As I finished the remainder of Bich Minh Nguyen’s memoir Stealing Buddha’s Dinner I began to
notice a motif of ownership. Bich
attempts to repress the lack of ownership she feels in terms of a true identity
by lusting over what she does not own. It
takes a confrontation with the world outside of Grand Rapids to spark a change
of heart.
In my previous blog I addressed my confusion regarding
Bich’s relationship with Rosa. Having
finished the book I’d say that this was intentional: we were meant to see Rosa,
as well as the rest of the world, through the confused eyes of a young refugee
who resents her exotic stepmother for what she fails to give her. It isn’t until Bich meets her biological
mother and has a brief view of the life she would have had that she realizes
Rosa, while mean at times, did not deprive her: “Oh, we desired a million
selfish things, but we had never really gone without. We were the fortunate ones. That’s what my mother was pressing on me-what
I hadn’t fully seen,” (Nguyen 235). Bich
resented Rosa for not giving her the Betty Crocker cake mixes and fancy clothes
owned by girls like Jennifer VanderWal but comes to realize her pining to own these
things clouded her vision of what she already possessed.
Bich also discusses places and nationalities as possessions
to be owned. When she finally has the
opportunity to return to Vietnam she states: “I could not have prepared myself
for the feeling of being a tourist in the country where I was supposed to have
grown up, of being a foreigner among people who were supposed to be mine,”
(245). This passage was fascinating to
me because never before had I really considered the people and place around me
as “mine” in the way Bich does. We see
Bich identifying the fact that she had these expectations. She felt she did not own the world around her
in Grand Rapids and therefor expected to find her home in her roots:
Vietnam. The rude awakening she faces
finally allows her to break through these expectations, identify who she is and
claim what she does own: Noi’s Cha Gio, the candies from her dad, ice cream
cones with her uncles and Rosa’s rice.
There was a particular passage that I felt really summed up
Bich’s transformation from a child who covets the ease of the White world
around her to a woman who sees these desires for what they really are. When discussing her family’s many trips to
Ponderosa she begins by painting a beautiful picture of the all the excess and
flavor and wonder contained in this buffet and ends by observing how truly
grotesque it really was. This leads her
to a discovery not only about this American restaurant but also of all that she
had wished to own as a child: “Now I see the myth of endlessness. The bottomless bowl of soup is never
bottomless…Eventually, the longest, biggest buffet in Grand Rapids must end,”
(219). This realization may be viewed as
a metaphor for the transformation in ideals Bich experienced from focusing on
that which she did not have to focusing on who she was.
Wonderful insights, Emma. I really enjoyed witnessing your thought processes evolve over the course of reading this book. Interesting, especially, about Rosa--and the quote you provide is the first time Bich refers to her as "my mother." Bich the author essentially recreates her own evolution and ways of seeing Rosa in the reader.
ReplyDeleteEmma, you made some great comments on this book that made me think about it in a different way. I was also interested in how Bich wanted to own the place she was in. She wanted to fit in so badly, but when she went to Vietnam, where she thought she should be because she seemed to think she would be able to fit in there, she realized she couldn't. This reminded me of earlier in the book when she wanted American food so badly, but when Rosa made it she was unhappy about it.
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful psychological analysis, Emma. I really appreciate the subtlety of your comments. I agree on all of them, particularly on the question of identity. The ambiguous situation of Bich, neither American nor Vietnamese, is powerfully described in the book. Then, the scene in which she is reading in Noi's closet appears to me as crucial: through literature, she finally accedes to who she is. The thread that is food probably helped her in this process, allowing to cross the boundaries of several cultures: Vietnamese, Mexican, American.
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