Wrapped in Culture

By Alyssa B.

Courtesy of Wikimedia

The ao dai, in Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, becomes more than just a Vietnamese garment. The ao dai is symbolic throughout the novel as a garment connecting Bich to her Vietnamese heritage, a symbol of protection and comfort, and also of alienation from and distinction to her culture.

At the beginning of the novel, when Bich’s grandmother Noi takes her to the park, she is wearing her green ao dai. Noi and her garment link Bich to her Vietnamese roots, the garment reminds her where she and her grandmother came from. Noi wearing the garment also signifies that she still is in touch with her homeland through a tangible object such as a piece of clothing. Shortly after this memory, Bich retells of Anh’s first birthday party ever. At the party, Bich’s father’s friends arrive wearing "their best thrift store suits and ao dais" (24). In this scene, the ao dais become a communal link, displaying a visible common ground in the community.

Later in Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, the ao dai signifies security. When Bich is describing her grandmother’s life in Vietnam, she says Noi was prosperous, with enough money for silk for her ao dai. The ao dai, then, implies comfort and security. Continuing this meaning, on page 41, when Bich is stealing food, she hides among Noi’s ao dais. Again, the ao dais represent protection and security, in this case for Bich.

In the chapter titled “Green Sticky Rice Cakes”, the ao dais enwrap Bich and Anh publicly to their foreign Vietnamese identities during the Tet celebration at their school. “Because we were dressed in our ao dais our teachers assumed we would be spending the morning preparing for the assembly… The feeling of being set apart in our outfits had united us” (101). While being alienated from their peers, they are united with other Vietnamese students. The ao dais give Bich a tangible connection to her roots while also separating her from her peers.

Fictional Friends

By Caitlin M.


In Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, the narrator and author, Bich Minh Nguyen uses many coping mechanisms to overcome the fact that she is an outcast in American culture, Vietnamese culture, and most importantly, in her own family. One of the essential ways Bich copes with being an outsider is through American literature. The books she reads allow her to feel at ease with herself and with the three communities to which she does not belong. Bich states that “[she] read[s] to be alone. [She] read[s] so as not to be alone” (152). Bich’s act of reading is not one to extend her knowledge or learn something new; it is a way she perpetuates her self-inflicted isolation. She reads to be alone because she cannot handle the harsh realities around her but she realizes she needs a sense of community to survive, so she reads so as not to be alone. The sense of community she inherits is found in the way she refers to the characters in her books is as her “fictional friends” (152). She finds characteristics in these fictional American girls so she can insert herself into their made-up lives, which makes hers a little more bearable. For instance, all of her “fictional friends liked to eat,” just as she likes to eat (153). The fact that Bich has to project her love of food onto fictional characters signifies the troublesome relationship and obsession she has with food. Bich’s coping mechanism, reading in solitude, further perpetuates her social awkwardness and in a sense, does not allow her to grow and make lasting relationships with real people.

Lessons that Sting

By Kristie F.






In Stealing Buddha's Dinner, by Bich Minh Nguyen, Nguyen illustrated the strong dichotomy between longing for what others have and appreciating what actually is. Bich's relationship with her stepmother is complex; she longs to be American while Rosa defies it. Rosa, white hateful towards white American traditions, is cultures and aware in ways that Bich is not. Bich's awareness of her own ignorance causes her to resent her stepmother for not being like her friend's mothers, and for not seasoning their family in a more American fashion.


When Bich finally reacts in a less than respectful manner towards her stepmother, she is shown how ignorant she has been in regards to her own family and traditions. Her action of shouting to Rosa that Rosa was not her real mother is countered with Rosa's action of becoming exactly the kind of mother that Bich wished her to become. With this, Bich realizes that she was wrong for wanting Rosa to be like everyone else. Bich is lucky to have a woman that teaches her resilience; a mother that does not feed her food with artificial flavoring; a mother that tries her best. This lesson is shown through her reflection when she states, "for a long time, the sting of the words I had thrown at Rosa stayed with me. She was not, in fact, my real mother, but I never said it again" (129).

Silence Speaks Volume

By Stephanie K.

These three different scenes depict the sorrow and unhappiness the Vietnam war has brought through moments of silence. Bich thinks back to witnessing Loans family dinner and "how unhappy and grim her family had seemed" (107). The second scene is of their car ride home from the party that Bich's father threw as they "drove home in silence" (112). The third scene is of Rosa as she stood by the doorway watching Bich's father gambling, "part timid, part passive" and according to Bich, "it was not the stepmother I knew" (107). For Bich's father and Loan's parents, the post war effects have taken a toll on them. But it has also taken a toll on others, like Rosa. Silence is powerful in this memoir as it suggests that everyone is going through this transition. They might live together, eat together and sleep together under the same roof or in the same community but realistically, everyone keeps to themselves. Although connected through their migration there is a clear disconnect between these immigrants as they silence themselves, ultimately going through this transition alone.

The Gamble of Life



By Karissa H.

                                                                                            

These cards symbolize many different ideas in the memoir, Stealing Buddha's Dinner. At first glance they symbolize the feeling of the unknown which is present in both Bich's life as well as her father's. Playing cards can be all about gambling and not knowing which card you will end up with. This is similar to the way Bich feels in her own life. She isn't sure what is going to happen when her teacher asks them to come up on the stage, she isn't sure what it will feel like when somebody really punches her and not just a fake punch like her sisters, and mostly, she isn't sure what her future holds; if she will eventually find a way to fit in with the "White" kids or if she will have to suffer the "boring, abnormal" world her family lives in. Playing cards can also symbolize fun and entertainment. Bich's father escapes from his house and wife and family to play cards and to feel the fun and excitement that he needs in his life. He throws a party to become the "Person he preferred to be-young, as he had been in Vietnam, surrounded by laughter and friends, drinking and smoking away his 'troubles'" (Nguyen 108). This is a way for him to escape the feelings that Bich is feeling; the depression and shame and overall separated life in which they are trying to blend in with.

A Shift In Food Culture

By Angel D.

The picture is a representation of Bich's shift in food culture. In Stealing Buddha's Dinner, a form of Americanization is represented through the desire of food. Behind Bich lies a bowl of Noi's homemade pho and an apple, usually given by Rosa. In front of Bich is an exaggerated monster-sized foods that Bich has come to love. The lines drawn above Bich's head indicate a drastic shift from one culture into another. Bich is drawn toward new foods, which seem larger and breath-taking with a light, as drawn in the picture, which illuminates a desire to move away from older foods and into what seems more appealing. Even though the picture represents the first couple of chapters in the book, food seems to point out a cultural shift in Bich's life that reveals an insight of immigrant desires and wants.

Sweet American Dreams

By Brianna C.

This picture represents Bich's American dreams during her early childhood. Her vivid, idealized descriptions of American food are the very substance of her dreams, as her visions are constructed of airy cotton candy and dreamy whipped cream. Her thought clouds lead up toward a ladder-like chair which climbs up toward a seemingly endless tower of ice-cream. This ladder symbolizes the hierarchy of social status, within which Bich believes she must elevate herself in order to attain the spoils of her American dreams. From this chair's side of the table, the platform seems to be floating and quite difficult to reach because it hosts the metropolis of American-brand treats that Bich craves. Although she knows it is difficult to attain these things, Bich demonstrates that this is the reason for which she desires them, and thus the reason that the sun shines happily on this candy-filled paradise. On the other side of the table, and the opposite end of Bich's desires, lies the Vietnamese-cuisine city, which is cast into the moonlit night because it represents the opposite of Bich's daydreams. In this realm, the fish and squid dishes jump into the tea and rice dishes to hide their fishy smells from the lovely sweets on the other end of the table. Within the chaos, a rice bowl is flying over this little group, soon to crash over and upset the Vietnamese foods. This represents Bich's awareness of her Vietnamese heritage retreating and collapsing over itself in her own mind as she compares it continuously with American culture. However, the table at this end appears much more accessible due to the closeness of the rice-bowl chair, representing how Bich's place at home is always prepared and ready for her, rice and all.

Eye of the Plum

In the chapter, "Stealing Buddhas Dinner", Bich says that she is a believer of Buddha and his teachings of reincarnation. Although she respects the Vietnamese culture, she persists in taking the fruit that was placed on the alter beside the Buddha statue. After doing so she eats the plum while sitting in a plum tree and leaves the seed, which looked like an eye, on the tree and departs. The seed is symbolic because it was left as an offering to her past ancestors as described on page 196, "I imagined it carried off by the wind, or by my ancestors' spirits, coming to collect the meager offering i had left behind " (Nguyen, 196). Therefore, although she took the offering from the alter, she indulged in the plums goodness and left an offering in return. This is a symbolic experience in Bich's life because it expresses a level of respect and understanding for her culture.

The Battle for Identity

By Krystal M.

In Stealing Buddha's Dinner, Bich becomes so in love with books as a way of belonging somewhere and shows her attempts to "prove that [she] could be more thorough and competent white girl than any of the white girls [she] kew" (152). Bich is trying to grasp her identity whether it be her American identity (through books) or her Vietnamese identity (through learning more about her culture). Until she finds her identity, she'll continue searching for some a community to belong to and identify with. I drew a golden Buddha with a yellow orb around it to show its divinity and drew a lot of books surrounding the Buddha. The Buddha being covered by the books symbolizes Bich's struggle with choosing to identify as American or Vietnamese. There are some moments where Bich craves to be American by eating more American food and dressing the way other American girls do but there are still times where she desperately tries to hold onto her Vietnamese culture by praising the Buddha and enjoying Noi's cooking. Until she learns to have the two identities live peacefully, they'll continue fighting until finally one identity conquers the other.

Food Feud

By Rebecca B.

 

When I originally set out to draw this, I imagined a little girl circling the Buddha with a mixture of curiosity and fright. What I put to paper instead, was Rosa looking at the Buddha statue with one arm raised as if to say "that's your custom," while Bich steals food from a fridge (and looking a bit frightened) bellow it (21). As Rosa's role as Bich's mother becomes larger and more cemented, the more she exerts her authority and control through food. Meanwhile, grandmother Noi, (whom I drew to the right of Bich) is lovingly carving a piece of fruit. From pages 1-43, Noi shows her love for her family in her treatment/history with food. When her husband died, Noi supported her family by making pho and noodles. Then when she and her sons are in an American refugee camp, she doesn't say a word about the money they spend on food for a party, but later scorns Bich's father for the purchase of a two dollar jacket. In this way Noi is the opposite of Rosa in her regard to food. Where Rosa is pragmatic Noi is loving, and for that reason they are on opposite sides of the Buddha. As for the uncles and father, I drew them as peripheries to show that they are there and that they do play a role (in that their money supports this food feud), but in a limited capacity.

Real Fantasy

By Ashley P.

When coming to a close in Stealing Buddha's Dinner, one idea that came apparent was the idea of fantasy. Bich was an avid reader and she was fond of adventures and fantasies. She knew her mother wasn't one who would show up out of the blue and sweep her away from the world she felt wasn't her own, "I had always known that whoever my mother was, she was not the stuff of fantasies. She was, on the contrary, the stuff of too much reality" (Nguyen 236). This is a pivital point in Bich's journey because she is realizing her reality. Her parents, father and stepmother, stuck together in a home while divorced, just to make sure that the kids would all continue to have a stable home life.

Reality for Bich and her siblings was having their father, Rosa and Noi around, as a constant support in different ways. The reality that their mother was a blank face in their minds because she was still in VIetnam after they fled to America. The reality was that she still existed, she was still there, in a way that wasn't physical. The family avoided the fact that she still existed, it was not something that was talked about, at least until she came to America, and Bich and Ahn found out. She never had happy fantasies about seeing her mother, like they did in soap operas where "people [were] reuniting with great cries and splashing tears" (Nguyen 235). Truth is, she never imagined meeting her mother because she had never known her. It's good that Bich's parents stayed together to give the home the stability, even if it wasn't the type of stability Bich had once desired as a young girl.

That Illusive Perfect Fit

By Raylene Meza



When I first read about Bich's experience with books in Reading Buddha's Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen, I saw the reading primarily as a way for her to escape from the reality of her family and also her school life. However, after further consideration, while it is true that reading can act as an escape for someone like Bich who has a hard time fitting in, the evidence seems to point instead to a form of self-othering. For example, on page 152 Bich points out that she reads so that she can be alone but also because it keeps her from being alone. In this way, it seems as if Bich is separating herself from her family by reading and is instead choosing to interact with characters from the books she reads.

While Bich seems able to find solace in the stories of perfect Anglo families, she seeks to be like them just like she seeks to be like the families she is surrounded with in her real life. Even in her imaginings, it seems as if Bich does not fit in, and this could be representative of the idea that Bich will continue to not fit in as long as she does not accept herself for who she is. This connection to books is directly related to Bich's hunger to fit in through food and pop culture. Bich reads more and more and imagines herself as the characters she reads about because as she consumes books, it is almost as if she is consuming the culture of the characters within the books. However, like with food, instead of it connecting Bich to who she really is, it instead gets mixed up into the pot of all the things Bich tries to make herself be. Bich cannot directly relate herself to characters like Laura Ingalls because Laura can fit in while Bich cannot. Also, since Bich has not yet been able to see herself as both American and Vietnamese, she continues to be confused as she feels she is the rope in this sort of culture tug-of-war. This causes a lot of confusion for Bich, and so she further others herself by trying to fit into one mold or the other and never thinking to fuse them together to get the perfect fit.

Room For More

By Lorraine S.

As I was coming to a close reading the final chapters of Stealing Buddha's Dinner, I came up with something other's might find interesting regarding the unfinished deck which Bich repeatedly draws attention to. My insight is that the deck represents Bich's household as the empty space encompasses the empty dreams Bich's family cannot fill. Having it permanently frozen in a state of construction parallels the lives of Bich's family as they never seem to reach a point where they feel complete and their hard work paid off. As an immigrant family still learning American culture, they must continuously reconstruct themselves as they learn to accommodate to the new lifestyle they find themselves immersed in. This leaves the family in constant movement being pulled between the Vietnamese culture, Rosa's culture, and the American culture surrounding them, adjusting themselves as needed so as not to lose themselves amidst the culture clash. The risk to be met upon constructing a permanent identity is that they lose all the options available to them when not claiming an identity. It therefore becomes possible that neglecting to build the deck is done purposefully in order to abstain from filling the empty deck of endless possibilities with a permanent design. By leaving the deck unfinished, they leave room for dreaming.

The deck can also be looked at as a parallel between the unfulfilled promises of the anticipated deck and the unfulfilled promises of the United States. As Bich's family dreams up various uses of the deck that would contribute to their happiness living in the house, they are met with the realization that such dreams may never happen. Although it is completely under their control to build the deck as it is under their control to obtain happiness within the United States, there are too many obstacles beyond their control that prevent them from doing so. In the end, both dreams become nothing but expectations fallen short, only to be experienced in the characters' minds and never manifested into reality.

This is just my opinion on the symbolism of the unfinished deck. Feel free to speak up if there are any readers out there with alternate interpretations! I'd love to hear them!

Good Intentions?

By Norma G.

Unlike the homemaker moms of Bich's friends and schoolmates, Rosa is a driven, educated woman with strong convictions and a refusal to bend or mold into the cookie-cutter conformity of what is viewed as the traditional woman's role. She works outside the home, takes parts in movements, and insists that her married family's Vietnamese heritage be acknowledged and kept at the forefront. In many ways, Rosa cuts a strong, empowering woman's figure by breaking from the traditional female role, but at the same time, however well-meaning her actions might be, they also hinder how her stepdaughter Bich leads her own life and develops as an individual.

Rosa's insistent participation in the strike and her standoff with Bich over food both illustrate that while Rosa's intentions may be good, she also fails to consider whether they may have a negative impact on Bich's life and her ever-shifting perspective. In the matter of the strike, Rosa is acting on her own ideals and convictions about unions and strikes. On one hand, Rosa is standing for a cause she whole-heartedly believes is right, but on the other hand, she fails to consider what it does to Bich and the rest of the kids. Rosa doesn't take into account that she might be dragging them behind in their education nor does she share let alone consider Bich's worries about her socialization with other children; Rosa does not appear to ever take into account the potential ramifications of banning her children from school. That mindset of not taking into account the negative impacts of her actions also appears in her handling of the food situation with Bich. Instead of sitting her stepdaughter down and explaining or attempting to meet Bich part way and respect where she might be coming from, Rosa passive-aggressively handles the situation. She creates a tense, even hostile environment to send her message, and that shames Bich as well as turns her sisters - who must also deal with this - against her.

Forced into a Mold

While reading Bich Minh Nguyen's Stealing Buddha's Dinner, I became increasingly aware that although Bich expresses a desire to fit in with her fellow classmates, she experiences many obstacles by war of her cultural and physical differences.

Having fled Saigon in 1975, Bich was forced to grow up in a foreign environment until the guidance of her stepmother entered her life. Bich experienced confusion between her home life and the world outside. Her home consisted of Vietnamese culture and language, but the world outside was a fascinating and foreign environment. Bich's confusion grew continuously in response to the difference of customs. She consistently enforced rules but didn't take the time to teach simple manners or social skills. Further attention is drawn to Rosa as a mother when Bich highlights instances of her cooking. Most significantly, Bich recalls watching Rosa pulling out "four ready-made graham cracker crusts" and placing them in a line on the counter before she filled them with her homemade blueberry filling (216). When Rosa came into the family with her daughter Chrissy, she attempted to mold Bich and Anh into well-behaved girls. She forced them to go to language classes and failed to equip them with tools to navigate the harsh waters of the foreign community. Therefore, Bich, Anh, Chrissy, and Vinh were forced to fit into the predetermined mold chosen by Rosa. Rosa neglected the necessity of assimilating by further enhancing the children's differences among their fellow classmates. This experience forced the kids, like the pies to form "a tough skin" over the tops (216). Although the pies satisfied in the beginning, they ultimately became "lurid and ghastly" (217). Rosa's constant ability to heighten the children's confusion led them to become lonely, unsatisfied, and depressed. This lasted until they chose to throw the pies out and hide them within a bag inside another bag.

Therefore, Rosa's instruction to her children didn't help alleviate any stress of school. Rather, her instruction heightened the confusion experienced by the children of what needed to be done to assimilate. With a growing confusion, the children's loneliness also expanded.

Buddha Mooncake

By Richard R.

There is a scene in Stealing Buddha's Dinner in which Bich receives a Buddha-shaped mooncake from her biological mother. Bich can't bring herself to eat the mooncake, and after it wassmudged against the paper, she decides to throw the mooncake away. This action signifies much more than Bich's dislike of the mooncake's flavor. It signifies the rejection or inability to keep a familial bond with her mother who offered it.

Bich is constantly at struggle with her solitude in society and within her own family as well. It seems that Bich can't make or keep strong connections with anyone. When her biological mother comes along, Bich is mildly excited to see her and wants to ask her many questions. She soon realizes that she can't talk to her mother. Her mother gave Bich a Buddha-shaped mooncake that Bich does not eat and throws away. In Chinese and Vietnamese culture a moon cake represent completeness and unity. Since Bich has always felt empty and alienated, she can't accept this mooncake from her long-separated mother. Bich first "stuffs" the mooncake into her suitcase, trying to hold on to the connection with her mother, but eventually, Bich can't even carry the mooncake and throws it into the trash where it will be forever lost.

The Yellow Cocoon

By Jenna C.

On page 59, Bich wraps herself in a yellow cloth, which so far, the color yellow has been representative of the family's integration into American Society, as evidenced on pages 8,22,50, and 58. In its symbolic wrap, Bich has figuratively created her own cocoon in hopes to emerge as an "American" girl with "American" values to escape the "embarrassment and shame" that she always feels towards her heritage and family's lifestyle.

Bich wants so badly to transform and manifest into something, she sees, as more beautiful. In her eyes she will therefore have a better chance at succeeding in a society that has thus far persecuted her because of her ethnic or cultural identity. Bich standing by the window while she cocoons herself is symbolic of the fact that she can see the outside world but only at a distance and does not feel that she can actually participate in it because she has been so othered by her community.