H Marts and local supermarkets are a regular setting in the book. How do these locations shape Michelle's experience of food and family?
Created: 03/03/22
Replies: 14
Join Date: 10/15/10
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Join Date: 05/08/11
Posts: 113
I love to cook and experience different cultures. I shop often H Mart - one reason why this book was appealing to me - and other ethnic markets. I am fortunate to live in Chicago where many cultures and ethnic groups have "their" markets and restaurants and areas. They help to validate the intrinsic worth of each culture. Most ethnic folk who are shopping are happy to help interested shoppers identify and provide information about unfamiliar (to others) vegetables and sauces and styles preparation interested newbies. It is a wonderful way to share cultures and validate each other and our mutual humanity.
Join Date: 01/18/22
Posts: 19
They were a huge part of the story, physically and emotionally. The way the book opens anchors the story to these stores and what they mean to Michelle, in terms of how it connects her to her family and heritage. I felt a distinct kinship to that connection, as I have one with the small Italian neighborhood markets I grew up with.
Join Date: 02/29/16
Posts: 189
I too shop at H Mart often and loved the descriptions of being there. It is different from other ethnic markets, but similar too. But I agree with Panzy, the markets represented the emotion of the story and heritage. It all came back to food in this memoir. Food is what held them together and allowed Michelle to retain parts of her mother and her Korean side.
Join Date: 01/27/18
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Join Date: 05/16/16
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I think it's fitting that the title includes H Mart as so much of the connection between Michelle and her mother came through food. I think grief can make you seek out familiar things and she certainly would find that at H Mart. I thought it was interesting that so many things her mother made didn't have a recipe, but to make Korean dishes you have to visit H Mart to find the ingredients.
Join Date: 06/05/18
Posts: 245
I live in South Carolina and while we do not have an H Mart close by, I have visited some in other states. As other readers have said the bond between Michelle and her mother was cemented through food and sharing a Korean experience. Her trips to H Mart help her to still connect to her mother through the food she buys and makes.
Join Date: 08/12/21
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Join Date: 05/15/11
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Join Date: 02/25/19
Posts: 112
I had never heard of H Mart before reading this book, but my daughter (who lives in Chicago) was able to tell me about them. I found myself wishing that I lived somewhere that had stores like this. Large supermarkets like we have in our area can have some shared community feeling to them, but I have trouble believing that I would ever see a Shoprite like Michelle sees an H Mart.
Join Date: 01/16/21
Posts: 9
I had never heard of an H Mart before, but was struck by Zauner's description in chapter 1: "We sit her in silence, eating our lunch. But I know we are all here for the same reason. We're all searching for a piece of home, or a piece of ourselves. ... H Mart is where your people gather ... full of faith that they'll find something they can't find anywhere else." Does anyone have a similar place for them?
Join Date: 01/14/15
Posts: 78
Supermarkets in general are a window into the everyday culture of whatever region they're located in. I love going to supermarkets, as well as smaller bodega-type shops, in places where I travel. You get a different, more grounded-in-reality perspective of a place and its people when you see what those people eat and drink, what they wash their clothes with, what they diaper their children with, what the flyers on the doors and walls of the store say, and so on. With the Korean-American supermarket chain H Mart, which specializes in Asian foods, people like Michelle Zauner -- a kid who growing up straddled two cultures never feeling like she 100% belonged in either one -- can find items that remind them of home. It's a home away from home. Like she says on the second page, "I can hardly speak Korean, but in H Mart it feels like I'm fluent." It's a touchstone place, where she can stock up on ingredients with which to prepare the foods her mother introduced her to, the foods Chongmi herself prepared for Michelle. H Mart helps Michelle keep her mother's memory close.
Join Date: 02/16/22
Posts: 4
In some ways, shopping at markets give us a sense of "community." During COVID for many of us it was our only outing in a social setting! I haven't shopped H Mart but looked it up and we have one here so I will venture out one day. I do have memories of shopping in a Greek market in Philadelphia- my Mom would make Tiropita and she had to go to a Greek market to get her phyllo dough. The difference between an ethnic market and a general supermarket is a very different social experience...
Join Date: 01/05/22
Posts: 2
I live and teach in an area of Southern California with a significant Asian-American population, including many Korean immigrants and children of Korean immigrants. Many of my Korean-American students also share the idea that making food is an expression of love in their families, and trips to H-Mart, as well as sampling the appetizers at Costco, are part of their touchstone memories. We read the essay "Coming Home Again," by Chang-Rae Lee in my senior class, and they have found it riveting and powerful. I think they would like this, as well, as they would connect to much of it.
Join Date: 09/14/11
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