Review: Stealing Buddha's Dinner, a memoir by Bich Minh Nguyen

This book contains the childhood memories of a Vietnamese woman who came to this country as a baby in 1975 as Saigon fell to the Communists. She has no recollection of her old country, yet suffers as a displaced person after her family settles in our hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was pleasant and somewhat jarring to see it through her eyes.

Ambiguity seems to be a theme. As she grows up, she is deeply attracted to, and yet repulsed by, Americans and their ways.

Television is her entree into the culture. From it she learns the language and absorbs its lessons. As most children do, she takes it quite literally that the products she sees advertised will make her happy and fulfilled. She seems to come to an understanding early on that they won't satisfy, but the promise is so strong that she can't quite shake it.

Dissatisfaction she has plenty. Her family is fragmented, a blending of immigrants -- her Vietnamese father, sister, grandmother, and uncles with a Hispanic stepmother and stepsister. She's never known her mother, and there's no one who will tell her what she wants to know about her. While the stepmother is an English-as-a-second-language instructor who does her best to learn the system and make it work for them, the rest seem to go their own way and assimilate to varying degrees.

And it's in the days before multiculturalism. Political correctness, as odious as we often find it, nevertheless has not had its good effect of creating an awareness of the value of other cultures. And so she suffers the slings and arrows of misunderstanding, prejudice, and outright cruelty. Kind people make overtures, but with Bich it seems to only increase her isolation. She can't process what's going on around her, and can't articulate what's going on inside. The people in her life who should have nurtured her were either absent or silent.

The book gives you a good sense of her feelings. Much is relatable to everyone's experience at one time or another. Who hasn't felt like an outsider? Ugly? Hungry? Who isn't grateful to have overcome those feelings, as the author finally seems to by the end?

Readers must have patience with the shifting timeline. It often isn't clear how old the writer was when an event occured. I felt, though, that the glimpse into another life, in a time and place that I have lived through, was interesting and worthwhile.

In homage to the theme of food that ties all her chapters together, we decided to meet at a local restaurant where we could sample Vietnamese food. Lai Thai Kitchen on Leonard NE is a pleasant space with good food and accommodating staff -- who said they were Buddhist when we showed them the book we'd read and our reason for coming. And, just as in Bich's grandmother's bedroom, there sat a Buddha at the restaurant's entrance, complete with an offering of watermelon.