The Happiest Refugee: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Anh continues seeing Suzie in his law classes. He is happy when she comes to his defense one day in class, when a friend of his, Steve, jokingly makes fun of Anh for snuggling up to him during a recent camping trip, during which the two friends shared a tent.

One evening, Anh accompanies Steve to the Harold Park Hotel, a famous comedy club. With Steve’s encouragement, Anh signs up for an open mic night at the club to do a 5-minute routine about a disastrous holiday he’d once gone on. To his surprise, the routine goes over well with the audience. Not only that, but a woman comes up to him after the show and books him to do a 10-minute routine at another comedy club.

In his fourth year of law school, Anh begins interviewing for top law firms, but at a three-day retreat interview for the law firm Anderson Consulting, he realizes once and for all that law isn’t for him. And yet, Anh gets offered a job at Anderson Consulting—a job that would resolve all of his family’s financial problems. Upon discovering that he would be working 60-65 hours a week at the job, however, he is in two minds about taking it, especially given that he doesn’t like law work.

At a comedy event, Anh learns from his friend Dave, a comedian, that he works only four hours a week. Dave also informs Anh that the averagely successful comedian earns between $50,000-100,000 a year, which is more than what Anh would earn at a law job with Anderson Consulting. What Anh doesn’t quite realize at this point is that it takes the average comedian five to ten years of working for very little money to achieve this kind of income. But, when he hears about what a good life Dave has, he decides to switch to comedy. He turns down the law job at Anderson Consulting. His mother, always supportive, tells him to go for the comedy career if he thinks he can do it.

Anh works extremely hard for a year taking any performances that come his way. In 1999, he wins the Harold Park Hotels Comedian of the Year award. This is soon followed by another big award—he wins a comedy competition in Canberra, for a prize of $5,000. He uses the award money to get his sister Tram braces. Tram, throughout her childhood, has been so self-conscious over her misaligned teeth that she barely smiles. Finally, Anh can afford to help her.

Anh calls up Suzie one day and discovers that she has recently broken up with a boyfriend. They go to see a film, and then spend all night talking. Something has changed in their relationship. Anh again shares his feelings for her, and this time, to his delight, Suzie confesses that she also has feelings for him.

As a result of his comedy work, Anh begins getting small television parts, and a year and half into his comedy career, he is offered a job hosting the television show “Rush TV.” With a regular income for the first time in his life, Anh secures a mortgage to buy a house for his mother in the neighborhood of Yagoona in Sydney. When he takes her to see the house, his mother is so happy that she begins weeping.

Three months into his relationship with Suzie, Anh realizes that he’s very happy, and remembers his father’s advice that if he finds the right woman, he should marry her. Anh proposes, and Suzie accepts. Engaged at 22, Anh suddenly feels an urge to contact his father and to tell him that he has found the right woman. He takes out the number that he has kept in his wallet for two years, and calls his father. He gets his address in Melbourne and drives to see him.

At his father’s house in Melbourne, Anh sits for an hour talking to him. It has been nine years since he last saw him. He discovers that his father’s new baby son has been named Anh, after him. When he leaves, he gives his father a wrong number. He had hoped, that his father would apologize for abandoning the family all those years ago, and is upset that Tam has behaved instead as though it has been only a short while since they last saw each other.

Nonetheless, Anh calls his father again. This time, on the phone, he notices that his father’s speech is not quite right. He returns a month later to visit his father, this time taking Suzie along. When they arrive, they find that Tam has prepared a massive seafood banquet for them. Anh’s father—whose speech has returned to normal—is at his most charming as he tells funny stories to Suzie and Anh. After Suzie leaves, Anh continues to sit with Tam late into the night. He again notices that his father is slurring his speech, and suddenly, his father collapses, crying.

Anh and Suzie go shopping for an engagement ring. The couple decides to have a big engagement party in the Vietnamese style. The party is held at Suzie’s family home, and Anh’s family arrives on the day carrying a large roasted pig, according to Vietnamese tradition. Anh’s mother and the rest of his family are overwhelmed by the opulence of Suzie’s neighborhood, as well as her home, and Anh’s mother frets that perhaps they haven’t brought a big enough pig. Nonetheless, upon arrival, Anh’s mother gives a moving speech in broken English. The engagement party goes off without a hitch. Both families enjoy the Vietnamese banquet that Anh’s family has prepared.

As the couple spend more time with their families after their engagement, cultural differences begin to emerge. Anh’s family likes to subject Suzie to all kinds of elaborate and strange Vietnamese dishes, which she dutifully eats. Anh, for his part, often feels like he is visiting a restaurant when he goes to Suzie’s family home—so immaculate and formal are the surroundings and the meals.

Anh and Suzie celebrate their wedding day in the school chapel of St. Aloysius, his old school, with their families. To Anh’s relief, Suzie’s father has insisted on paying for most of the wedding expenses. At the church wedding, Anh cries when a distant relative sings a song dedicated to the couple’s parents. The song makes Anh think about his father, who is not present at the celebration, having excused himself from attending. Anh had been glad initially that his father wouldn’t attend, but now he misses him, although he also thinks of the hardships that his mother and siblings have endured in his father’s absence.

Anh and Suzie move into a flat in north Sydney. Suzie works as a lawyer while Anh continues with his comedy career. At times, he travels to Melbourne for his shows, where his father takes to accompanying him to the performances, helping to carry his props. After one show in Melbourne, Tam confesses to Anh that he has a brain tumor. He also tells him that he wants to meet Anh’s siblings, Khoa and Tram, to tell them that he loves them. But when Anh talks to Khoa about meeting Tam, Khoa refuses to go.