Crickets by Robert Olen Butler
"Crickets" is a short story by Robert Olen Butler featured in his collection "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain." The narrative explores the cultural tensions within a Vietnamese family that has relocated to Lake Charles, Louisiana. Central to the story is the father, Thiệu, a chemical engineer who grapples with his desire to preserve his Vietnamese heritage while facing the reality of his son Bill's American upbringing. Thiệu's struggle is highlighted by his son’s rejection of Vietnamese customs, evident when Bill, who does not speak Vietnamese, feels embarrassed by a goodbye spoken in his father’s native tongue.
To bridge this cultural gap, Thiệu attempts to engage Bill in a childhood game from Vietnam called Crickets, which symbolizes the complex relationships and conflicts between the Vietnamese and Americans during the Vietnam War. The game involves two types of crickets—charcoal crickets representing Americans and fire crickets symbolizing Vietnamese. However, Bill’s growing disinterest, particularly his concern over keeping his Reebok tennis shoes clean, illustrates the generational divide and the larger theme of Americanization. Ultimately, Thiệu's acceptance of his son's identity culminates in his decision to say goodbye in English, signifying a poignant shift in their relationship and the realities of cultural assimilation.
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Crickets by Robert Olen Butler
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1992 (collected in A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, 1992)
Type of work: Short story
The Work
From the short-story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, “Crickets” is the story of a Vietnamese family displaced to Lake Charles, Louisiana, and the rift that develops between a father who would like to retain his Vietnamese heritage and a son who prefers all things American. Butler repeats his trope of the collision of cultures, this time as embodied in a second-generation Vietnamese American.
Thiệu is a chemical engineer in a Lake Charles refinery. His American coworkers insist upon calling him Ted; he believes that they call him Ted because they want to think of him as one of them. Thiệu knows that he will never truly be one of them; everything about him and them is so radically different, right down to size. He gives in to the name change because he believes that he has done enough fighting for one lifetime.
As part of the acculturation process, Thiệu has given his son an American name, Bill. The son speaks no Vietnamese and is embarrassed when his father tells him goodbye in Vietnamese. In an attempt to instill some of his heritage in his son, Thiệu decides to teach his son one of his own childhood games from Vietnam, Crickets. Thiệu has difficulty in keeping his son engaged as he explains the game and as they search for crickets.
Thiệu tells his son that there are two types of crickets, charcoal crickets and fire crickets. The charcoal crickets are large and strong but slow and easily confused. The fire crickets are small and brown, not as strong as the charcoal crickets but very smart and quick. The fights between the two types of crickets take place in a paper tunnel made for the game. The game Thiệu explains to his son cannot take place, however, because they can find no fire crickets. Bill loses all interest in the game when he sees that he has soiled his Reebok tennis shoes. Thiệu continues the search for fire crickets but finds none. He comes to believe that a fire cricket is a precious and admirable thing.
The game symbolizes the struggle between the Americans and Vietnamese in the Vietnam War. The charcoal crickets represent the Americans; the fire crickets represent the Vietnamese. Because he lives in America, Thiệu cannot find any fire crickets. Just as there are no fire crickets to fight the charcoal crickets, Thiệu decides not to fight his son’s Americanization any longer. Thiệu understands that his son’s concern over a pair of Reeboks, a symbol of America, is more important than the boy’s lack of interest in the game, a symbol of the Vietnam of Thiệu’s past, a Vietnam that does not exist for Bill. The next morning, when Bill leaves for school, Thiệu tells him goodbye in English rather than Vietnamese.
Bibliography
Beidler, Philip D. Re-Writing America: Vietnam Authors in Their Generation. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991.
Broyard, Anatole. Review of The Alleys of Eden, by Robert Olen Butler. The New York Times, November 11, 1981, 29.
Lohafer, Susan. “Real-World Characters in Fictional Story Worlds: Robert Olen Butler’s ’JFK Secretly Attends Jackie Auction.’” In The Art of Brevity: Excursions in Short Fiction Theory and Analysis, edited by Per Winther et al. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004.
Myers, Thomas. Walking Point: American Narratives of Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Packer, George. “From the Mekong to the Bayous.” The New York Times Book Review 97 (June 7, 1992): 24.
Ryan, Maureen. “Robert Olen Butler’s Vietnam Veterans: Strangers in an Alien Home.” The Midwest Quarterly 38, no. 3 (1997): 274-294.
Sartisky, Michael. “A Pulitzer Profile: Louisiana’s Robert Olen Butler.” Cultural Vistas: Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities 4 (Fall, 1993): 10-21.
Womack, Kenneth. “Reading the Titanic: Contemporary Literary Representations of the Ship of Dreams.” Interdisciplinary Literary Studies 5, no. 1 (2003): 34-44.