Friday, January 20, 2012

Chicken Soup for the Soul in Vietnamese





My intense interest in the reading of American self-help in Asia sees me haunting bookstores in Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh and Bangkok, seeing just what is translated, how it is presented, and who is buying it.




The Chicken Soup for the Soul books are ubiquitous in Vietnam. In my book Destination Saigon I mention how young students in Hanoi sit around the gardens of the Temple of Literature reading them. Bookstores carry shelves full of them, and they are always presented in bilingual editions. I suspect the simplicity of their stories has great appeal for the English-language learner.



Interestingly, they seem to have received endorsement from all of the main religions, because I have seen them for sale in Catholic and Buddhist bookstores alike.

Vietnamese friends who read them, even quite uneducated and unsophisticated people, are enthralled by the stories in the books and absolutely love them. I once watched a young fisherman lie down and read a pile of them in one afternoon, completely absorbed. When I ased him what he thought of them, he said: "They're brilliant. The most fascinating stories of foreigners and the amazing things they do. Foreigners are so interesting..." For him it was total escapism, an adventure in the exotic. The themes and messages of the stories seemed to have no relevance to his actual life. He was reading them as fantasy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where can I get access to this book? I tried looking it up but can't seem to find a place to buy it. Please email me at Anne.ngac@gmail.com. Id really like to get this for my mother.

Walter Mason said...

Anne, I am not aware of any on-line stores that sell books from Vietnam. I am afraid you are going to have to go to Vietnam to get it - it is readily available at all bookstores there, as it is wildly popular.