Apples and Candy Corn

Libby Dulski

9/16/16

Stealing Buddha’s Dinner: Bich Minh Nguyen (Ch. 1-9)

Reading Review #2

I read the first nine chapters of Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen in two sittings. Throughout my first reading, I found myself reaching for the stash of assorted fruit my suitemates and I have slowly been hording from the cafeteria. Nguyen describes fruits as if they are candy. Throughout the reading, fruits have a sacred meaning for Noi, Bich, and Anh. Pomegranates, mangoes, persimmons, apples, pineapples, and many other types of fruits would be placed upon the altar before Buddha as an offering. All of this fruit would be presented to Buddha before anyone could eat it. Bich describes this as a “lesson in patience and desire. We were eating gifts every time” (19). Bich seems comfortable with her grandmother’s traditions and she takes solace in the practice of presenting fruit to Buddha before it is methodically cut and peeled into symmetrical pieces by Noi.

As I continued reading, I found myself craving my favorite types of candies. While reading the constant lists of sweets and candies, I could not help myself from taking out a bag of candy corn, and, alarmingly, I finished the bag.

It was clear that throughout Nguyen’s youth, she tried hard to assimilate to American culture and tried her hardest to fit in. One passage stood out to me in particular about school lunches. Nguyen describes “the anxiety of what to pack [for lunch] … every school week” (76). She felt a constant pressure to blend in with her classmates. Nguyen describes that the key to school lunches was “to have at least one shining element: a plain sandwich and baggie of potato chips could be made tolerable with the right dessert snack” (76). The fact that there was so much pressure and anxiety surrounding something as trivial as school lunches is unthinkable for me. When I was in primary school, I hardly thought of my lunches because they were always packed by my mother. I guess my mother cared about me almost as much as Holly Jansen’s mom cared about Holly.

A short (pun intended) passage that I felt a connection towards and smiled at was when Nguyen describes Tiffany née Truoc. She describes her as “almost tall enough not to be considered “so short,” which is the comment Anh and I were used to getting at school- “You’re so short!” followed by some tall person trying to use our head as an armrest” (114). Being half-Japanese, I am rather short: People often comment on my size and say things that are not meant to be hurtful like “it must be the Asian genes,” or “look at how cute and Asian-sized you are.” What does “Asian sized” even mean? However, this passage made me feel connected to the piece because I often feel alienated by my semi-short height.

Overall, the first nine chapters of Stealing Buddha’s Dinner has been a pleasure to read, and I am excited to finish the book and continue to eat bags of candy corn and an endless supply of apples hoarded from the cafeteria.