Catfish and Mandala IV Catfish and Mandala:

Catfish and Mandala IV Catfish and Mandala: the Purpose of a Journey There are many themes and issues Andrew X Pham discusses in his novel Catfish and Mandala. In the novel, he takes a journey across the Pacific coast of the United States, later traveling to Japan, Vietnam, and returns home at the end. Throughout the journey, Pham in his story alternates between the past and the present, finding links between the two, and tells a coherent story.

One of the interesting questions that come to mind while reading Pham's story is: why does he take the journey and what does he really learn? His story suggests that the event that prompted him to take the journey is the death of his elder sister/brother Chi. Through the journey, Pham wants to understand his dual identity and the inner feelings of Chi. There are numerous passages that illustrate this purpose.

Earlier in the book, Pham says: "I haven't been able to answer the one question that remained framed in my mind from the day she left: How did America treat Chi, one vulnerable yellow in a sea of white races?" (p. 33). It is clear from this passage that in Pham's opinion Chi committed a suicide not because she could not reconcile a sex change but the culture change and the crisis of identity. In another passage, Pham says: "I went for my sister Chi. I wept for myself.

I wept for the disparity between my world and the world of these people. And I wept for my sorry soul" (p. 110). Pham is explaining here that his experience of living in the United States as a Vietnamese immigrant and his struggles to find his place in a new place are identical to Chi's. So, he embarks on a journey to find a way to an understanding: an understanding of Chi's life and an understanding of what or who he really wants to be.

The answer to the questions he wants to find through the journey is not easy. When he travels in America, he is a foreigner because of his look. When he is in Vietnam, he is a foreigner because the locals see him as a rich man, perhaps from Korea or Japan. In a way, he is out of place in both the United States and Vietnam. But he learns. He learns how to live with his dual identity and how to cope with his daily problems.

He learns that at a certain moment it is important to leave what has happened in the past and live with the present. He starts learning it while traveling in the United States. The following passage, summarizing his conversation with a stranger, explains this: "Adventure is but a collection of detours. He asks me how I got the courage to go. I say I'd realized that the surest way forward was to burn all the bridges behind" (p. 150). I think Pham is speaking metaphorically here.

He is referring to "bridges" he had to cross as a Vietnamese-American. It was a painful experience but he cannot remain.