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Stealing Buddha's Dinner Analysis

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In “Stealing Buddha's Dinner” by Bich Minh Nguyen, Nguyen tells the story of her childhood from her home in Saigon, Vietnam to living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“Stealing Buddha’s Dinner” was published by Viking Penguin in 2007, this was Nguyen's first published book. In this nonfiction book, Nguyen includes several elements of rhetorical devices and literary devices, this makes her book effective in making you understand her experience.

Nguyen lived through this experience of being a refugee. She was born in Saigon, Vietnam in the 1980s and during the Vietnam War, her and her family came to the U.S. Bich Minh Nguyen's credibility comes from her personal experience and encounters.

Bich writes her story with themes of fitting in and being different. Nguyen writes “I… wondered what it would be like to live in any other house.” (59). She wants to be anyone else because she feels so different and out of place being Vietnamese in America. This story was heartwarming as you see how Nguyen progresses and starts to feel good in her own skin. She begins to feel proud of her culture. She wrote a nice story of the life of a refugee but there’s no climax, there's no action, no romance and to me this is boring, it is not my genre. On the other hand, the story takes you on a journey, it brings you through a refugee's experience, it is very interesting to see this perspective. …show more content…

Bichs two older sisters, Chrissy and Anh are so beautiful, they fit in but she doesn't. She struggles with wanting to be a “normal, blonde american girl”.
Pathos is the most present rhetoric device in Nguyen's story, “I'm getting on a ship...You get the family on any one you can...There's no other way…This is our last chance.”(5). This is their family speaking as they are running from the war in Vietnam in 1975. It makes you feel for her family, it's sad what they had to go

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