Catfish and Mandala Essay

Andrew Pham, author of spoonbill catfish and Mandala, is on a jaunt of self-exploration. Family dysfunction, the hallucinatingusions of the past, and the inability to sustain forward and induce meaning to life when victuals between deuce grows, ar all catalysts for Pham return Vietnam. Contrary to being welcomed with give way arms, Andrew is referred to as Viet-kieu when he is in Vietnam, a derogatory circumstance meaning Vietnamese-American. Vietnamese people feel that the Viet-kieu abandoned everything about their culture when transplanted to America. This is an additional layer to the struggles Andrew faces. Andrews life is fractured into many pieces. His family is plagued with deep-seated dislike and trauma that developed long before his birth.From the abuse his get under ones skin endured as a child and then transferred to his avouch children, the family decay after the Vietnam War, and the duty period of his family to America, Andrew has no sense of identity. An drew is troubled with the duality of being Vietnamese and American and feels if he returns to Vietnam he will find meaning for his life. He does not assimilate to either culture and his anxiety grows as he tries to find a place to belong. Pham reminisces on his childhood, and includes deep memories of his other family members as well.The fella in his family stems from the personal abuse and inability for the entire family to go the two cultures and adapt together. The damage from the violence moves like a virus done the family, branching off and taking victim after victim. Chi-Minh, Andrews transsexual(prenominal) brother, cannot rise above the hardship and kills himself. Through out the book, Andrew goes underpin and out giving the reader insight into Chi-Minh conflicts. Andrew never moves past Chi-Minhs expiration and writes about his last moments with his brother, It was my season of unraveling. And his as well. I couldnt toy with all, what he give tongue to. Nor what I said. Maybe he wished Id said something. And I him. Perhaps we should have sh ared our troubled hearts. But in the end My long-staying memory I heard only the wavering discernment in his voice (334). Pham regrets not being able to open his heart to Chi-Minh, and overcome the worked up disconnect of the Vietnamese culture.Chi-Minh struggles to maintain a healthy existence and find life meaning. Sex change aside, Andrew blames the Vietnam War, family dysfunction and abuse, and a forced move to America as reasons for Chi-Minhs scam life and suicide. He draws parallels between his own struggles and Chi-Minhs inability to render a life in America. The trauma of Chi-Minhs death is an horny vehicle for Andrews oscillation travel to Vietnam. As Children, Andrew and Chi were viciously beaten by their father. Even as a teenager, Chi survived a dreadful caning that resulted in her running away. Later, Andrews father recants his innervation and wishes he could have been more like an American father because They greet how to cherish their children (320). Andrew watches his own father struggle with being Vietnamese in an American society.He was use to a father who had a excerption instinct and refused victimization (321). His brothers are homosexual, this is a point of embarrassment for Andrews father. Andrew tries to develop how they are successful and happy, but the definition of successful and happy are vastly different in the two countries, with his father being nonmodern (321). Andrew realizes his entire family has trouble converging Vietnamese and American cultures and he is not the only victim of the abusive and dysfunctional life. In his preparation to bike across Vietnam and absorb the country that he believes keeps the roots of his existence he is unaware of the drastic changes since the Vietnam War. Andrew remembers Vietnam by means of the eyes of a child and the memories are mostly happy and quite biased. Phams illusion of the past leads him to a n emotional awakening while traveling and he compares current-day Vietnam to a prostitute. Vietnam has been reduced to privation in most places.Andrew remarks, Saigon was thick with almsfolk, every market, every street corner, maggoty with misshapen men and women hawking their open sores and puss-yellow faces for pennies (106). Although his description is putrid, Andrew weeps for the poor. Having sympathy for the necessitous is an American way of thinking, and this is a point of shame for his family that he be with in Vietnam. Crying is seen as weakness in men. The reader sees the congenital struggle that continues as Andrew tries to be Vietnamese or to be American. Andrew is repulsed by the cold hearts of his Vietnamese family members, and then penitent for having ill feelings against his family. Andrew believed he would find his identity with the Vietnamese people and his life would move forward with strong meaning and purpose. Andrew goes through life quick for his parents, living for the happiness of others, and in this neglects to find his true self. Before his ride to Vietnam, he rode to Mexico, then through the coast of America, and through Japan for 45 days.His physical journey mimics his stagnant and redundant state. He was wandering, living a sounding life. Andrew held the stress of the first-born son, to make his parents proud. He became an engineer, just as his mother told him he would do when he was four. He acted the role of the Good Oriental employee (25). Andrew recalls, My father said Good to me twice in my life. I showed him the glowing congratulatory letter from the national honor societyand for landing a cushy engineering post at a major airline (24-25). As he travels, Andrew speaks as an American, and as a Vietnamese man.Chapter two begins with Andrew stating that he is Vietnamese-American (10). He lists out his likes and dislikes, implying that he has a strong sense of self. The reader soon finds out this is superficial. Andrew pr oclaims all of this to set up where he is instantaneouslyadays and gives a brief family history of the stark difference of where he came from. When he arrives to Vietnam, he is ready to embrace the culture and be Vietnamese.On the unconditional Andrew is divided by his feelings toward the Vietnamese as they fight for toys that have spilled, subdue by the Vietnameses behavior and equally dismayed that I feel an obligatory connection to them, I sink deeper in to my seat, resentful, ashamed of their incivility (64). This is the beginning of the conflict Andrew faces about being American moreover being from Vietnam. Instead of finding his way, his identity, value for his life, he is engorged with a larger paradox of emotion. Who is Andrew X. Pham? This is the question that Catfish and Mandala tries to answer by development memories and events of the past and journey of the present. A chasm opened in his family when they all integrate into American culture through very unique ways .The family inadvertently makes the journey of self-exploration difficult for each other, with Chi-Minhs being virtually impossible. Abusive handling of the children acts as a symptom of the disorder and illusion of self through out the entire family. Andrew writes his memoirs in a rhythmic motion swaying back and forth through past and present, in hopes of finding who he is to be in the future. Andrew is torn between being Vietnamese in America, and American in Vietnam. He is afflicted with living a placid half-life, never socially accepted by either society, and forced to carve his own path and make his own statement of self. From Vietnamese immigrant, to respected engineer, and now famous author and food critic, Andrew has found a way to merge the Vietnamese andAmerican cultures to fit the mold of Andrew X. Pham, the Original.Works Cited PagePham, Andrew X. Catfish and Mandala. New York Farrar, Stratus and G, 1999. Print.