Andrew X. Pham

Andrew X. Pham, the book's author, was the central person in it. In telling the story of his bicycle trip through Vietnam, he also reflected extensively on his upbringing and current relationship with his family. Through these scenes, it became apparent that challenging circumstances, prejudices, and violence had caused Andrew to develop a major problem with anger. Beaten regularly by his father, he started beating his younger brothers in return. As a teenage immigrant from Vietnam in California, he encountered racial prejudice and joined a gang that fought with gangs of other ethnic groups. During his cycling trip, he was threatened by young toughs on a number of occasions, and each time he had to stifle the urge to lash out, which would have been disastrous. The other side of Andrew's character was his sensitivity. He empathized with the difficulties of his family members and of...