
Crying in H Mart - wallflower
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/crying-in-h-mart
======
smoll
> Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left in my life to call and ask
> which brand of seaweed we used to buy?

Sorry for the author's loss, but crying alone in an H Mart out of bitter
anguish and deep longing is probably the most Korean thing ever.

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_(cultural)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_\(cultural\))

~~~
throwaway99111
That start-class wiki article explains a lot of Korean dramas right there.

Joking aside, today I learned what a "culture-bound syndrome" is. That right
there is quite substantial evidence that culture is a very real thing, and
just because it might be socially constructed doesn't make it any less real
(in fact, it might make it more real because it is so widely experienced).

~~~
curuinor
If there's no clear and abiding biological cause (like in general paresis or
something), nearly all psychological disease is culture-bound.

America in 1950 had orders of magnitudes less diagnosed depression than
America in 2018, although people had some things that we would label
depression today - and that Americans of 2050 will doubtless label something
interesting and different.

~~~
xanthopan
> America in 1950 had orders of magnitudes less diagnosed depression than
> America in 2018

America in 1950 also had orders of magnitude less access to medical
professionals for proper diagnosis.

And,

\- The theory was still fairly nascent. "Major depressive disorder" wasn't
termed until the 70s.

\- Depression and anxiety were much more stigmatized back then. Men were told
to "man up".

\- Husbands could medicate/institutionalize their wives just because they were
"hysterical".

I'd say we had a long way to go back then, and we still have a long way to go.

~~~
curuinor
One theory was nascent in the 70's, but the Freudian bullshit was the age of
an old man by then, and the demon possession idiocy was millenia old. We still
have remarkably bad effectiveness on the drugs and therapies, so there will
come new theories and they will, hopefully, be better in turn.

------
grosales
Touching article I can relate to. I lost my mother to leukemia two and a half
years ago and I still am reminded of her everyday. This kind of grief is one
that will never leave me. Every memory of her has the potential to bring tears
to my eyes, but there are memories that give me a smile and there are many
that inspire me to be better person.

My son just turned one year old a month ago. He is going through his cutest
phase yet. He wants to play, walk, talk and say hi to everyone. I think often
of what she would say to him, what she would cook for him, or the advice she
would give me on raising him. So many things to wonder but then I see my son
smile. He has my mom's smile and he loves to smile and laugh.

Life can be funny like that. Besides the teachings and memories I have of my
mom, I am lucky enough to be also reminded of her smile every day through my
son.

~~~
sizzle
Sorry for you loss, this was really touching to read. Thanks for sharing.

------
elvinyung
This article makes a very salient and poignant reminder of the struggle for
immigrants (especially second-generation and beyond) to retain and remember
one's cultural heritage. I am Cantonese by ancestry but I grew up in Canada; I
recently moved to Outer Sunset, a neighborhood vibrant with businesses and
products that remind me of home, and it's surprisingly helpful for staving off
the gradual dwindling of my knowledge of my parental/ancestral culture and
language.

Also, I just noticed that this article is by Michelle Zauner, also known as
_Japanese Breakfast_ [1]. She's one of my favorite musicians. A lot of the
grief expressed in this article is also the central theme of her first album,
_Psychopomp_.

[1]
[https://michellezauner.bandcamp.com/](https://michellezauner.bandcamp.com/)

~~~
teekno
I love her music! And that she went to Bryn Mawr. Go Tri Co!

------
protomyth
Mixed tradition households do spawn so very odd, and hard to understand[1]
angers when caught in one world or excluded from another. Some of them will
even seem silly to friend and colleagues.

The grief she is experiencing is also shared by many of the Native Americans
that were relocated off the reservation. The similarities are pretty amazing.
Loss of familiar touch points are really hard for that pattern matching
machine between our ears to reconcile. It is no wonder that the suicide rate
in these situations is so high. A lot of people like to think they are free
spirits and really don't need a grounding, but I've met very few who actually
are. This is why historical preservation is so important to certain groups.
Its not really about the past as much as it is patching holes in those still
here.

1) although the writing in this article is excellent and captures the feelings
well

------
johntiger1
I feel very sorry for her loss. This article and the NYT one by the Chinese
daughter posted a few days back are really hitting me hard. As someone not
really raised in the culture of my parents, it saddens me to think that I
probably won't give my kids the same "immigrant parent obsessiveness"
experience I had growing up (pros and cons of course, but a part of my
upbringing I wouldn't change for anything)

------
avh02
I'm lucky enough to still have both my parents - but this has turned out to be
one of my favourite articles - coming from a generation so different to my
parents (and as a third culture kid to boot, albeit in a crap culture) it
resonates very much.

------
supahfly_remix
We used to frequent the H Mart near us. It always has a great variety of
vegetables at good prices, but for some reason they tend to go bad within a
couple of days of purchase. Also, the produce is really only stocked on
Saturday and Sunday. The produce mostly seems to be from "Rhee Brothers,"
which sounds like another Korean business. We now get our vegetables from the
new Sprouts.

Their seafood selection is pretty good, though.

It's great to see the mostly Latino produce workers speaking some Korean to
the management.

~~~
noobhacker
We go to H Mart mainly for their vegetables too, especially leafy green
veggies (so many different kinds of choy!). I think leafy greens tend to go
bad faster in general, and that's not any indication of H Mart's quality.

Their seafood is so cheap they are the entire reason why I get to eat salmon
at all ($3 per pound!).

~~~
Alex3917
> Their seafood is so cheap they are the entire reason why I get to eat salmon
> at all ($3 per pound!).

You can get salmon heads for two or three dollars at most fish markets, you
might just have to ask. A large head can easily have a pound of meat. The only
trick is figuring out which ones are from the wild salmon, because they often
don't separate them out.

You can also usually get belly for a dollar or two a pound. It's kind of a
pain to clean, but it makes a great salmon bacon that's pretty good just mixed
with a little sauce and thrown over rice. Unfortunately I've never seen these
separated out into wild vs farmed, so unless you manage to find a fish market
that only sells wild salmon it's probably not safe to eat more than
occasionally just due to PCBs.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Salmon head soup is probably my favourite soup. Just simmer a couple of salmon
heads, some diced potatoes, some leeks, and onions up, add dill (fresh is
best) and optionally some sour cream. When the potatoes have cooked through,
remove the heads and pull the meat off them and add it back to the soup.

It's so tasty, but if you told people it was from salmon heads they'd turn
their nose up at it. I've never understood (western) people's dislike for
offal, I guess it's a poverty thing. At the end of the day, it all came from
the same animal. Every time I tell people that pâté is made from livers, they
get angry at me for ruining pâté, yet they were happy to eat it a moment ago.

~~~
sk5t
Is it really fair to say western cultures don't like offal? I mean, there's
chitlins, tripe, scrapple, head cheese, natural sausage casing, beef shin,
pig's trotters, aspic jelly, oxtail, black puddings, the list goes on.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Most of those things aren't actually that common, and are only eaten by a
subset of westerners.

Obviously it's a bit different here in Australia to the American South, but if
I was to offer up some chitlins/tripe to a group of Anglo-Australians, the
vast majority of them wouldn't touch it.

Black pudding and pâté are probably the only two types of offal that people
will generally eat here. Black pudding is pretty uncommon though, and people
seem to have wilfully forgotten that pâté is made from liver, I've had people
stop eating pâté after I've told them it's made from pig/chicken livers.

------
ilamont
That was spectacular.

I visit the Burlington, Mass H Mart about once per month with my family. The
experience walking the aisles and picking out dried seaweed, dried rice,
frozen dumplings, kimchi, instant ramen, and various snacks is part of our
kids' bicultural experience. I didn't think about how it may be an important
part of their memories of their parents once we are gone.

Thank you for sharing, @wallflower.

~~~
wallflower
You're welcome. It was previously submitted by @starpilot and @laurex a few
days prior, and it did not receive the attention that it deserved. Third time
was the charm.

------
slr555
There's no crying in H Mart!

H Mart is a gift given by heavenly messengers to bring the concept of flavor
to the Upper West Side. There are so many people there who would love to help
you, OP. In NYC, everybody's ersatz and everybody's frum. In NYC you are
absolutely Korean. It's the city where you can be anything and you can tell
anyone who says no, to get the fuck out.

------
bane
I'm married to a first generation Korean immigrant, and the experiences and
descriptions here really resonate strongly as deeply authentic. There's a
really special relationship Koreans seem to have with food and the way that
Korean parents show love through food seems to be something subtly different
than what I've found in other parts of the world. I'm not really sure what
else to say but this was awesome. Her band's music is also fantastic [1].

1 -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFKH42R8wak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFKH42R8wak)

------
acdha
This was an interesting piece to read as a third generation immigrant who has
only the most casual awareness of the culture (Albanian) and a few stories.
I’ve occasionally wondered what it would have been like to know more but never
really appreciated the downsides.

On a more pleasant note, her music is quite good if you like the style. Search
for Japanese Breakfast on the usual streaming services.

------
fatjokes
My sympathies to the author. Clearly the article comes from a place of grief.

That said, if she wanted to get closer to her culture it shouldn't be that
difficult. What about her grandparents? Does she have any Korean friends? What
if she dated/married a Korean guy?

~~~
lclarkmichalek
Second and third generation immigrants have an interesting relationship with
that side of their culture. They predominantly identify as the nationality of
the culture they were born into, and sometimes have no direct link to the
country their parents or grandparents were born in. I'm very British, but am
quite proud of the polish components of my name. My link to the country is
tenuous though, beyond the yearly wigila. I was talking to a first generation
immigrant recently, who described the piroshki that are traditionally eaten,
and I realised my family had been doing it wrong all along. My grandmother is
very much alive, yet our tradition had already been warped. That made me a
little sad for how far away my heritage really was.

This article isn't about concrete actions or remediations for that feeling.
I'm not going to marry a polish person to make sure my piroshki are perfect.
It's about the way later generation immigrants naturally drift away from their
heritage without noticing, and how that can be upsetting. I didn't notice it
happening to me for a long time, and when I did, I didn't feel great.

~~~
fatjokes
You don't have to marry a Polish person. What if you participated in more
Polish cultural events? Meet some local Poles, take some Polish language
classes. It feels like there are plenty of low-barrier things that you could
do to help you reconnect with that part of your heritage if it bothers you
enough.

As for the article, I'm willing to believe that her fear of missing her
connection to her culture is merely a manifestation of her grief at losing her
mother. Otherwise, it would sound more like she's a little sad, but not enough
to do anything about it. Certainly her call either way, but the latter would
make me sad that it made its way into the New Yorker.

~~~
noobhacker
I also interpret the article as the author grieving her mother, whose
Koreaness is the most distinguishing feature. Had her mother been unique in
her love for a particular music genre, for example, the author would have
written about walking into a coffee shop playing that kind of music.

~~~
darkerside
If that music were only played in a handful of coffee shops across the nation,
and was the defining aspect of those coffee shops, and you could watch people
purposefully connect to each other over that music in the same way you used to
with your loved one

------
equalunique
Korean supermarkets, like H Mart & Lotte, all give me tears of joy. For many
people of Asian heritage, these supermarkets offer rare but familiar tastes in
the United States. This story reminds me that the meaning of it may be
different for Koreans themselves.

------
patriot_prayer
I wonder if the author has considered returning to Korea.

~~~
voltagex_
Would that be a return, or a visit? I imagine that it could be quite difficult
without the language skills.

------
GBond
Poignant article. I'm glad to find it on HN and happy to see an absence of
complaints of being irrelevant to tech.

------
1996
> We’re all searching for a piece of home, or a piece of ourselves.

It is just a feeling of alienation.

TLDR: nostalgia hurt when thinking about a dead parent, or a culture we can no
longer fully relate to.

~~~
s-shellfish
Nostalgia hurt... It's called grief. Grieve for things we can not change, can
not fix. Calling it 'just a feeling of alienation'...

This deeply oversimplifies the complexities of life, the deepest tragedies,
emotional pain. To lose something so beautiful, and to know it is gone,
forever. That is grief that lasts a lifetime. It is a burden oneself must make
appear to lighten over time, but, some types of sadness go into one's own
core, every fiber and every root of one's own being.

A broken spirit, heart, soul. Through a reminder in the present, the slightest
twinge of it trickles through, in the form of a memory, a connection leading
to every interwoven emotion. It can be a kind of sadness that feels as though
it never mends.

This is not the sort of thing to cover up with pleasantries for the benefit of
others. The memory of being completely and totally disconnected from a most
defining connections in one's own life - that is a type of suffering everyone
can experience, and a kind of suffering everyone should have a deep respect
for. It's not just nostalgia, because nostalgia comes back in waves, the
attempt to bring back what is lost. Sometimes this works. But the death of a
loving, shaping parent, or loss of connection to one's essential culture -
that is something that, nothing fills that void entirely. There has to be
respect for this. Everyone should have respect for this type of loss.

~~~
1996
First, I fully agree with everything you say. It can not be replaced, and it
is horrible. I did not write to make a pleasantry. I have empathy for the loss
and the sadness.

However, the hurt is mediated by attachment to the past. It is not possible to
alter the past, but its interpretation is more vulnerable.

I am only trying to share a way: recognizing it is due to attachment. Then it
only becomes nostalgia which can only really hurt by the sense of alienation.
It becomes "easier" to handle.

I remind of the taste of the cooking by my mother and grandmother - a taste
that I am unable to replicate - or even even name the dishes. My mother
lamented than I prefer english to her native tongue. It is all true.

I just chose to lessen the hurt by detaching myself from the past.

~~~
s-shellfish
I'm sorry for your losses.

My grandfather was an artist. Art is always sadness to me. Even my
photography. The flavor of sadness, I've experienced a variety of these.

I don't know if this comes through in all of my art, but, that's me. Art,
sadness. I suppose I detach from it by making art.

~~~
1996
Thanks. We have talked a few time here. Always a pleasure to exchange words
with you.

I hope that you will eventually be able to feel your art in a new way- not as
sadness, but as the hope it inspires for those who do benefit from it.

Maybe some Metta Bhavana will help you feel and connect to the persons you
positively inspire? like me here on hn, or the others who replied to you.

~~~
s-shellfish
> Thanks. We have talked a few time here. Always a pleasure to exchange words
> with you.

Thank you, I feel the same.

> I hope that you will eventually be able to feel your art in a new way- not
> as sadness, but as the hope it inspires for those who do benefit from it.

Me too.

> Maybe some Metta Bhavana will help you feel and connect to the persons you
> positively inspire? like me here on hn, or the others who replied to you.

Thank you, Theravāda is something I've only studied briefly, but it is
oriented similarly to my study of Mayahana Buddhism and Zen Buddhism.

------
zoomablemind
Touching elegy.

It's striking how difficult it is for the children of transplants in the US to
preserve (and pass along) the family language and traditions. There're
communtities, there's a diaspora, books etc, yet somehow the whole aversion to
'accented' English may be off-putting to the youngsters that it stops them
from fully absorbing their parents culture and language, turning it in all but
a nuissance of 'old-folks'.

