Monkey Bridge
Encyclopedia
Monkey Bridge, published in 1997, is the debut novel
of Vietnamese American
attorney
and writer
Lan Cao
. Lan Cao
is professor
of international law
at William and Mary Law School. She left Vietnam
in 1975. In many significant ways, Cao's narrative follows the tradition of Maxine Hong Kingston
's classic The Woman Warrior
, a book about Chinese American
immigrant experience. In addition to 'Monkey Bridge', Cao also coauthored Everything You Need to Know about Asian American History with Himilce Novas.
’s debut novel
Monkey Bridge traverses several opposing worlds. The novel consists of two narrators: Mai, a teenage Vietnamese
immigrant, who flees to America
on the day Saigon falls in 1975, and her mother, Thanh, who manages to join Mai a few months after Mai is settled in United States Of America.
Three years after their arrival in the United States, Thanh is in the hospital with a blood clot in her brain
, suffering paralysis
of half side. She has been calling out for Baba Quan, her father, in her sleep. Thanh and Baba Quan are supposed to meet in Saigon and leave for America
together back in 1975, but this plan fails because Baba Quan, due to some unknown reason, does not show up. Since then, Thanh has “never truly recovered from the mishap that left him without the means to leave Saigon” (4).
Mai, who worries about her mother’s health condition and understands how desperately her mother wants to see Baba Quan, decides to make a dangerous trip to Canada
with her best friend Bobbie, where they plan to make a phone call to Baba Quan once they cross the border and hopefully take a wild chance to bring her grandfather to the United States. The plan, however, does not succeed. Mai retreats at the last minute because she not only fears for being deported by the U.S government but also recalls what her father says all the time: “One wrong move…the entire course of a country changed” (25), in which he refers to America’s decision to make the crucial commitment in the Vietnam War.
Thanh gets discharged by the hospital and decides to temporarily leave her Vietnam past behind so she can move on. She becomes socially active again in the Vietnamese American
community, Little Saigon
. Meanwhile, Mai, idling around at home in the summer before attending college, gets very curious about her mysterious grandfather and starts to pry into things about Baba Quan from her mother and different acquaintances, such as Mrs. Bay, Thanh’s best friend, and Uncle Michael, a Vietnam
veteran
who befriends with her father and brings her to the United States when Saigon falls. After several attempts, Mai still fails to learn anything specific about Baba Quan, all they would tell her are some basic facts and superficial comments. She also fails to convince Uncle Michael to help her grandfather relocate in the United States.
Wanting to know more about her mother’s and Baba Quan’s Vietnam
past—“the vivid details that accompanied every fault and fracture, every movement and shift that had forced her apart and at the same time kept her stitched together" (168), Mai sneaks in her mother’s room and steals the letters that her mother has kept writing her, but has not let her read them yet. From her mother’s secret letters, Mai finally learns the unspoken family history that Thanh has been avoiding telling her and the reason why Baba Quan did not show up at their escapade:
Unable to maintain his rental payments, Baba Quan, who Thanh once believed to be her father, prostitutes his wife to his rich landlord, Uncle Khan, whose wife is sterile. Tuyet, Baba Quan’s wife, later on has Khan’s child, Thanh. From this act, Baba Quan secures his land and gets endless benefits from the rich landlord
. The Khan’s soon adopt Thanh and send her to a catholic
boarding school
. Living with shame and rage, Baba Quan has been planning to get revenge on his landlord by committing a murderous act but never succeeds. Later on when the war begins, Baba Quan becomes a Vietcong. His village is declared a free-fire zone, and his family is moved away from their ancestral land to a nearby strategic hamlet, while he stays there to keep working with the Vietcong. Thanh’s mother dies during the transition. In accordance with Vietnamese ritual, Thanh has to escort her mother’s body back to their home village for burial. By a riverbank on her way back home, Thanh witnesses Baba Quan murder his landlord. Struck with panic, Thanh runs away and incautiously leaves her mother’s body behind. Because Thanh loses her mother's body and fails to perform the proper burial rituals, she is left with a permanent scar and never adjusts her to new life in America
.
Thanh: Mai's mother, the second narrator.
Baba Quan: Thanh's father, the mysterious father figure in the novel.
Uncle Michael: the Vietnam War
veteran who brings Mai to America.
Aunt Mary: Michael's wife.
Uncle Khan: Baba Quan's rich landlord.
Bobbie: Mai's best friend. She is Mai's positive influence.
Mrs. Bay: Thanh's best friend.
Language and authority: Language, in this novel, appears in two opposite forms: the barrier of language and the power of language. In Thanh's secret letters to her daughter, she writes that Mai is ashamed of her because she speaks English with an accent, even though she speaks perfect Vietnamese and French. On the other hand, Mai finds her power from "the gift of language":
The generation gap: Because of the cultural differences and language barriers, the generation gap in immigrant families has become the most crucial factor that distance the parents and the children. Mai admits that her mother "dies in her mind" because she is "imperfect and unable to adjust" (70). A role shift between two generations hence appears. As critic David Cowart writes, "Mai sees the elder immigrants as adolescents, and her mother is undramatically transformed from mother to child" (Cowart 150).
Exile and nostalgia: When the Little Saigon
members get together, the only thing they talk about is Vietnam
. Deep in their hearts, they still believe that the communist government will eventually fall apart, and they can all go home then.
"Western readers are fortunate to have Cao contribute to the modest body of work that goes beyond wartime and reaches for Vietnam's lush heart" -Chicago Tribune
"With incredible lightness, balance, and elegance, Lan Cao crosses over an abyss of pain, loss, separation and exile, connecting on one level the opposite realities of Vietnam
and North America
, and on a deeper level the realities of the material world and the world of the spirits." -Isabel Allende
"Lyrical and subtle writing." -Los Angeles Times
"Cao crafts a novel of eminent interest...Evocative in detail, and poignant in its portrayal of the plight of war refugees." -The Boston Globe
"This powerful and insightful book is a bona fide first both for its author and for American publishing, the initial novel about the war and its aftermath written by a Vietnamese American." -Seattle Post-Intelligencer
bv gg
Cowart, David. "Assimilation and Adolescence: Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy and Lan Cao's Monkey Bridge." Trailing Clouds: Immigrant Fiction in Contemporary America. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2006. 138-59.
Debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...
of Vietnamese American
Vietnamese American
A Vietnamese American is an American of Vietnamese descent. They make up about half of all overseas Vietnamese and are the fourth-largest Asian American group....
attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
Lan Cao
Lan Cao
Lan Cao is the author of the 1997 novel Monkey Bridge and is a professor of law at the College of William and Mary.Cao was born in Vietnam and experienced the Vietnam War as a civilian. She moved to the United States when she was 13. Cao received her B.A. in political science from Mount Holyoke...
. Lan Cao
Lan Cao
Lan Cao is the author of the 1997 novel Monkey Bridge and is a professor of law at the College of William and Mary.Cao was born in Vietnam and experienced the Vietnam War as a civilian. She moved to the United States when she was 13. Cao received her B.A. in political science from Mount Holyoke...
is professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
at William and Mary Law School. She left Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
in 1975. In many significant ways, Cao's narrative follows the tradition of Maxine Hong Kingston
Maxine Hong Kingston
Maxine Hong Kingston is a Chinese American author and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with a BA in English in 1962. Kingston has written three novels and several works of non-fiction about the experiences of Chinese immigrants living in the United...
's classic The Woman Warrior
The Woman Warrior
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts is a memoir by Maxine Hong Kingston, published by Vintage Books in 1975. Although there are many scholarly debates surrounding the official genre classification of the book, it can best be described as a work of creative non-fiction.Throughout...
, a book about Chinese American
Chinese American
Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...
immigrant experience. In addition to 'Monkey Bridge', Cao also coauthored Everything You Need to Know about Asian American History with Himilce Novas.
Plot summary
Lan CaoLan Cao
Lan Cao is the author of the 1997 novel Monkey Bridge and is a professor of law at the College of William and Mary.Cao was born in Vietnam and experienced the Vietnam War as a civilian. She moved to the United States when she was 13. Cao received her B.A. in political science from Mount Holyoke...
’s debut novel
Debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...
Monkey Bridge traverses several opposing worlds. The novel consists of two narrators: Mai, a teenage Vietnamese
Vietnamese people
The Vietnamese people are an ethnic group originating from present-day northern Vietnam and southern China. They are the majority ethnic group of Vietnam, comprising 86% of the population as of the 1999 census, and are officially known as Kinh to distinguish them from other ethnic groups in Vietnam...
immigrant, who flees to America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on the day Saigon falls in 1975, and her mother, Thanh, who manages to join Mai a few months after Mai is settled in United States Of America.
Three years after their arrival in the United States, Thanh is in the hospital with a blood clot in her brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
, suffering paralysis
Paralysis
Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor. A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed...
of half side. She has been calling out for Baba Quan, her father, in her sleep. Thanh and Baba Quan are supposed to meet in Saigon and leave for America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
together back in 1975, but this plan fails because Baba Quan, due to some unknown reason, does not show up. Since then, Thanh has “never truly recovered from the mishap that left him without the means to leave Saigon” (4).
Mai, who worries about her mother’s health condition and understands how desperately her mother wants to see Baba Quan, decides to make a dangerous trip to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
with her best friend Bobbie, where they plan to make a phone call to Baba Quan once they cross the border and hopefully take a wild chance to bring her grandfather to the United States. The plan, however, does not succeed. Mai retreats at the last minute because she not only fears for being deported by the U.S government but also recalls what her father says all the time: “One wrong move…the entire course of a country changed” (25), in which he refers to America’s decision to make the crucial commitment in the Vietnam War.
Thanh gets discharged by the hospital and decides to temporarily leave her Vietnam past behind so she can move on. She becomes socially active again in the Vietnamese American
Vietnamese American
A Vietnamese American is an American of Vietnamese descent. They make up about half of all overseas Vietnamese and are the fourth-largest Asian American group....
community, Little Saigon
Little Saigon
Little Saigon is a name given to any of several overseas Vietnamese immigrant and descendant communities outside Vietnam, usually in the United States...
. Meanwhile, Mai, idling around at home in the summer before attending college, gets very curious about her mysterious grandfather and starts to pry into things about Baba Quan from her mother and different acquaintances, such as Mrs. Bay, Thanh’s best friend, and Uncle Michael, a Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
veteran
Veteran
A veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...
who befriends with her father and brings her to the United States when Saigon falls. After several attempts, Mai still fails to learn anything specific about Baba Quan, all they would tell her are some basic facts and superficial comments. She also fails to convince Uncle Michael to help her grandfather relocate in the United States.
Wanting to know more about her mother’s and Baba Quan’s Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
past—“the vivid details that accompanied every fault and fracture, every movement and shift that had forced her apart and at the same time kept her stitched together" (168), Mai sneaks in her mother’s room and steals the letters that her mother has kept writing her, but has not let her read them yet. From her mother’s secret letters, Mai finally learns the unspoken family history that Thanh has been avoiding telling her and the reason why Baba Quan did not show up at their escapade:
Unable to maintain his rental payments, Baba Quan, who Thanh once believed to be her father, prostitutes his wife to his rich landlord, Uncle Khan, whose wife is sterile. Tuyet, Baba Quan’s wife, later on has Khan’s child, Thanh. From this act, Baba Quan secures his land and gets endless benefits from the rich landlord
Landlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...
. The Khan’s soon adopt Thanh and send her to a catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
. Living with shame and rage, Baba Quan has been planning to get revenge on his landlord by committing a murderous act but never succeeds. Later on when the war begins, Baba Quan becomes a Vietcong. His village is declared a free-fire zone, and his family is moved away from their ancestral land to a nearby strategic hamlet, while he stays there to keep working with the Vietcong. Thanh’s mother dies during the transition. In accordance with Vietnamese ritual, Thanh has to escort her mother’s body back to their home village for burial. By a riverbank on her way back home, Thanh witnesses Baba Quan murder his landlord. Struck with panic, Thanh runs away and incautiously leaves her mother’s body behind. Because Thanh loses her mother's body and fails to perform the proper burial rituals, she is left with a permanent scar and never adjusts her to new life in America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Significant characters
Mai: The first narrator of the novel, a teenage immigrant who struggles with being American and remaining Vietnamese.Thanh: Mai's mother, the second narrator.
Baba Quan: Thanh's father, the mysterious father figure in the novel.
Uncle Michael: the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
veteran who brings Mai to America.
Aunt Mary: Michael's wife.
Uncle Khan: Baba Quan's rich landlord.
Bobbie: Mai's best friend. She is Mai's positive influence.
Mrs. Bay: Thanh's best friend.
Themes
Gender roles in traditional Vietnamese society: From Thanh's narrative, we learn that she has to give up all her fancy education in order to be a perfect wife, as her mother-in-law calls her. On the other hand, even though Baba Quan prostitutes his wife to his landlord, becomes a Vietcong, and eventually murders his landlord, Thanh and Uncle Michael still try to protect his vulnerable father figure by making up lies, because the Vietnamese believe that men are supposed to take care of their families by all means and women are to sacrifice.Language and authority: Language, in this novel, appears in two opposite forms: the barrier of language and the power of language. In Thanh's secret letters to her daughter, she writes that Mai is ashamed of her because she speaks English with an accent, even though she speaks perfect Vietnamese and French. On the other hand, Mai finds her power from "the gift of language":
"Inside my new tongue, my real tongue, was an astonishing new power. For my mother and her Vietnamese neighbors, I became the
keeper of the word, the only one with access to the light-world. Like Adam, I had the God-given right to name all the fowls of the air and all the beasts of the field. The right to name, I quickly discover, also meant the right to stand guard over language and the right to claim unadulterated authority" (37).
The generation gap: Because of the cultural differences and language barriers, the generation gap in immigrant families has become the most crucial factor that distance the parents and the children. Mai admits that her mother "dies in her mind" because she is "imperfect and unable to adjust" (70). A role shift between two generations hence appears. As critic David Cowart writes, "Mai sees the elder immigrants as adolescents, and her mother is undramatically transformed from mother to child" (Cowart 150).
Exile and nostalgia: When the Little Saigon
Little Saigon
Little Saigon is a name given to any of several overseas Vietnamese immigrant and descendant communities outside Vietnam, usually in the United States...
members get together, the only thing they talk about is Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. Deep in their hearts, they still believe that the communist government will eventually fall apart, and they can all go home then.
Book reviews
"An impressive debut...Maps the state of exile and its elusive geography of loss and hope." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
"Western readers are fortunate to have Cao contribute to the modest body of work that goes beyond wartime and reaches for Vietnam's lush heart" -Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
"With incredible lightness, balance, and elegance, Lan Cao crosses over an abyss of pain, loss, separation and exile, connecting on one level the opposite realities of Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, and on a deeper level the realities of the material world and the world of the spirits." -Isabel Allende
"Lyrical and subtle writing." -Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
"Cao crafts a novel of eminent interest...Evocative in detail, and poignant in its portrayal of the plight of war refugees." -The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
"This powerful and insightful book is a bona fide first both for its author and for American publishing, the initial novel about the war and its aftermath written by a Vietnamese American." -Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
bv gg
Works cited
Cao, Lan. Monkey Bridge. New York: Penguin, 1997.Cowart, David. "Assimilation and Adolescence: Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy and Lan Cao's Monkey Bridge." Trailing Clouds: Immigrant Fiction in Contemporary America. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2006. 138-59.