Vietnamese American Writer Wins PEN/Oakland Award

By Jenny Chen

Andrew Lam, editor-in-chief of New America Media, a nonprofit organization that advocates 3,000 ethnic news organizations in the United States, was awarded the PEN/Oakland Award for his fictional collection of short stories Birds of Paradise Lost. The book is based on the Vietnamese refugee experience. Maxine Hong Kingston wrote about Lam: “…bask in his love of language, and his compassion for people, both those here and those from far away. He reminds us that we have history in common; we can laugh and cry together.”

Asian Fortune: What inspired your book?

Andrew Lam: Mostly it’s love. Love for the art of the short story forms. Love for my people. Love for immigrants in general. And it’s also survivor’s guilt. I left Vietnam on a plane and watched the aftermath of the war from America: boat people, re-education camps, poverty, starvation, all kinds of horrors that played out after I left my homeland. Then I watched as newcomers struggle to survive in the new place while being haunted by memories and trauma of their exodus. I wrote Birds of Paradise Lost as a way to pay tribute to those who struggled and their resilience.

Asian Fortune: How long did it take to complete?

Andrew Lam: Writing fiction is different than non-fiction. As a journalist I am constantly under deadline. An op-ed or article needs to be published soon or it loses traction. Writing fiction takes time. It’s a labor of love and it brews and simmers. How long for this book? I would say on and off 20 years. But I wrote two books before it – Perfume Dreams, and East Eats West.

Asian Fortune: How does your experience as an Asian American inform your writing?

Andrew Lam: I would say that the experience is more of being a Vietnamese refugee first, to be more precise, before being an Asian American. I am informed by trauma, by having lost and country and having to remake my life in the New World. Later on I take on the Asian American identity and an immigrant identity but i am formed by the Vietnam war and its aftermath first and foremost. Asian American identities are largely political ones, especially when one deals with racism and so on. In some way, I addressed much of that in “East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres.” Birds of Paradise Lost on the other hand is deeply personal and specific to the Vietnamese Diaspora.

Asian Fortune: What did you hope to achieve with your book for the Asian American community? For the non-Asian American readers?

Andrew Lam: I hope to share the sadness and joy of those who had been robbed of their homeland but who managed to remake themselves in the New World. In some way, while their stories are particular to their history, their experience is universal – losing home, remaking one’s self, see the optimism in the tragic, spiritual awakening through tragedy. All these things are not meant for any particular group or readership but for anyone who is interested in the human condition.

Asian Fortune: Toughest part of writing Birds of Paradise Lost?

The toughest part is probably discipline. Since there’s no deadlines – all the fiction I do is self motivated and on spare time – it’s hard to get back to the dreamworld to create and immerse in the stories. But it’s also tough to live with so many stories that are full of traumas and sadness. It’s good that there’s a lot of humor involved. I am glad however that it is published and gaining attention around the country.

Excerpt from “The Palmist” a short story in “Birds of Paradise Lost”

The Palmist

The palmist closed up early because of the pains. He felt as if he was being roasted, slowly, inside out. By noon he could no longer focus on his customers’ palms, their life and love lines having all failed to point to any significant future, merging instead with the rivers and streams of his memories.

Outside, the weather had turned. Dark clouds hung low, and the wind was heavy with moisture. He reached the bus stop’s tiny shelter when it began to pour. He didn’t have to wait long, however. The good old 38 Geary pulled up in a few minutes, and he felt mildly consoled, though sharp pains flared and blossomed from deep inside his bowels like tiny geysers and made each of his three steps up the bus laborious and breathless.

It was warm and humid on the crowded bus, and a fine mist covered all windows. The palmist sat on the front bench facing the aisle, the one reserved for the handicapped and the elderly. A fat woman who had rosy cheeks and who did not take the seat gave him a dirty look. It was true: his hair was still mostly black, and he appeared to be a few years short of senior citizenship. The palmist pretended not to notice her. Contemptuously, he leaned back against the worn and cracked vinyl and smiled to himself. He closed his eyes.

A faint odor of turned earth reached his nostrils. He inhaled deeply and saw again a golden rice field, a beatific smile, a face long gone: his first kiss.

The rain pounded the roof as the bus rumbled toward the sea.

At the next stop, a teenager got on. Caught in the downpour without an umbrella, he was soaking wet, and his extra-large t-shirt, which said play hard…stay hard, clung to him. It occurred to the palmist that this was the face of someone who hadn’t yet learned to be fearful of the weather. The teenager stood towering above the palmist, blocking him from seeing the fat woman, who, from time to time, continued to glance disapprovingly at him.

So young, the palmist thought: the age of my youngest son, maybe, had he lived. The palmist tried to conjure up his son’s face, but could not. It had been some years since the little boy drowned in the South China Sea, along with his two older sisters and their mother. The palmist had escaped on a different boat, a smaller one that had left a day after his family’s boat, and, as a result, reached America alone.

Alone, thought the palmist and sighed. Alone.

It was then that his gaze fell upon the teenager’s hand and he saw something. He leaned forward and did what he had never done before on the 38 Geary. He spoke up loudly, excitedly.

“You,” he said in his heavy accent. “I see wonderful life!”

The teenager looked down at the old man and arched his eyebrows.

“I’m a palmist. Maybe you give me your hand?” he said.

The teenager did nothing. No one had ever asked to see his hand on the bus. The fat woman snickered. Oh, she’d seen it all on the 38 Geary. She wasn’t surprised. “This my last reading: no money, free, gift for you,” the palmist pressed on. “Give me your hand.”

“You know,” the teenager said, scratching his chin. He was nervous. “I don’t know.” He felt as if he’d been caught inside a moving glass house and that, with the passengers looking on, he had somehow turned into one of its most conspicuous plants.

“What—what you don’t know?” asked the palmist. “Maybe I know. Maybe I answer.”

“Dude,” the teenager said, “I don’t know if I believe in all that hocus-pocus stuff.” Though he didn’t say it, he didn’t know whether he wanted to be touched by the old man with wrinkled, bony hands and a nauseating tobacco breath. To stall, the teenager said, “I have a question, though. Can you read your own future? Can you, like, tell when you’re gonna die and stuff?” Then he thought about it and said, “Nah, forget it. Sorry, that was stupid.”

The bus driver braked abruptly at the next stop, and the people standing struggled to stay on their feet. But those near the front of the bus were also struggling to listen to the conversation. “No, no, not stupid,” said the palmist. “Good question. Long ago, I asked same thing, you know. I read same story in many hands of my people: story that said something bad will happen. Disaster. But in my hand here, I read only good thing. This line here, see, say I have happy family, happy future. No problem. So I think: me, my family, no problem. Now I know better: all hands effect each other, all lines run into each other, tell a big story. When the war ended in my country, you know, it was so bad for everybody. And my family? Gone, gone under the sea. You know, reading palm not like reading map.” He touched his chest. “You feel and see here in heart also, in guts here also, not just here in your head. It is—how d’you say—atuition?”

“Intuition,” the teenager corrected him, stifling a giggle.

“Yes,” nodded the palmist. “Intuition.”

The teenager liked the sound of the old man’s voice. Its timbre reminded him of the voice of his long dead grandfather, who also came from another country, one whose name had changed several times as a result of wars.

“My stop not far away now,” the palmist continued. “This your last chance. Free. No charge.”

“Go on, kiddo,” the fat woman said, nudging the boy with her elbow and smiling. She wanted to hear his future. “I’ve been listening. It’s all right. He’s for real, I can tell now.” That was what the boy needed. “Ok,” he said, then opened his right fist like a flower and presented it to the palmist. The old man’s face burned with seriousness as he leaned down and traced the various lines and contours and fleshy knolls on the teenager’s palm. He bent the boy’s wrist this way and that, kneaded and poked the fingers and knuckles as if to measure the strength of his resolve. In his own language, he made mysterious calculations and mumbled a few singsong words to himself.

Finally, the palmist looked up and, in a solemn voice, spoke. “You will become artist. When twenty-five, twenty-six, you’re going to change very much. If you don’t choose right, oh, so many regrets. But don’t be afraid. Never be afraid. Move forward. Always.  You have help. These squares here, right here, see, they’re spirits and mentors, they come protect, guide you. When you reach mountaintop, people everywhere will hear you, know you, see you. Your art, what you see, others will see. Oh, so much love. You number one someday.”

You can order Birds of Paradise Lost from Amazon.com or anywhere else books are sold.