Gender Roles In Vietnamese Culture

The theme of this story would have to be the practice of Gender Roles in the Vietnamese culture. Gender roles can be found all throughout this book. It is shown, for example, where Thanh’s mother is used as a prostitute because Baba Quan could not keep up with his rent. This shows that women did not have much say in the household and were to do whatever the husband said to. Another example of gender roles being practiced in this culture would be Mai stepping in to help her Mother while she was sick in the hospital. This may be overlooked because anyone would step in to help their own Mother, but where was Thanh’s father? Where was Uncle Michael when Mai had to be the main caregiver for Thanh? They did not step in and help in a way as
Mai did. This shows that women still had their own duties while men had theirs.