Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

This chapter describes life at the refugee center in Indonesia, where Pham’s family ended up after their rescue at sea. They lived in a compound that was really a prison for low-level criminals and those awaiting deportation. They stayed there for 18 months, with the entire family living in a room 14 by 25 feet. At first, they shared it with a couple in their 30s from Hong Kong, who were nice to the kids, giving them candy and toys. Pham’s mother liked them because they had passes to visit the nearby town and agreed to shop there for food for the family. One day they offered to take Chi and Pham’s young aunt, Dung, into town for dinner and a movie. However, their real motive was to bring them to a brothel in the seedy part of town. They tried to encourage the girls to go with men, saying they could make a lot of money, but Dung grabbed Chi’s hand and ran out. After that, Pham and his brothers sought their revenge, doing things like leaving cockroaches in the couple’s bed and scraps of food in their dresser drawers to attract fire ants. Soon afterward, the other couple moved to another room.

The process for going to America took a long time, and Pham found life in the compound boring. He and his two brothers each found a kind of “big brother” there to hang out with. Pham’s was Wong, a Chinese man in his 40s who kept to himself. He was a tall, gentle man who worked cutting jade. Wong was fluent in four languages and told Pham Chinese folk tales as he worked. He had been there 12 years because the government rejected all his petitions for release. One day, Wong cracked. He went berserk in his small room, destroying everything. The guards came and beat him, but he fought through them. In the courtyard, other guards finally corralled him into a tower and locked the door. He scaled the wall, broke through the roof, and threw down all the roof tiles as he tore them up. When there was nothing left to throw, he jumped. 

Before leaving the beach house in Vung Tau to cycle north, Pham wants to visit the Minh Luong Prison where his father’s imprisonment took place after the war. He takes a minivan back to Saigon, where he catches a bus for Rach Gia, the closest city to the prison. He explains that many buses, like this one, are privately owned, with a crew consisting of the owner, the driver, a mechanic, and a bag man to hail passengers from the side of the road and collect their luggage. Produce, goods for the market, and livestock are all welcome on the bus. When they learn he is a Viet-kieu, he’s invited to sit at the front, in the best seat that offers a good view and more leg room. Just before they leave, two men board. The owner, whom Pham refers to as “Madame,” looks unhappy and does not collect fare from them.

As they make their way out of the city, the police pull the bus over on two separate occasions, both for bribe money which the bag man discreetly gives them. Once they get underway, the two men who boarded last minute start in with a sales pitch for pills. One pulls a bullhorn out of his bag and barks out a speech, touting the pills as a cure for everything from headaches to cancer. They go up and down the aisle dispensing pills and collecting money. When Pham politely declines, the man takes offense when Pham declines. The man sees this as disrespectful. Pham moves to defend himself, but Madame jumps in to say that Pham is her cousin, and she buys some pills for him. The seller then tells the driver to stop, and he and his friend get out. Pham learns that they are part of a local gang who perform this kind of shakedown on passengers, and the bus owners are powerless to stop them if they don’t want trouble.

Four hours later, the bus makes a long stop for lunch, apparently a deal between the two businesses (Pham sees the restaurant owner give Madame money when they leave). In the late afternoon, they reach the town of Chau Doc, where they will stay the night before traveling on. Other passengers sleep on the bus, but Pham goes into town to find an inn. The next morning, Pham is back at the bus by 4 am. This time he sits in the back, telling the driver only half-jokingly that his driving scares him.

At one of the roadside stops, 10 Vietnamese board, one of whom sits next to Pham. At first glance, they look fat, but their bulk actually comes from items stuffed under their clothes. When the bus has to stop for a checkpoint, the men get up and shake out cartons of cigarettes they are smuggling in their clothes. They distribute them to other passengers to hold since there is a legal limit of one per person. Madame comes and gives Pham four cartons, assuring him it’s fine. A cop boards and comes across a duffel of cartons. He asks who they belong to. Nobody answers, so he just takes it and leaves. Pham asks Madame why he didn’t search more, and she replies that if they’re too thorough no one will risk smuggling anymore, depriving them of their free cigarettes.

At noon, they arrive in Rach Gia, where Pham gets a room in a fleabag hotel. The next morning, he hires a motorbike driver for the day to take him to Minh Luong Prison. En route, the driver tells Pham he worked there when it was a Nationalist garrison. The day he had leave to visit his family, the Viet Cong attacked and killed everyone. The Viet Cong jailed him, and he spent two years in a re-education camp. When he got out, he couldn’t find a job because he had been a soldier for South Vietnam. All he can do now is be a motorbike driver.

Pham doesn’t recognize anything of the prison or surrounding village, and he has the driver circle it and approach from different angles, hoping to catch a glimpse of something familiar. Despite the presence of armed guards at the prison compound, Pham takes out his camera to take pictures. The driver goes crazy, screaming, “You want to get me killed? They’ll jail and beat us both. What are you thinking?” (161). He grabs the camera and shoves it in his pocket. Pham apologizes, and they go have lunch. The driver tells him to forget about that place and go see the world because there’s nothing there for him. 

This chapter continues the story of Pham’s journey with his family to America. He begins with an anecdote about how his Grandpa Pham and the grandfather’s friend, two opium addicts, would chat and smoke together when Pham was a boy. They would discuss the war and how they missed their hometown of Hanoi before slipping off into a hazy bliss. Pham’s job was to then remove the oil lamp so they wouldn’t accidentally knock it over in their slumber.

Pham’s family was in Shreveport, Louisiana when they received word that Grandpa Pham had died. The Baptist Church there had sponsored them as refugees, found Pham’s father a job, and helped them get an apartment. It was there that they received word about Pham’s grandfather. Pham’s mother immediately set up an altar with Grandpa Pham’s picture so they could give him a proper send off. It was a difficult beginning to their life in a new country. The kids went only to school, church, or church-related events. Pham’s father worked as a janitor and his mother was lonely.

When Christmas came, though, their mood lifted as the community really opened up to show their hospitality. So many people came with gifts that the pile started to dwarf their Christmas tree. On Christmas Day, the family tried cooking an American dinner with the turkey they received. It didn’t work out so well, resulting in an undercooked bird basted in soy and fish sauces. Pham’s father made them eat it, angrily telling them to be happy they had anything to eat at all.

Soon the minister at the church inquired about baptizing them and they agreed. On the occasion, they were all brought up to the altar and dunked in water; afterward, each family member received a Bible. Pham was excited because he thought it made them American, and, in the Christian tradition, God forgave all one’s sins if you asked. He hoped that his Buddhist grandfather, looking down on them, wouldn’t be too angry; they really did it just to be polite. But he knew that his grandfather’s anger lived on in his father. As if to prove this, Pham’s father became angry and beat him not long afterward. Pham had stayed to watch TV when the other kids helped bring in groceries. Thong yelled that he worked hard to feed the family, yet Pham was too lazy to bring in his own food. At some point, something hardened in Pham, and he stood up to face the blows, staring at his father in anger until the latter tired and stopped. Pham’s father never beat him again after that, but his father’s violent anger affected Pham deeply. 

Pham returns to his cycling trip in this chapter, recounting his departure from Vung Tau after returning from his visit to Minh Luong. Leaving before dawn, he heads to his birthplace of Phan Thiet. In the morning, commuters clog the road, and in the afternoon, he meets throngs of schoolchildren returning from school. As dusk falls, there’s nowhere to camp because all the land’s been carved up into farms, so he pushes on and arrives in Ham Tan village after dark. He finds a small inn where he pays for a partitioned cubicle to spend the night.

Looking for dinner, Pham finds a small, rough diner across the street. When he enters, everyone stops talking and stares, among them a table full of drunken men. He sits toward the back by the kitchen. One of the men asks how he can speak Vietnamese so well, and he replies that he is from Vietnam. The man doesn’t believe him and asks him where his hometown is. When Pham replies, the man says he didn’t pronounce the name like a local. Pham explains he has lived in America a long time, so his language skills are rusty. The man says he’s lying, that he’s Korean or something. Pham again insists he is Vietnamese, and the man explodes, “Brother, you call me stupid?” (174). He yells that he knows a thing or two, getting his comrades all riled up in the process. Pham, seeing their outrage, relents, and says he was joking. He asks forgiveness and admits that he really is Korean.

The waitress then brings out dishes he hasn’t ordered. She silences the drunken men by saying, “Let a man eat. Remember your manners” (176). Pham eats silently, but he can see them talking and gesturing to each other and grows afraid that they are planning to jump him later. When the news comes on the TV and momentarily distracts everyone, he takes the opportunity to dash into the kitchen. He hands the waitress a large bill, heads out the back door, and runs back to the inn. The owner, who’s sitting outside with a friend, greets him. The friend asks Pham why he is running. Suddenly, the waitress appears and hands Pham the change he is due, although he hadn’t expected any. She explains what happened, and the owner tells Pham to get inside. With the men from the restaurant arrive, the owner summons his sons and servants, who all come out with machetes. They scare off the men, and someone goes for the police. Pham is grateful for the owner’s help but hardly sleeps at all that night. 

The next morning, Pham leaves early without breakfast, hoping to avoid meeting up with any of the previous night’s mob. On the road, he meets young women going to market and lots of children headed to school. They ride their bikes alongside him and shout questions. A scrap-metal collector he meets tells him the countryside is teeming with kids because the government encouraged large families after the war to make up for all those killed.

When he reaches Phan Thiet, he recognizes one of his old schools but little else. The next morning, he goes in search of his childhood home and finds that it’s now a motorcycle repair shop. He talks to the owner, explaining his connection to the place, and the man gives him a tour of the back yard and the bedroom behind the shop. The room still has the same divan where Pham slept as a boy and where his father beat Chi. He thinks how, by just a quirk of fate, he is the one who escaped, and the man stayed behind.

Back outside, he goes in search of his grandmother’s house. He finds the right location but cannot find the house. A neighbor notices him pacing up and down the street and asks him what he is looking for. He introduces himself, and she cries out that she knew his grandmother and remembers him as a boy. Her name is Mrs. Sau-Quang, and she invites him inside for tea, introducing him to her family. After a short time, she walks him outside to show him his grandmother’s house; it has changed so much he hardly recognizes it. She takes him to meet the current owner, who invites them inside for a tour. Pham is especially disappointed that his favorite tree out back has nearly died and won’t last much longer. He thanks them and returns to his hotel, wondering, “Where is this place I am seeking? There is only ash” (183).

The next morning, a messenger sent by Mrs. Sau-Quang comes to get him. She has located Pham’s old nanny, Su, and he goes off to meet her. After his family left, she moved to the countryside to farm and had 10 kids, eight of whom survived. Talk turns to Pham’s sister Chi, and Su asks if she is married and has any children. Pham tells her she passed away in an accident. He thinks of it that way, in a sense. A friend of the family, an old man, once told Pham that she died because she became too American, too focused on herself rather than her parents. In the Vietnamese tradition, parents bring children into the world, so children should repay them with filial loyalty and sacrifice their own desires for their parents’.

For the next four days, Pham is sick and feverish, getting out of bed only to eat. Finally, he drags himself up to continue north on the fifth day. The ride and fresh air rejuvenate him a bit. Along the beach, he passes an expensive new resort built for foreign tourists, separated from the poverty of the locals by a chain-link fence—a sign of the changing times. Looking for a place to camp along the beach, he finds a small café behind some dunes and sleeps in one its hammocks.