Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam
If I knew then what I knew now, I probably would have never written this book which brought my parents considerable pain and created a silence between us that lasted years.
Burdened with the guilt of their hurt and shame, I roamed the country. I decided that I would never write about family or Vietnam again.
I turned my back on academic work, publishing opportunities, and a movie contract. I refused to promote this book, hoping that it would simply fade away. I freely squandered the royalties and prizes I won from this book, feeling that it was bad karma, earnings made on the shoulders and hearts of others.
Over time, letters from readers have alleviated my sense of guilt somewhat and made me feel that, perhaps, all those years of sacrifices and hard work have not been entirely in vain and that, perhaps, my words have helped some people.
During the next two years, I backpacked around Southeast Asia, leading a nomadic existence, camping on beautiful islands, renting palm bungalows, riding a bicycle. And I wrote A Theory of Flight: Recollections, a non-fiction collection of essays about life, love, loss, flight, and travel. The word “Vietnam” is not used anywhere in the text. It is a work free of war, race, country, identity, and family. In my mind and in my heart, this is and will forever be my best and purest work–and as such, I could not bear the thought of having others re-shape it or of signing the rights over to some faceless publisher, so I will be self-publishing this collection.
Years of traveling and living in Southeast Asia among ordinary folks in the manners and conditions of their lives gave me a fresh view of life and writing. I came to understand and accept that I must continue to write about the things that move me, about the important, undocumented things that would be lost without my efforts.
In hindsight, this was the only road I could have taken to arrive at the place where I could write about my father’s life.
This work began as an essay about the games my father had played in the countryside as a child. It only became a book through his generosity, dedication, and good intentions.
It started with a question I emailed to my father about a game I saw Cambodian children playing on a riverbank. I wanted to know if he had played something similar as a boy.
It opened a door. We spent four years emailing and talking to each other, often daily. At final count, our digital missives, when printed, numbered over a thousand five hundred pages. I spent about a hundred twenty days visiting and interviewing him. I needed to know everything, from what he wore as a child (whether his boyhood shorts had pockets or not) to the scents of the city at the moment his teenage heart broke.
This was our cathartic endeavor, a way to mend the rift that my first book created between us. It was not an easy project. Often, I was glad that we worked on different continents with an ocean between us.
This turned out to be a highly technical work, involving multiple layers of narrative. I could not find anything previously published that could be used as a model for this book. The issues I had to consider included narrative ethics (using the first person in what is essentially a third person narrative), biographical vs. memoir perspectives, choices about what to disclose and what to leave out, and how I, the writer, could respect the wishes of the narrator (my father) without violating the reader’s trust, and how to adopt his voice while suppressing my own. These issues, among other things such as historical accuracy and the sheer pomposity of speaking in my father’s voice, plagued me during the first two years of writing. I threw away many, many pages and faced despair more times than I care to remember.
It was an an uphill battle all the way. I fought my own demons as well as my father’s incessant doubts and misgivings about my less than perfect pages. All throughout the years of work, the multiple drafts, he did not believe that the book could be interesting to anyone and was not shy about telling me this directly and repeatedly. I explained that it was necessary to the view the painting as a whole before judging its individual components. Unfortunately, he could not see the forest for the trees, as it were, and the collaboration was at times trying for him. It was only when the book, shipped fresh from the printing press, arrived in his hands and he sat down to read it cover to cover, that he could finally see and appreciate the book as a whole sculpted work. He understood what I was so desperately attempting in spite of his protests.
He said, “You did a good job. I’m proud of what we have done.”
I had just turned forty and this was the most valuable thing my father had ever said to me. These few, simple words surprised me, reverberating far back into my childhood to the first time he looked at my prize-winning ink drawing with stern disapproval and said that artists suffer all their lives only to die broke. I knew he had always been and would always be disappointed in my career choice and my chosen direction in life.
It’s incomprehensible why grown men standing at the halfway mark of their lives still subconsciously crave the validation and approval of their fathers.
The Eaves of Heaven was my father’s story, narrated from his perspective, in his voice. I told the things he wanted to reveal, in the way he wanted them to be seen. His primary fault was a tendency to omit in favor of humility or shame, certainly, not to fabricate. He had the final decision on what I wrote. It was his life and, without this concession, I would have neither his permission nor his cooperation. Moreover, few men would want to be in the unenviable position of publicly judging his own father.
I thank my father for everything, for his trust, for this opportunity to know him.
This work, the distillation of years of collaboration, has been my greatest pleasure and honor.
Since its publication, I’ve received several biography/memoir offers, but I declined them all. I don’t imagine I could endure the another round of torture like what I went through with my father. My life is finite. I’m not in the word business for money. Very few writers are. I’m a slow writer. I eat faster than I write. I grow hungrier by the word.
During the final draft of The Eaves of Heaven, my editor John Glusman approached me for advice on the diary of Dr. Dang Thuy Tram. He asked for a sample translation of some of the diary’s entries. As John is a friend and a brilliant editor, I obliged him and recruited my father’s help. Tram was from my father’s era. In fact, her family home in Hanoi was located a few city blocks from his. He understood her references and usage of colloquial northern Viet.
After I had submitted our translation, John asked me why ours differed so much from the ones he received from other translators (I did not know it at the time, but he already had in his hands several completed translations of the diary as well as multiple sample translations from various authors).
We explained our word choices to John line by line. I also told him our step-by-step process.
For each diary entry, I made my own translation. My father made two translations: a verbatim version and an improved version, which was cleaner and more readable. I reviewed all three, mine and two of his. From this, I composed a poetic entry in the spirit of the author’s prose, taking liberal literary license where appropriate. That is, I gave her the prose which she would have written had she had the time and a little more training. After all, I felt that it was the least we could do for an unauthorized diary destined for posthumous publication. In fact, I felt absolutely (and still do) that it was the decent and honorable thing to do.
My father read my composite version and gave feedback. I re-wrote the translation and resent it to him for another reading. Both of us were perfectionists so we frequently went through several iterations for each diary entry.
When Random House and the Tram family offered us the translation, we initially turned it down simply because it was too much work and the deadline for completing our own book, The Eaves of Heaven, was quickly approaching.
We were neither academics nor professional translators. There was little to be gained.
My father pointed out that it was a thankless job. Surely, some people would criticize us for not giving a literal–and largely unreadable–translation. Others would criticize us for not taking enough artistic license and make the story more engaging–or perhaps, even worse, taking too much liberty with her words. And those who loved the diary would credit the author, certainly not us, the original translators who put so much skill and heart into the work. Moreover, we would not be credited when our version was used to translate the diary into other languages.
I asked my father if anyone else could or would give Thuy Tram’s diary the respect and the beauty it deserve, and he replied that he didn’t think so.
Both of us had wept when we read her diary, so silly as it sounds, we felt it was our duty.
Even though Random House and the Tram family were extremely generous with their compensation even by industry standards for top-notched translators, we knew that by the time we finished the project, we would be working at below minimum wage for the total time we invested in the project–simply because this was our first translation and we were perfectionists. By accepting this project, I also had to delay the publication of my own book by six months.
During the project, we had the assistance of Kim Tram, the author’s younger sister. She reviewed every sentence and scrutinized every word choice we made, on each draft, several times. We were very grateful for her help. Certainly, with her explicit approval on every entry we translated and on the book as a whole, we felt we had fulfilled our task to the best of our abilities.
After Last Night I Dreamed of Peace was published, I received three translation offers, none of which I considered because in my limited experience, if there were one profession less profitable than writing, it was translation.
It has been a great honor for us to contribute to the preservation of Dr. Thuy Tram’s diary and the memory of her life.
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is and will remain my only translation work.
An Interesting Story About the Translation:
In the summer of 2006, I had a sporting accident that tore the acl and meniscus in my right leg. My knee contracted a MSSA infection during reconstructive surgery, resulting in a 45-day stay in the hospital with a painful IV stuck in my arm and three additional surgeries. The physical therapy was hideously painful, worse than anything I could have ever imagined, and it lasted months.
During my 45-day treatment, I stayed in a two-beds patient room and had several interesting roommates. One old man was carted into my room in the middle of the night. He had IV drips, tubes, and electrodes all over his arms and chest. There was an oxygen mask on his face. They had cut a hole in his throat and he had difficulty breathing. Sometimes, the phlegm, saliva, or whatever fluid would build up in his throat and he would wheeze and gargled as though drowning. He was so drugged out that he did not wake up, but his body went into convulsions. I spent all my days and nights listening to him and paging the nurses to clear his airways.
In one lucid hour, he managed to scrawled out the email of his lawyer and the word “help”. I learned from the nurses that it was hospital policy that they would not operate without confirmation of funds sufficient to pay for services rendered. My roommate needed surgery a.s.a.p. or I would very soon see him carted off to the morge. I frantically crawled out of my bed on my one good leg, and in my hospital pajamas and crutches went searching for a computer with internet connection. A few emails and a day later, and everything was fine. Funds were transferred and confirmed. He was carted off to surgery, and his siblings were on their way to see him.
It turned out that he was the older brother of Lady Bolton, an American expat living in Vietnam. She told me she had helped Fred and Robert Whitehurst find the Tram family to return the diary of their deceased daughter.
She saw my name on my chart and in a leap of intuition asked me if I was the author of Catfish and Mandala. I did not wish to confirm this for I had left all that behind me. I had never once in four years introduced myself as an author since I landed in Asia. But it would have been unkind to deceive her, after all, I felt her brother and I had shared a sort of camaraderie in our dire convalescence.
When I admitted that I was the author, she claimed she was the person responsible for reuniting the Trams with the diary of their deceased daughter. She also mentioned that she had made a complete translation of the diary. I told her that my father and I had been asked to come on the project. When I asked her if the publisher knew of her translation, she said she did not think so as she had a misunderstanding with the Tram family.
At this point, I felt a physical and temporal dislocation. What were the chances of two translators of the same very rare work meeting like this? I told her that although we had just finished the first draft of the diary, I would happily defer to her version (even though I had not read it). I felt that she had more rights to it than I did. I gave her my editor’s contact and told her to send her translation to him (I did not want to see it or be involve). I told my agent and publisher that we would gladly release them from all contractual obligations and that they may publish Lady Borton’s translation with my blessings and without any compensation to me.
Lady Borton sent her translation to my editor with a generous proposal to allow them to pay me half of the translation fees (I did not ask for this) from the fees proposed for the translation if he opted to go with her translation instead of mine.
For reasons unexplained to me, my editor called back a week later and said that he, the publisher, and the Tram family were aware of Borton’s translation and had decided to wait for our translation.
I reluctantly agreed and said that they would have to give me an extra month to let me recover from all the surgeries and drugs pumped into my system. Oddly, the experience gave me a better understanding of pain, anger, fear, despair, doctor-patient dependency, and grief in the hospital ward. It made me a better translator for her diary.
As for my knee, after years of therapy and regular exercise, it is still painful and stiff. I could ride my bike and swim, but I couldn’t run, not even jog to catch the bus. It is a devastating thing for a life-long runner. But I keep hoping for medical breakthroughs and miracles, eagerly awaiting the day when meniscus replacement become affordable.
In the meantime, I am hard at work on the third and last book of my Vietnam trilogy,The Japanese Officer: An Indochine Love Story, an autobiographical novel based on my grandmother’s life.
I am also launching a publishing project on Kickstarter, titled A Culinary Odyssey: My Cookbook Diary of Travels, Flavors and Memories of Southeast Asia.
Thanks for reading. Hope it wasn’t too boring.
Cheers,
Andrew
Chao Andrew!
I have just returned from a 3 week trip through a very small part of that very long country, Vietnam! Against the advice of ‘lonely planet’ guidebook, I did peruse the offerings of a Saigon street-corner bookseller displaying pirated guidebooks and travelogues. Mostly because I had refused this same friendly woman for 3 days and I saw it as the only way of ‘supporting’ local sellers-of-allsorts; and a way of interacting somehow with local people (when I am unable to speak any Vietnamese). I was lucky enough to choose a copy (of a copy) of your book ‘Catfish and Mandala’ simply because it promised an account of a BICYCLE voyage by an Vietnamese-american!
Your personal journey, Vietnam adventures, and extremely intimate view of your family was my companion as I made my way through the country. Thank you so much for sharing such an amazing voyage. I enjoyed every aspect of your book, the richness of language, the people you introduced us to, the breadth of emotions through all the experiences you had, and page-turning events described with humour and pain.
I am a Chinese adoptee who grew up in fairly white NZ in the early 1960s, and returned to work in China in my 40′s. Of course Andrew, your story is vastly different from mine, as all our lives are unique, yet I felt really affirmed and challenged by your stories of your time after arrival in the US as a boy, and your return to Vietnam as a man. As an asian lesbian I have also done many ‘unethnic’ things in my life and continue to strengthen my cultural identity through work, travel, friendships and reading! Finally, thank you for sharing about Chi and Minh.
I look forward to reading ‘the Eaves of Heaven’ and your culinary odyssey cookbook ( I did the shortest of cooking classes in Hanoi).
thanks andrew,
in peace
jenny morgan
Tokyo/Aotearoa-New Zealand
Hi Jenny,
Thanks for writing. I appreciate readers taking the time to share their thoughts. It makes the writing process richer.
Don’t worry about buying pirated copies of my books in VN. People who sell those copies need the money. Besides, writers only get three or four pennies on the dollar anyway so we certainly don’t begrudge it–I certainly don’t
I’m glad to hear one of my books reached New Zealand before me. I do hope to get to NZ and Australia in the next couple of years.
And, I too am affirmed by your story. Thanks for sharing it.
Best wishes,
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I am an aspiring writer (MFT therapist by day) and want to let you know how much I appreciate your work Catfish and Mandala – read it for a book club in Mountain View. As I was reading your book, I thought to myself, he’s a chameleon…so it was very satisfying to me for you to use the same description in the novel. Your description of yourself from beginning to end describes a vision of the world through a writers eyes. I don’t want to dismiss your ability to give me as a reader a compelling point of view on your experience as a Vietnamese American. I could really identify with being from two cultures because my parents are from Mexico and I was born here (I’m envious of your level of cultural attachment or what I imagine it to be anyway… I wish I had a stronger attachment to mine). More than anything, what jumped out at me was your ability to be present with people, absorb them in the moment and accept them for who they are….very enviable quality to have …and your honesty is inspiring and a bit daunting at the same time- makes me wonder if I can do that…I don’t know that I’m that honest in my own journal. Your honesty and your openness to people are what make you such a good writer…that’s what I took away from your work to help me.
Any advice for this aspiring writer?
Lettie
Hi Lettie,
Thanks for writing. It’s always good to hear from readers, especially other writers
Advice for the fellowship of the pen?
#1. Write as though it’s your last page and today is your last day. The mind becomes very clear at the edge. Much of one’s fears and inhibitions fall away at that point.
#2. Enjoy the “aspiring” part of being a writer. Once you published, it feels like work.
#3. It’s all about the journey. The saddest moment for every voyager is when the finish line is sight.
BTW, do you go to that bookstore … A Clean Well Lighted Place in Mountain View? I used to love that place. The table by the window on the second floor cafe was pretty much mine for years.
Cheers,
Andrew
Thank you for your comments Andrew- genuinely helpful.
I didn’t know there was a book store in Mountain View by that name, only one in the SF and I think that one is now closed. What street is it on? Hemingway is one of my favorite writers so I love that name. My soon to be book club is at Books Inc.
Thanks again,
Lettie
Oops, my bad. It’s Books Inc., right on Castro & Dana. That’s the one I hung out at when I was living in Mountain View. Nice little cafe on the mezzanine.
When I was living in SF, the one I like was A Clean Well Lighted Place. Alas, you’re right, they’re closed. Sad news.
Andrew
Andrew,
I think you must be the most honest writer I have ever encountered. The depth and complexity of emotion attached to even your more mundane prose is like nothing I have ever read before. There is something uncertain, self conscious questioning perhaps, that you allow to remain uncensored in your writing which makes it so real to me.
I recommend your work all the time and have lent your books to more than a couple people (I know not good for the royalties, sorry). If you never publish again, your work has already inspired me to live a life as bold and vibrant as yours…so thank you.
I cannot wait for A Culinary Odyssey. Your expression of food culture was one of the treasures in your books. I’ll be buying several copies for myself and my family.
Best of luck in life’s journey,
Thad
Thaddeus,
Thanks for writing. Those a huge compliments. Much appreciated.
It’s great to hear from readers, the few that I have
A part of me wished I had spent more time writing fantasy and speculative fiction. My life would be so much simpler–or so I imagine. But I’ve learned a few good things along the way.
No worries on the royalties. I buy mostly secondhand books myself. Besides, I’m gonna start a dotcom and make my gazillion any day now.
Have a great new year.
Cheers,
Andrew
Is there a Vietnamese language version of “Last Night I Dreamed of Peace”? Thank you.
Hi Doug,
Yes, there is the original which we translated from. It’s published in Vietnam and has sold probably millions. I’m not sure how you would get your hands on one though. You might try your local Asian/Vietnamese bookstores.
Cheers,
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I just finished reading The Catfish and Mandala after stumbling on a copy at the new Alley Cat Books in the Mission, SF. I’ve been meaning to pick it up for years (I remember seeing copies at the UCLA bookstore, where I was an undergrad) but somehow just now got around to reading it. I think I was avoiding it, thinking it was another war memoir…
Anyway, I just wanted to say I thought the book was fantastic, though I suppose book award medals on the cover should have tipped me off! I couldn’t put it down. I was fascinated by the story you had to tell as a thoroughly unconventional Vietnamese-American — 1) I had never heard of a Vietnamese-American on a cycling tour; and 2) you had me at “So what the hell, I have to do something unethnic.” I can’t even begin to say how many of your sentiments re: cultural experience and identify really resonated with me, even though I was American-born.
Is it sad, or is it telling that one of the first things I wondered after finishing your book was how your family felt about their story being published (and hence Google brought me here)? I’m sorry to hear the book caused a rift in your family but am so, so grateful that you gave a voice and narrative to the myriad of cultural identity issues and complexities Vietnamese-Americans grapple with. Thank you for writing this book. I feel like less of an outsider among Vietnamese-Americans after reading it, knowing there are other like-minded people out there.
Best of luck with the cookbook. I would be honored to be a sponsor!
Oanh
Hi Oanh,
Thank you for being a sponsor! Much appreciated. I’m at work here, cooking, photographing, and eating like a madman.
Oh, UCLA! Gee wiz, the memories… holding down two jobs while carrying a full engineering study load, sharing a 2-bedroom apartment with nine other guys, and dating an upper-class girl while slumming with poor geeks (aka future tech millionaires). I worked and studied so hard 4 yrs passed by in a blur. I sure hope you have better memories of UCLA.
Isn’t it amazing that my books are in the UCLA bookstore? During my undergrad, I procrastinated by reading novels while standing in the aisles of that place, wasting countless hours. I was afraid to buy the books, knowing that I would stay up all night reading and avoid study and work. I’ll have to put on my Bruins sweats and wander around the campus for old times’ sake next time I get to LA.
Some readers think I’m famous, but actually I’m really not–not even among readers or writers–which is fine with me. I’ve never wanted fame, with or without “award medals” (you can’t eat fame). When I started my first novel (an epic fantasy), I imagined my future self writing fiction on a small 30ft. sailboat anchored somewhere in the Sea of Cortez with a fishing rod dangling over the stern and a cooler full of icy beers. I would write under a pen name, send off the manuscript to editors in New York for some modest royalties, and spend my earnings on beer, tortillas, and coffee. I envisioned myself writing about spaceships, time travel, magicians, and dragons. A simple life which is still attractive even now.
I’ve never wanted to write about family, identity, loss, guilt, remorse, and pain–and all that ugliness that churned within. But once I opened the portal by writing about my life, all these things came out and I couldn’t stop them even if I had the presence of mind to do so.
Why am I rambling like this?
I’m trying to find a way to say that we all are entitled to dream dreams that we don’t believe are rightfully ours.
I appreciate that you took the time to share your thoughts. By doing so, you’ve allowed me to know–as well–that “there are other like-minded people out there.”
Cheers,
Andrew
I am taking an english class at DeAnza college and we are reading Eaves of Heaven. My teacher talks about how you used to be a graduate from this college. Eaves of Heaven brought back many sad memories that had long slipped my mind when I used to be a child back in Viet Nam. I am only 17 right now, but I have wonderful memories of living in the farmland from 1996-2001. While reading Eaves of Heaven, I find myself feeling the loneliness in myself for the longing to belong to somewhere or some place. I missed those free and not caring for anything time: Running around with friends, climbing trees, catching grasshopper, and sling shooting birds. I know that my childhood is different from your father childhood. He grew up during the changing time where everyday, citizens faced the brutality of war and broken dreams.
The reason for why Eaves of Heaven reminded me so much of my childhood was because the farmland didn’t change much. 20 years had passed since the Vietnamese war ended, I was born. Lived in the farmland where things stayed the same for most part. I haven’t go back to Viet Nam for 10 years already and this book Eaves of Heaven brings me closer to my birthplace and tells me how much I missed it.
Hi Quoc,
Thanks for writing. Emails/comments like your make my day–especially the ones where I’m slogging through sentences that won’t hold together.
I’ll share it with my father. He will be glad to read it.
Like you, I only have glimpses of my countryside childhood. In order to reconnect with that “feeling” I actually went into the Thai countryside and lived away from civilization, TV, and even the nternet for a few years (hence my limited web literacy). I’ve cleared out a patch of jungle, dug a fish pond, built a sala/gazebo over a lake, started a small farm, and built a wooden bungalow (and raised 2 puppies, a cat, some chickens and ducks too) to understand and feel the atmosphere and place of rural peasant life. I’ll write more about it some day.
Say “Hi” to your DeAnza prof for me. And thank him/her for inflicting my books on students like yourself.
Cheers,
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I took English 1A at Evergreen Valley College just a few semesters ago. I’m sure you are familiar with the school as it’s in your—err our neighborhood.
You know how it is I’m sure. The classes you NEED to take. My teacher was a lady. I forgot her first name, but her last name was Weber. Your book “Catfish and Mandala” was required text. Most of these classes you just tend to just forget and move on to whatever you need to get done. It was a pleasure having to read your book. It was not a burden like most books required for college.
Although I’m not an expert on your book, it did leave enough resonance for me to comment on it…. SEMESTERS AFTER I had read it. You should also know I did not resell the book. I still have it in my possession, and I plan to read it again.
I actually live a few streets down from where Wikipedia says you reside (down Senter Road). So it was quite a surprise to find out the author of the book I was reading was a local! Not that it’s relevant or anything, I’m not Vietnamese. Your book really opened up to an unfamiliar world which was definitely appreciated.
Thanks again for the great read!
Gene,
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate you taking the time to to let me know.
I also have some books that I’d never part with. In some instances, I’ve given them to good friends, whom I thought really needed the wisdom/cheer/knowledge within those particular books. But, then afterwards, I went out and buy new copies at the first opportunity. I guess for me these books are like lodestones or compasses that help me keep my course and remind me about what’s important in life.
BTW, I went to Evergreen the summer after my senior year for just one class, English 1A. I can’t remember much because it was a pretty fantastic summer with freedom and lots of cycling and friends and I wanted to knock out that silly English class so I could concentrate on important subjects like physics and engineering when I start college (the irony, huh?). Anyway, I remember that class well because there was one angelically beautiful girl that often sat near me. I think she said “Hi” once and smiled at me, like twice, and I practically re-wrote her term essay for her
She vanished right after the class ended and, for the life of me, I can’t remember her name, but I remember that her hair was honeysuckle scented. To this day, that fragrance always brings me back to English 1A at Evergreen.
Hey, thanks for the trip down memory lane. Good luck with the rest of your studies.
You didn’t ask for any advice, but I’ll give it anyway since, well, it’s my blog and I feel obliged somehow
For me, the further I get away from college, the less I remember the classes, and the more I remember the things I experienced and the people I met between the classes.
Have a blast in school. It’ll be over soon enough.
Cheers,
Andrew
Anh Andrew,
Everything happens for a reason. In making peace with yourself, you’re now a peace maker.
Glad to see your homepage up. Thanks for sharing your thoughts w/ us.
Ann, Thanks for the kind words and good wishes. I’m trying to catch up with the world. Learning as I go
Take care,
Andrew
Congratulations, Jon! You made the first comment on my blog! I’ll send you a little recipe/story menu in a PDF file next week when I launch my new project. Thanks for visiting and for your kind words. Cheers, Andrew
Thank you for sharing so much of the backstory to your works. I look forward to reading more. Catfish and Mandala was so moving to me, and I am grateful that you’ve shared the experiences of your life and the lives of others with us.