Lookbat Chirasphas

The Influence of Environment in The Trip Back

The 1993 Pulitzer Prize winning fiction, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain,
includes a short story called The Trip Back which discusses a clash of culture. The fiction
was written by Robert Olen Butler and published in 1992. The narrator of this story is Khanh,
vietnamese immigrants and husband of Mai. Mai and Mr.Chinh, her grandfather, are about to
reunited after a long year of living apart. Khanh is the one picking the grandfather up from
the airport. While they are driving back to their house, Khanh relizes that Mr.Chinh has
alzhimers and no memory of Mai. His Thinking processes are developing through out the
story. The author uses reflective mood, Khanhs narcassism, his fearful realization, and
repetition how environment changes ones perspective.
Khanhs feelings towards Vietnamese and American culture are revealed in his
reflective mood while looking at random businesses on the way to the airpot and back home.
When he notices these on the highway, he immediatly states that The little ones that seemed
so Vietnamese to me in how the people always looked for some new angle, some emtpty
corner in the marketplace.(30) It reminds him of the begining when he uses Veitnamese way
to start his business; looking for a new opportunity. He sees how people sweat a lot in the
climate in Lousina(30). which inspries him to open laundry business. Because of
Veitnamese way of doing business make his business successful. However, by operating his
business in America changes him to be a blunt man according to what he says I am a blunt
man. Business has made me that way(34). Once he is in American business field with high
competition, it drives him to try to keep his business going which automatically turns him to
have personality that he has never had.

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The repetition of an idea of unfamilarty of Veitnamese cultures emphsizes that his

majority of his attention is on present time. Even though he was born and grew up in
Vietnam, as soon as he leaves the country the memory starts to fading away little by little
until a point where he says, I had finally left Veitnam behind(36). Since the place he
considered home are changing from Veitnam to America, his atttentions are on present and
future instead of the past as he thinks I was a good American now(38). It shows that
American environment alters the way he thinks of himself as being part of a new community.
In addition, the connection of parts of his life to American culture are countless such as his
business, house, social life. However, the only part of him that still connects to Vietnamese
culture is his Vietnamese wife whose family are living in Vietnam. Veitnamese Culture is
being adopted in this family even it is just a small part in their life according to Khanh
saying, We still have a little shrine in our house and pray for him, which is the way of all
Vietnamese(31). His Reasoning of still adopting some cultures of Vietnam is for my wife
sakes and the sake of our countrys family tradition(34). However, he ultimately feels ...I
myself was no longer comfortable with the ways...The Veitnamese indirectness, for instance
regarding to Veitnamese culture (36).
One of unique characteristic of Khanh that he speaks for himself is narcissistic.The
repetition of him says I am just a business, not a poet accentuates his fear of being judged
as a cold heart person (34). He defends himself by using quality of understanding abstact
feelings of poet as a comparison to him, typical man who does not need to has a deep
emotional understanding over matters of others. For the reason that his actual thoughts are
expressed, this characteristic can be seen through them. He affirms, My mind undestood that
she was that she was feeling these things,but My mind could no focus on this woman I
love because what was pre occupying me at that moment was an itching on my

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heel(31-32). He pretends to be caring, but actually his focus is on insignificant disturbance

of his rather than the feeling of his wife. During the time that the grandfather is being
introduced to his surrounding, Khanh is urged by the truth that he finds out about grandfather
to be primarily care for himeself as show in his thinking, I was even more concerned for
myself. The old man frightened me (40-41). Being this self-invovled is not the way that a
Veitnamese will do, but it is different from Khanh who considered himself an American now
having the act of unkind is acceptable in his comprehension.
The moment of frightening realization of Khanh has occured disclose to the
interaction with his wifes grandfather. A conversation with grandfather who just enters in
social environment cause him to finds out that Mr.Chinh has Alzhimers. He fealt weak
now. I could barely say a word is how he first reacts at first(40). He is shocked by the fact
that he is not expecting. Before the conversation he has not has a thought of trying to improve
how he is: being excessively focus on himself. But after the numbness has gone, the fear is
forming. It brings up the fear of loosing the good memory with his love ones, but instead
remembering the less important memory like his wifes grandfather does. He is now aware
that this could totally happen to him which generates the idea of causing his love ones
emotional pain as seen in the quote I may be prepared to betray all that I think I love the
most(43). It reminds him to be more caring emotionally and physically toward to his wife
while he still can. That is the reason of him trying to calm her down by making her laugh as if
he is giving a real shelter for her broken heart.
To conclude, Khanhs changes according to environment are revealed by his mood,
repetiontion, self-centeredness, and a sudden realization on the text throughout the story.
Khanh is very infuencible by a new stimulus in physical and social environment which causes
him transformative moments that both gradually and immediately transform him. The trip

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back shows alterations in ones life causes by environment which generally happen to
humans in this world.