Chapters 12-15 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 12, "Divergent-Rhythm," began with a description of one of Andrew's great-aunt's sons, Hung, who was a filmmaker whose wife took their daughter to America four years earlier. Hung was having trouble getting permission to immigrate and was worried that he would not be able to work as a filmmaker in America. Whereas Hung was rather unstable, Kuong was the good, hard-working son, unafraid of the outside world, and Andrew's only supporter of his bike trip to Hanoi. The eldest brother, Viet, was very likeable and held a master's degree in chemistry, but his soft drink bottling business was in the process of going bankrupt, destroyed by Pepsi and Coca-Cola. These mini-portraits showed how the world at large, and particularly America, held sway over the lives of the Vietnamese. All four young men went drinking at a bar where the...