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Crying in H Mart

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choi.don
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1K views

Crying in H Mart

Uploaded by

choi.don
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Crying in H Mart
Ever since my mom died, I cry in H Mart.
H Mart is a supermarket chain that specializes in Asian food. The H stands
for han ah reum, a Korean phrase that roughly translates to “one arm full of
groceries.” H Mart is where parachute kids flock to find the brand of instant
noodles that reminds them of home. It’s where Korean families buy rice
cakes to make tteokguk, the beef and rice cake soup that brings in the New
Year. It’s the only place where you can find a giant vat of peeled garlic,
because it’s the only place that truly understands how much garlic you’ll need
for the kind of food your people eat. H Mart is freedom from the single-aisle
“ethnic” section in regular grocery stores. They don’t prop Goya beans next
to bottles of sriracha here. Instead, you’ll likely find me crying by the
banchan refrigerators, remembering the taste of my mom’s soy-sauce eggs
and cold radish soup. Or in the freezer section, holding a stack of dumpling
skins, thinking of all the hours that Mom and I spent at the kitchen table
folding minced pork and chives into the thin dough. Sobbing near the dry
goods, asking myself, Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left to call
and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?
Growing up in America with a Caucasian father and a Korean mother, I
relied on my mom for access to our Korean heritage. While she never
actually taught me how to cook (Korean people tend to disavow
measurements and supply only cryptic instructions along the lines of “add
sesame oil until it tastes like Mom’s”), she did raise me with a distinctly
Korean appetite. This meant a reverence for good food and a predisposition
to emotional eating. We were particular about everything: kimchi had to be
perfectly sour, samgyupsal perfectly crisped; stews had to be piping hot or

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