Crying in H Mart

A couple days ago I was visiting my grandmother with my mom, and we were talking about taking sick leaves from work. In passing, my grandmother mentioned how she barely ever took sick leaves, but she did take a month off after her mother died. It was strange to hear that, because all stories about my great grandmother were always weirdly negative and painted her as a very difficult person. Nevertheless, my grandmother seems to have been incredibly attached to her. Even though my grandmother is very sensitive, it's hard to imagine her grieving that intensely, and it also made me think of just how much I will grieve after I lose my mother too.

Thanks to Bojan's recommendation a little while ago, I bought this book at the recent book fair! I really enjoyed this memoir. In fact, while reading it, I spent a good portion crying, the other portion I spent salivating. "Crying in H Mart" is a memoir detailing the author's relationship with her mother and her untimely death, as well as how their relationship mainly was expressed through food, which is a really important part of this memoir. The author is Michelle Chongmi Zauner, a korean american, and a vocalist of an indie band Japanese Breakfast. I've actually heard of Japanese Breakfast before, specifically in the context of someone on celebricows trashing her tattoos, which I thought were really cute...

Well anyway, it's hard for me to organize my thoughts regarding this book. Since this is such a personal memoir, it even feels weird to "review" it! And now that I began reading some actual reviews on it, it seems a lot of people share the same sentiment. I truly enjoyed Michelle's journey on discovering how much food is related to her mother's love, and her pride over her culture growing as she embraced it. While reading the chapters where her mother was battling cancer, I genuinely found myself hoping she'd survive, even though the whole point of the book was about her mother's death.

There's not much else I can say, except that all topics in this memoir were something I genuinely find interesting usually. Kids growing up in the diaspora, mother daughter relationships, language barriers, good good food...