Remembering...

The most intense reaction I had to “Stealing Buddha’s Dinner”, by Bich Minh Nguyen, was that I could relate on some level with almost every childhood experience Nguyen relates in her memoir. She writes on page two that she and her sister “didn’t know [they] were among the lucky. What Nguyen is referring to in this section is the fact that she did not know her family was in want at times or that her father got up in the middle of the night to work at the factory.

I remember growing up constantly trying to fit into hand-me-downs because I realized early on in life that new-clothes-shopping was for special occasions. It happened but when it did I sensed the reluctance and the stress in my mom’s demeanor as the numbers were added at the check-out counter. I had no idea I was so lucky. As a youngster you learn quickly how to compare yourself to others and notice what they have and you don’t. I often forgot to appreciate what I had because I would only be satisfied with more.

Another really interesting section in the memoir is on page 10. Nguyen recounts that “as a kid, I couldn’t figure out what “all-American” was supposed to mean. Was it a promise, a threat, a warning?” I have never considered this question before but now that I do I have come to the conclusion that it does not mean so much. The phrase “all-American” feeds into our eagerness to believe in the American dream. It is more like a promise than anything else; it used to stand for a certain quality in things.

Today though, with outsourcing and globalization the “promise” is an empty one. In elementary school I remember being taught that America is a melting pot but the reality is much less appetizing and like all the candy that tantalized Nguyen, I think too many things in America are sugar coated too often for a benefit that does not exist. The reality is often more like “the voice saying, come on in. Now transform. And if you cannot, then disappear” (11).

I also could really relate to Nguyen’s struggles with silence in herself and her household. She writes on page 26 that “there were so many things that could never be spoken”. And on page 29 she relates her experience with taboo subjects like sex. In her household there were no bedtimes, she did not always have the watchful eye of a house maker mom on her but still, the sticky subject of human relations as well as her mother and other questions of her past could not be discussed. Sex is how we all came in to this world and it is amazing to me how there are so many American households in which the subject is not breached.

Nguyen’s memoir stirred my own memories and brought back pieces of childhood I have both remembered and had forgotten. I remember how it is impossible to steal ice cream and how the question why always got me nowhere. I know what it is like to try and be saved. I know how unsettling inconsistent parenting can be and how I too privately admired the rebellious kids in school. I remember how important school was to me and how I would have nightmares of being late. I also recall how nerve racking it was to visit someone’s house and have dinner with them. And to this day I still accidentally throw meat on the floor.

Most importantly I remember as Nguyen does on page 116, what it is like to realize that you have always had a choice whether you knew it or not.