Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

Pham arrives in Vietnam, and he describes the scene on the plane while descending. He feels scared, an emotion he hadn’t anticipated, at his return after 20 years. Most of the Vietnamese passengers jump out of their seats and begin taking items out of the overhead bins. A man says hello to Pham, and Pham returns the greeting in Vietnamese. The man asks if he is visiting family. Pham replies that he might but is really there to see the fatherland. The man feels sorry for him, as tradition dictates that Vietnamese see relatives when they visit and writes his brother’s address on the back of his business card, inviting him to visit if he gets lonely. Then he and his wife join the horde of people pushing toward the exits.

Both the captain and the flight attendants struggle to restore order. Watching the Korean and Japanese businessmen flinch from his fellow Vietnamese, Pham feels embarrassed by their behavior. After he goes through immigration, Pham looks for his bicycle in the luggage area. He sees an airport worker trying to cram it into a small opening on a conveyor belt and rushes over to take it from him. It’s badly damaged from the flight, as he hadn’t boxed it up.