a movie, as in Forrest Gump, where Tom Hanks narrates his own history for the audience.

Having done a brief trip to Vietnam myself, I can see the attraction to such a country shrouded in mystery, regardless of what your opinions are of the Vietnam War. I found myself longing to be in Pham's shoes ( or bicycle pedals ), soaking in all the richness of what was once called Indochine by the French colonists.

This is not exactly Jack Kerouac style literature but it is very heart warming and worth the read.

Don't assume that everything in this book is about the bicycling, it is really about the people along the way that he meets, as is everything in life. I too have found out that it is the people, friendships, and commonalities that bond together as human beings, not the amount money we make nor the possessions we have. God bless Andrew Pham and Vietnam.

I have a thing against being a tourist. I like moving to new places, but I want to actually live there, not just see the surface of other people's lives from the outside looking in. Reading this book had me thinking about some of the limitations of that approach - how impossible it can be to become a local.

Our author takes a bicycle trip up the Western coast of the USA, through Japan, and then around Vietnam. Descriptions of his journey are interspersed with memories of his early childhood in Vietnam, and then growing up as an immigrant in the USA. And repeatedly we're reminded that the author is an outsider wherever he is - the names he's called, the way he's charged the extra "foreigner" fee throughout Vietnam, the way he spends most of his trip ill because his body is not used to the microorganisms in the food he's eating. We're reminded again and again that it doesn't matter if you know the language, have an understanding of the culture, were actually born and have family in that location... if you leave, when you return you will be different from everyone who stayed.

I think the fact that our author feels like an outsider makes him a better writer. He's able to notice and record all sorts of interesting details that probably wouldn't be noteworthy to someone surrounded by them on a daily basis. I think this holds true for the memoir part of the book as well - he's able to bring a more nuanced perspective to his memories because he can look at them through multiple lenses - as an American, as a Vietnamese.

Some of this book is rather dismal. Pham doesn't paint the most flattering picture of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people. As an outsider who can't really judge how accurate this is, I'm going to give him credit for not sugar-coating his impressions. And the book does end on a hopeful note, with a suggestion that he did learn something important from the whole ordeal.

Final verdict: I'd love to spend time in Vietnam, but after reading this book, I know I won't be doing it solo on a bicycle. I might even want to stick to the more touristy places. But I'm glad Pham did it, and wrote a book about it, so I can have a glimpse, through his eyes, of what it was like.

Having just finished this books a few minutes ago, I was reluctant to admit that I had reached the end. Andrew X. Pham is a brilliantly gifted author; the history of his country, his family's journey, and his own personal adventures are woven together in an intriguing and flawless manner. I found myself captivated not only by Pham's honest descriptions and inner dialogues, but by his emotionally charged and philosophical testimonies of being a Vietnamese immigrant in America and, upon his return to Vietnam, a loved and hated "Viet Kieu." A memoir, a historical account, a study of social behavior (both American and Vietnamese)... Catfish and Mandala is a book of many depths and a journey in and of itself that I highly recommend.

Many people, especially in their 20s, embark on long treks across various regions of the world in search of something.... adventure? home? revelation? identity? In the case of Andrew Pham, his trip by bicycle across Vietnam involves all of the above. His family escaped from Vietnam on a rickety boat after the fall of Saigon, and, after several years in a refugee camp in Indonesia, immigrated to the United States. Twenty-odd years later, Andrew returns to Vietnam, now an adult on his own and as not only a Vietnamese but a Vietnamese-American. They hyphen between those two identities is the axis on which much of his journey of self-discovery turns. What makes this book so powerful is that we are not reading the account of a developing country by a completely removed outsider. Instead, Andrew weaves his own family's traumatic past in with his current adventures. As he comments on himself, he is both insider and outsider.

I really appreciated his descriptions of the clash of his American "wealth" as it stands in stark contrast to the poverty of most of Vietnam. He openly talks about his discomforts, his confusions, his exasperations, his hopes, his disappointments... everything. We realize as his trip progresses and the story of his family's life unfolds, that there is a deep well of pain not only inside of him but perhaps inside of Vietnam's national identity as a whole that aches to be healed.

Also, Pham's writing is fantastic. It is rich in descriptive imagery, and he takes the use of active verbs to an entirely new level. I want to pull some of his paragraphs to use with my seniors next fall when I am teaching them how to use active verbs effectively in their college essays. I'll leave you with a taste: "After Nha Trang, the land dries up. The sky hurts with a whispering blue. The air chafes, a marine tinge, rough on its hot grainy edge. Down by the strung-out coast, the sea lies open, three shades deeper than the bright above. The road is black and broad, curving round sandstone mountains and cutting straight through the flat beige stretches. Suong rong -- dragon bones, squatty Vietnamese cacti -- cast the vast empty into a shallow prickly graveyard. They say dragons came here to die. The land scorched itself in sorrow over the great beasts' passing" (p. 335).

I don't understand why the author made his journey. He didn't seem happy about any part of it. He certainly didn't make me want to visit Vietnam, which is too bad because I enjoyed it when I did visit. I have his other book about his Dad but I'm not sure I want to read it given how negative this book was.

Andrew Pham has written an intensely honest book about his life in both Vietnam where he was born, and in the United States of America to where he and his family migrated to in the 1980s. Having graduated and worked as an engineer he decides to leave everything behind and commence a bicycle trip on the west coast of USA and from there fly to Asia, and then to Vietnam and travel the length of his country of origin on his bike. He relies on his personal skills to survive with little money, but it is not an easy trip. He encounters many difficulties and setbacks and this provides the framework for weaving together through flashback and circumstances the life of his family during the downfall of South Vietnam, the experiences of living within the Communist regime, and escaping as boat people and finally migrating. The book provides a great insight as to how difficult it is for a family to migrate and try to integrate into a totally foreign environment. There are some successes, numerous failures and at times a great sadness. A worthwhile read.

This was another book I read to prepare for my trip to Vietnam. I don't think my experience will be anything like Pham's since he is a Viet-kieu (a Vietnamese who lives in the United States) and I am a white American. Also I don't plan to ride a bike from Hanoi south.

However, this book did make me think about the tourist experience. Of course, I bring my own biases to my trip. So I need to stay aware of those biases and try not to let them influence my views of the Vietnamese people too much. I want to be open to the culture and peoples of Vietnam.

Pham, even though he was born in South Vietnam, brought his own life experiences with him. His description of some of the food and his reactions to the poverty and dirt sound American to me. I hope that my stomach does not have the same reaction to the food as Pham's did. I don't want to gain weight, but I don't want to lose a lot because of stomach distress.

All in all, this was a good read: well written, interesting and insightful. I am glad that I encountered Pham, his family and learned a bit about Vietnam in the process.

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!

We have a lot of work to do on race in America. I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but as a white-as-you-can-get-without-bleach American I have to at least show up to read books like these. Because Americans of color and other ethnicities have to live through the brutality of it every day of their lives.

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.

Words cannot describe how much I hated this book. It is a shame, because Andrew Pham is a talented writer who has an eloquent way with words. However, is tendency to concentrate on the sordid, seedy side of life, seeing only the bad and little of the good, made for a dark and depressing read that was difficult to complete. I recognize that he had some difficult and painful experiences in life, but who doesn't. His knack for focusing on the dismal side of human existence was most disappointing in my opinion.