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Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir | 
| Author: Bich Minh Nguyen
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $6.00
You Save: $18.95 (76%)
New (9) Used (15) Collectible (1) from $3.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 41268
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.7 x 1
ISBN: 1852385391
Dewey Decimal Number: 977.45600495922092
ASIN: B000X1T2A0
Publication Date: February 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New - never read!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Book Description
A vivid, funny, and viscerally powerful memoir about childhood, assimilation, food, and growing up in the 1980s
As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bich Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity. In the pre-PC era Midwest, where the devoutly Christian blond-haired, blue-eyed Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme, Nguyens barely conscious desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food. More exotic seeming than her Buddhist grandmothers traditional specialtiesspring rolls, delicate pancakes stuffed with meats, fried shrimp cakesthe campy, preservative-filled delicacies of mainstream America capture her imagination. And in this remarkable book, the glossy branded allure of such American foods as Pringles, Kit Kats, and Toll House cookies become an ingenious metaphor for her struggle to fit in, to become a real American. Beginning with Nguyens familys harrowing migration from Saigon in 1975, Stealing Buddhas Dinner is nostalgic and candid, deeply satisfying and minutely observed, and stands as a unique vision of the immigrant experience and a lyrical ode to how identity is often shaped by the things we long for.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Engaging and entertaining read. February 7, 2008
As a child of the 80s (which was truly a silly time to grow up with the hairstyles and fractal patterned Trapper Keepers and whatnot), and a lover of food, I found much to love about this book.
There were a few passages that I found to be a little off-track, like the chapter where the author rhapsodizes about the Laura Ingalls Wilder's books.
But on the whole, I viewed it as a tiny but vivid window into the immigrant experience. I could find some way to relate to every member of the author's family, even when they were not on their best behaviour. I especially loved her depiction of her grandmother, Noi, who has such a lovely peaceful and nuturing presence throughout the book.
The book was thoughtfully crafted and planned out, and beautifully written. I would recommend it to others.
 I related January 29, 2008
As a Vietnamese-American, I related on so many levels. I laughed out loud, too many similar thoughts and experiences.
Stealing Buddha's Dinner - a fascinating memoir January 18, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. It is a fascinating look at the complications of being a first generation Vietmamese American. The places where cultures clash are sometimes very amusing and sometimes hard to take, but always enlightening.
A touching memoir December 31, 2007
I'm reading this book at the moment and can honestly say I haven't enjoyed a memoir this much in a long time. It's delicate, honest and very kind. B.M.Nguyen isn't judging anyone, just shares her experience of growing up as an immigrant from Vietnam.
I recommend this book if you are in a bad mood, it lifts you up, gives you a new and wonderful perspective on life.
 Reflections of a spoiled child December 2, 2007
4 out of 9 found this review helpful
Nguyen's tale leaves a rather foul taste in the mouth. Growing up as a Vietnamese refugee in a fairly large mid-Western city (metro population of roughly 550,000) one would expect to find some expression of gratitude for the opportunities and sacrifices people made for the Nguyen family, but instead, pages are devoted to biting the hand that fed her. Why? She, the author, is obviously a product of her time, and apparently, many (most?) people of her generation are incredibly selfish and self-centered. This comes through loud and clear, page after page. Perhaps she is a product of "multi-culturalism" and feels she had some inherent right to the fruits of the labors of her neighbors. Who knows. For this reason alone, though, the book is interesting - as a sociological study.
It may be Nguyen's writing style, but one feels a lack of love by Nguyen for her step mother, Rosa. She came onto the scene very early after the family immigrated and served as the glue which held the family together. As a professional, educated woman, she probably gave Nguyen and her siblings numerous advantages which other immigrants never enjoyed.
Her tale has some interesting disconnects. Grand Rapids is an all-white city! Not! It has a large Black population, second only to Detroit, and the neighborhoods she claims to have lived in are heavily integrated, both then and now. I wonder if she knows why? Hint - it has something to do with the terminus of the "underground railway." The streets where she claims to have lived are not within walking distance of the school she claims to have attended, so I'm guessing she's taken some liberties with facts - for whatever reasons. In fact, her family was set up in a middle class part of town, and as her father prospered, they moved to increasingly more prosperous parts of town. Nothing wrong with this, but I wonder how she could not be aware of it.
Grand Rapids is also religiously quite diverse. While the Calvinist Dutch do have a large and looming presence, they are hardly the monolith you perceive from her writings. A large number of Polish Catholic immigrants settled in Grand Rapids a century ago; there are the usual numbers of English speaking denominations and German Lutherans as well. Most of Michigan, outside of Detroit, is decidedly conservative. Nguyen would have encountered the "Roll up the streets at 9 PM" attitude whether she lived in Kalamazoo, Benton Harbor, Muskegon, Traverse City or other city outside of metro Detroit.
The story itself is rather strangely told. We get a lot of childish detail from age 4 to the end of elementary school. I was expecting to learn about her secondary school years as well as college experience, but was left wanting. From elementary school, it jumps to her visit to Viet Nam and also the rather bizarre reconnecting with her mother, who lives in Massachusetts. Both events take place a decade later. Again, someone else paid for her trips and again, a sense of ingratitude prevails.
Interestingly, there are better written stories of the escape from Viet Nam. And while her family left under duress, Nguyen is apparently clueless to the trials and tribulations of those who left after the Communist takeover. Nguyen's family was not true "upper class" in Viet Nam, but they weren't poor farmers by any stretch. They were a family which enjoyed a certain amount of privilege in old Viet Nam and perhaps having to earn that again after immigrating to the USA has tainted Nguyen's vision of her youth.
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