70 pages • 2 hours read
Andrew X. PhamCatfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 14-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary: “Alley-World”
Pham writes in this chapter about returning to his old neighborhood in Saigon. He says that every morning during his visit with his family, Granduncle brings him a freshly prepared cup of Vietnamese coffee. He knows it is a luxury they can ill afford and feels guilty when he dumps it in the toilet because it is too sweet for him to drink. Instead, he gets some tea and climbs up on the roof. Looking down into the alley, the view reminds him of his childhood room at home in Saigon. It was a tiny space, six by eight feet, built into the landing between floors. He writes, “From the windowsill, my favorite reading spot, I watched, smelled, and listened to the alley-world outside” (95).
Pham’s parents didn’t allow him to play outside, so he spent all his time watching the alley from his room. His parents sometimes locked him in the house when they went away on business trips. He had a friend who lived in the house behind theirs and, as they were both kept inside, they would talk to each other from their doorways. She would turn on the TV in her house, and together they would watch cartoons—Pham with the help of binoculars. After the North Vietnamese won the war, Pham’s siblings lived with relatives in the countryside, and only he stayed at home with his mother. When she was away visiting Pham’s father in prison or petitioning officials in another city, she would cook a catfish for him before leaving and lock him inside with instructions on how to make it last until she got back.
One day during his stay in Saigon, Pham rides his bike out to his old neighborhood. He finds the building that used to be his family’s house, which is now a health clinic. The nurse gives him a brief tour, and then he roams on his own. When the other staff and patients stare at him, he begins to feel foolish, not knowing what he was looking for other than some easy and unrealistic “Hollywood ending” (98).
Stepping back outside, he thinks back to the day before Saigon fell: He met a peasant woman there, hurrying to the harbor, who told him the Viet Cong were coming. While he stands there lost in his memories, a woman emerges from next door and asks what he is looking for. He replies that he used to live there, and she becomes excited, asking if he is “Uncle Pham’s son” (100). He doesn’t remember her, but she says his parents would. He asks if she would show him around the neighborhood, and she lets him lock his bike in her house while they walk around.
He learns that virtually everything he remembers is gone, and he wants to leave, but she he has him meet the people who live there now. They ask him lots of questions, and he begins to grow uneasy, feeling out of place. Telling them he has an appointment he needs to leave for, he returns to fetch his bike. As he unlocks it, the woman who showed him around stresses how poor they are and asks if he can help her. He makes excuses and hurries away, feeling like a stranger. He had hoped for a different experience and was disappointed to find the grubbiness and neediness of the people left in the neighborhood.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Beggar-Grace”
This chapter describes an incident with a beggar child that leaves the author emotionally raw. He begins by explaining that Saigon is a place more accurately felt than seen. He often lives “above the fray,” so to speak, watching from a distance, but this day broke through his defenses. Pham, Viet, and Viet’s nephew Nghia go to a café near a place called Turtle Fountain, where they drink fresh coconut juice. Sitting outside, they encounter several beggars who plead for handouts.
Pham explains that Saigon is full of beggars, of all ages and various physical maladies. His family discourages him from giving them anything. The previous week, he was with Grandaunt at her stall in the market. A young girl leading her blind mother approached them, and Pham wanted to give her the pennies he had in his pocket. Grandaunt intervened, telling the girl, “He’s family, little one” (106). The girl moved on, abiding by the unspoken rule that beggars were not to accost the market vendors.
Half a dozen beggars approach Pham, Viet, and Nghia while the trio drinks from their coconuts at the café, before a young girl arrives. She is probably younger than 10 and holds a baby in a sling around her chest. Pham immediately notes her resemblance to Trieu, the ex-girlfriend he once thought he would marry. By a fluke of fate, Trieu could have been this beggar child—or, for that matter, so could he, but for his parents having some money. He considers life’s randomness and wants to help her; he thinks he could become something like a godfather, sending her money for food and school. Viet sees him watching her and shakes his head to discourage him, waving the girl away. She meekly asks if she can have their coconuts, and Viet grudgingly agrees. She takes one in each hand and goes to sit some distance away, tilting and scraping them for a few drops of juice before leaving.
After a few minutes, Pham gets up. Viet asks where he is going, but he ignores him, jumps on his bike, and goes off to look for the girl. When he finds her, he gives her all the money he has (not much to him but a lot to her) and tells her to get something to eat for herself and the baby. She is both wary and very grateful, putting the money in her pocket and thanking him profusely. She crosses the street, then turns to wave goodbye. Immediately, Pham’s good feeling disappears, and he realizes the foolishness of his actions. It was all to assuage his own conscience, and with such a windfall, the girl’s parents will only send her back to the streets to try to duplicate such good fortune. Feeling raw, he gets back on his bike and pedals recklessly through traffic until he can go no farther.
He returns to Viet and Nghia, and they all go home. There he loses control of his emotions and weeps uncontrollably. Unable to face his family, he turns to the wall to cry. They bring him some eye drops, murmuring that he must have gotten dust in his eyes, and then they scatter to leave him alone. He is grateful for their tact, for not making him feel ashamed or putting him on the spot. During his visit, they never speak of Chi’s suicide, and he cries for her as much as for himself. Of his relatives, he writes, “These wonderful, generous people, they gave me face when I deserved none” (110). When he calms down, he takes a bath before leaving alone for a bar. He decides that the next day he will leave for Hanoi.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Fallen-Leaves”
Back in the early years of the war, Pham’s mother met a friend at a café in Saigon for tea and ice cream. They talked about whether to leave Vietnam. Anh’s friend said she was going to Paris and Anh should too, but his mother replied they had too much there and would stay. Afterward, Anh went looking for her young son in the adjacent park where he was playing. He had dropped his ice cream and was upset until something else caught his attention. He squirmed to the edge of the crowd, smelling gasoline fumes and feeling heat. There he saw flames flicking about the darkened figure of a person: “A Buddhist monk aflame. His last sacrifice” (112).
Chapter 17 Summary: “Hope-Adrift”
This chapter picks up where Chapter 13 left off, with Pham’s family in the open sea, fleeing Vietnam, with a freighter approaching. The only thing they had to disguise them was the homemade Japanese flag flying on their boat. The freighter got closer before it veered away, and they all cheered with relief. That night, the sea grew more unruly, and the second day dawned cloudy. Some of the crew were wasting the supply of fresh drinking water by rinsing their cups with it and using it to wash their faces. Pham’s father argued with them, but Tai, the captain, did nothing. The sea swelled into 10-foot waves, occasionally breaking over the boat, and they spotted sharks.
As the sun got lower in the sky, flying fish went airborne around them. Dolphins jumped alongside them, which the crew took as a good sign. They relaxed and bit and ate the last of their food, which was supposed to last a week. Pham’s father argued with them again, this time more forcefully. Then they spotted a gleaming white ship and turned to race after it. Everyone was jubilant when they learned it was a French ship. Pham’s father signaled SOS with his flashlight as they got closer, but the ship seemed to be speeding up and passing them by. Pham’s father told Tai to steer directly for the ship’s path, forcing it to stop. Tai did but at the last minute had to cut the engines to prevent a collision. The white ship passed on despite their screams and the Morse code messages Pham’s father frantically flashed. Pham saw an officer on deck and people in the portholes watching them, doing nothing. Tai then had to steer the boat directly into the ship’s huge wake to avoid capsizing.
On the third day, they were down to two gallons of fresh water and a couple of instant noodle packs. The weather was still poor, with dark clouds looming. The crew wanted to head for Thailand, instead of Malaysia as planned, but Pham’s mother put her foot down. She insisted it was her boat since she had paid for it, and none of them would get the second half of their pay unless they obeyed her. That ended the discussion. To make matters worse, they learned they were taking on water. The rough sea took a toll on the boat, and diving into the wake of the French ship the night before had pounded the seams. The crew bailed as fast as they could from below deck, and Pham’s family threw many items overboard to lighten the load. As evening approached, everyone was glum; there was even talk that the boat might not last through the night.
Just then another ship appeared on the horizon, and they raced toward it as fast as the boat would go. Soon they could see it was an Indonesian freighter, and Pham’s father flashed signals with his flashlight. The ship slowed and sent signals in return. The crew was offering them refuge. The ship lowered a rope ladder and Tai maneuvered their small boat closer in the rough sea. The waves smacked their boat against the huge ship, with only some rubber tires offering a thin buffer. Up the ladder they went, one by one, women and children first. Pham went up holding on to Tai, but both were exhausted. Pham’s arms began slipping off Tai’s neck. As Tai reached back for him, the ladder twisted, and Pham fell. But a sailor on deck had reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, and someone else pulled him up. All safely aboard, they watched as their boat soon sank. Pham writes, “We prayed, thanking God, Buddha, and our dead ancestors for our deliverance” (121).
Chapters 14-17 Analysis
Chapter 14 gives a look at how expectations contrast with the reality of Pham’s Vietnam trip. When arriving in Saigon, he writes, “I’ve come for my memories. Give me reconciliation” (62). He soon learns, however, that memories are all he has. When he visits his family’s old home in the city, very little remains of the places he remembers from the neighborhood. His status as a Vietnamese living abroad also adds to his identity crisis. People he doesn’t know look for handouts, assuming that he is rich. It puts a barrier between him and his fellow Vietnamese and underscores his position as someone caught between two countries and cultures: He’s not fully accepted as an American in the US, but neither is he fully accepted as Vietnamese in Vietnam.
The theme of random fate arises in these chapters. Chapter 15 describes Pham’s encounter with the beggar girl who reminds him of his former girlfriend, and he sees their lives as nearly mirror images. Fate could have led to their swapping places, which causes Pham anguish because he can’t grasp the fairness of randomness. Likewise, Chapter 17 details his family’s rescue at sea after they escaped from Vietnam. The fishing boat they set out in was in rough shape and began taking on water. A French ship had already passed them by when an Indonesian freighter appeared and took them aboard. Even then, Pham nearly fell into the ocean when going up the ladder, saved only by an Indonesian sailor who reached down at just the right moment. All these instances could have had different—and tragic—results.
Chapter 16 describes a time Pham’s mother met with a friend in a Saigon café while he played in a nearby park. He writes that a crowd gathered and when he went to investigate, he saw a burning Buddhist monk. This would place the time in the early 1960s during a campaign by Buddhists to protest the government’s oppression. In June of that year, a Buddhist monk committed suicide by dousing himself with gasoline and lighting himself on fire. This act caught the attention of the world when Malcolm Browne of the Associated Press captured a series of images that became one of the decade’s most significant events. The inclusion here underscores the historic context of Saigon’s fall and Pham’s place within that history.
