Andrew X. (An) Pham is a great storyteller! Raw truth, and very intense! His story goes back and forth through 2 or 3 time periods is the only reason I didn't give it the 5-stars. I'm just not too fond of the switching back and forth too many times. But, every part of it was AMAZING!

This book caused a riff between his parents and himself for quite a few years because it also revealed a lot about his dysfunctional family, which is the very reason he needed to go back to his home country to find answers. You literally get the feel of the people and the culture of Vietnam in the 1990’s when he made his tour from Saigon to Hanoi, visiting the place he was born and lived, his family’s home in Saigon and his grandmother’s home in Phan Thiet, the prison where they were kept for a month by the Viet Congs, the refugee camp where he, his mom and siblings lived for 1-1/2 years while his father was in the harsh Viet Cong Prison Camp, and finally the birth place of his father in Hanoi. But, it was all gone. There was nothing left...out with the old and in with the new.

What he did find was extreme poverty, and beggars and swindlers everywhere he turned. At times he even felt ashamed of the behavior of his people, but then realized that this kind of extreme poverty really is all about survival. But, it also seemed that the Vietnamese had also lost their compassion for humanity in their attempt to survive in a communist society. Even though Vietnam was liberated from Viet Cong in 1977, it still remained pretty much a communist country.

America pulled out of the Vietnam War in 1972, and three years later, in 1975, Saigon fell to Viet Cong. Andrew was 8 years old when he saw people running for their lives as Viet Congs came in with their guns, killing people. Worthless money, bikes, food, anything you could imagine lay in the streets. People were running for the bay where American ships were waiting to take them out. His family packed and headed out of Saigon to Phan Thiet and lived with his grandmother for a while. It would be another two years before his father, who was captured and held in a Viet Cong prison camp, escaped and joined the family in Phan Thiet. He stayed hidden in the attic until they devised an escape plan to America.

Now an American Vietnamese, Andrew says he has faced racism here in America, growing up and while on the road with his bike. But, when he went back to Vietnam, it seemed there was even greater racism against him because the Vietnamese hate “Viet-kieu”...American Vietnamese traitors. Everyone tried to swindle more money from him, from eateries to motels, beggars, even the new “friends” sometimes demanded to be compensated. Especially bad were the cops in Vietnam. Extortionist to the Nth degree...much like Mexican cops in Mexico. It didn’t matter what it was. You were going to jail if you didn’t slip them some money. Period! Many times he had to use his wits to get out of some serious brawls with the drunken Vietnamese men. This was one crazy adventure!

I can’t wait to read some more of Andrew’s works, “The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars” (2009). On top of majoring in Engineer, Andrew dropped out of that rat race for biking and writing. He was even a Food Critic for five years, and I have found that he has a small cookbook out called “The Culinary Odyssey: My Cookbook Diary of Travels, Flavors, and Memories of Southeast Asia” (2012). It was only $2.99, an ebook on Amazon. I am in the process of testing a few recipes now. So far, I'm very impressed but having a hardtime finding ingredients for a few of the recipes.

Today, in 2021, Andrew would be about 54 years old. I sure hope he is feeling more at home here in America by now. Wikipedia shows he has a web page and Facebook page, but it doesn’t look like he has kept either one of them up. You can still access his web page and read a little more about him and see a few more family photos here at:

https://web.archive.org/web/20111113183155/http://www.andrewxpham.com/
----------
P. 203: "Egg-milk" - whisk 1 egg yolk with sugar until foamy (5 minutes), then pour hot soy milk over it in mug. A little Vietnamese girl was selling this on the side of the road in one of the towns. Andrew's mother used to make this for him when he was young and couldn't sleep. NOTE: I actually tried this with coconut milk instead of soy milk. I whipped the egg yolk with 2 tsps. white sugar for 5 minutes, then added hot 3/4 c. lite coconut milk. OMG! DELICIOUS!!! It's a keeper! ( )

Interesting and engaging--both a social commentary and a travel memoir. It is a story of how a people can be dichotomous--honorable, sacrificial, hard working and also do horrible things. ( )

travel memoir/Vietnamese culture (native and American). I don't usually go for the meandering-type of narrative, but I really enjoyed the pace of this and the unfolding of the various stories in the author's family history. ( )

I probably would not have enjoyed this book as much as I did if I hadn't been in Vietnam as I was reading it. He's a Viet-kieu, one of those "boat people" who left as a child and returned years later. As a result, he was experiencing the country as I was, but also as someone who understood the language. An outsider and (somewhat looked down-upon) insider at the same time.

I shared so many of his impressions. The streets of Hanoi jammed with motorcycles loaded with everything conceivable going every which way, ridden by masked men and women on cellphones with babies and small children riding along; not to mention the trucks and the people and the cars and the constant car horns and the pollution. The food, some delicious but some quite questionable (e.g. organs), and the water you can only drink out of the ubiquitous plastic bottles, both of which eventually gave him dysentery. The people, welcoming and (of him) scornful at the same time.

I liked the interwoven strands of his previous life and his journey, and how he discovered himself in the process. ( )

Andrew Pham is a Vietnamese American, who went back to Vietnam, and bicycled across the country; in an exploration of his identity and roots. I felt that the book could have used a little more editing and focus. The book is dedicated to one of Pham's siblings, Chi, who committed suicide at age 32. Chi's story really should be the center of the book; and it would be a good base for an exploration of the authors ambivalence about Vietnamese American identity. (which I think is the purpose of the book) However the book seems to careen from story to story; camping near the Tokyo airport, drinking with cousins in Saigon, an ex-girlfriends relationship with her birthfather. Each story is interesting in it's own right, but maybe not all in the same book. ( )