Stealing Buddha's Dinner Audiobook By Bich Minh Nguyen cover art

Stealing Buddha's Dinner

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Stealing Buddha's Dinner

By: Bich Minh Nguyen
Narrated by: Alice H. Kennedy
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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, the barely conscious desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food. More exotic-seeming than her Buddhist grandmother's traditional specialties - spring rolls; delicate pancakes stuffed with meats, herbs, and bean sprouts; fried shrimp cakes - the 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 becomes an ingenious metaphor for her struggle to fit in, to become a "real" American, a distinction that brings with it the dream of the perfect school lunch, burgers and Jell-O for dinner, and a visit from the Kool-Aid man.

Beginning with Nguyen's family's harrowing migration out of Saigon in 1975, Stealing Buddha's Dinner is also a portrayal of a diverse family: Nguyen's hardworking, hard-partying father, pretty sister, and wise and nurturing grandmother - and Rosa, her Latina stepmother, the loving, no-nonsense foil to her gastronomical and materialistic fixations. And there is the mystery of Nguyen's birth mother, unveiled movingly over the course of the book.

Nostalgic and candid, deeply satisfying and minutely observed, Stealing Buddha's Dinner is a unique vision of the immigrant experience and a lyrical ode to how identity is often shaped by the things we long for.

©2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.; 2008 Bich Minh Nguyen Cultural & Regional Women

Editorial reviews

This enthralling, funny-sad memoir, so exactingly observed by author Bich Minh Nguyen, chronicles her coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as a shrimpy, owlish immigrant child of the '80s. Bich's moody father, the haunted architect of his family's flight from Saigon in 1975, is a "Vietnamese Arthur Murray". He toils at a feather factory, coming home every night with down in his hair. Smart-alecky Rosa is Bich's decent stepmother, a second-generation Mexican-American who mortifies her kids by snapping off threats like, "you're cruisin' for a bruisin'".

Bich's droopy home perms, her longing for a mother who bakes banana bread, and her phase of speaking in a British schoolmarm's accent (she is a fool for Mary Poppins ) all translate into a compulsive search for identity. But only her grandmother Noi, a gentle, silvery Buddhist who quietly stirs marrowy pots of pho feathered with cilantro in the kitchen, is present enough to listen. Even when the sound limping out is a drippy Vietnamese new wave cover band committed to Depeche Mode.

Stealing Buddha's Dinner is a tenderhearted homage to the musty dried fish and sandalwood smells of Asian grocery stores, and to moon boots spackled with snow. Narrator Alice H. Kennedy is an insightful, unshowy reader with a nimble voice as clear as jasmine tea. Even this reverent, prayerful reading "i loved to strip away the pebbled skin of a lychee and pop the translucent eyeball into my mouth" shines the light back on Bich. Kennedy, with her Vietnamese-accented English, may or may not share Bich's "immigrant's dilemma", i don't know. Maybe in the end, she just gets, as Bich does, that the outcome of life is not always judged by what you pack for lunch. Nita Rao

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Love the story and the descriptions of food. Different perspective on life in America. Read the book too for an Ethnic Studies class.

Really Good

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As a native of Grand Rapids, I love the accurate descriptions of the culture. Sadly, I did not feel compelled to finish listening as the descriptions of food became long. It may be I had too many distractions to listening.

As a native of Grand Rapids,

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It is a beautiful , engaging book, I admire the author’s honesty and thank her for giving us the gift of her memories. This must have been a painful book to write. I am so happy she did it, I really loved the book.

Very poignant, engaging, well done

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being able to hear the Vietnamese words spoken properly was a huge help to me !

glad there is an audio book!

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This era for America & Vietnam was an awful time of war-poorly handled by our government. We fed our young men to war (without a choice-drafted) to be maimed and slaughtered then slapped them in the face when they got home! The one good thing that happened is the beautiful Vietnamese hard-working people that came to America!
If you want to see a about this movie see the Fourth of July featuring Tom Cruise. Try watching a Vietnam war movie to see what our man went through they were misfits when they came home as well! But aren’t we all in some area of life were different religion personality goals features… Martin Luther King helped equalize everyone
Now look at us so divide it by our first black and white president that promised to unite us instead killed thousands of her cops across the Country and pit the Black people against the white once again! Sad and do all the work done by Kennedy and MLK.

Soft Spoken - Big Topic

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The book was good but the narration was sometimes frustrating or uncomfortable to listen to - the narrator paused at weird times that don't make sense with the pronunciation used or typical (american english) intonation in general. It didn't make the book impossible to listen to but I wouldn't have kept listening to it if I didn't have to read the book. I got used to it after the first few chapters but it was pretty grating at first. Otherwise her voice and performance are fine.

Good book, ok narration

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3/4 way through and nothing is happening yet. I work with ESL students and wanted some insight into their new life in USA. This isn't it.

Don't both

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