Grocery Day
By Flora Huynh
Apartment Kitchen
The mid-morning sun filters through the windows, casting streaks across the little kitchen.
It’s grocery day today.
She looks around her kitchen, her mind still waking up despite it being almost noon.
It’s always exciting to get new ingredients to experiment with, but the thought of being around people still makes her heart beat faster.
Amongst the array of bottles and jars, she quickly spots the numerous soy sauces and bright red chili oils, quintessentials of her East and Southeast Asian upbringing.
Behind the dark liquids and red oils sits a squat jar filled with small light brown oblong shapes.
Fermented soy beans.
She frowns. She had forgotten about those. Her Mom had bought that for her when she first moved into her new place.
You’ll need this, her Mom had insisted. Confused but knowing better than to object, she had stashed it with the other condiments.
She had opened it once to taste it. It was salty and slightly nutty. She had no idea what to do with it.
Opening her cupboards, she finds a number of grains, legumes, and spices, a collection of cultures she had come across in her time here.
On top of a bag of rolled oats is her newest addition, granola, which she is running low on.
She had encountered the item the first time she went to the local American grocery store. The price was an absurd amount much like the other things in the store. But after having a taste of its aromatic almond butter flavor and delectably crunchy texture, she was hooked.
Looking at the time, she closes the cupboards and grabs her bags.
It’s going to be a long day, she thinks, as she puts her shoes on and walks out the door.
Chinatown
It's like she's been transported into another world.
Sporting wide hats to shield from the sun, Popos mill around the outdoor vendors, inspecting the various fruit and vegetable stands. Live fish swim in large tanks inside the small stores. Shouts of bargain permeate the air as customers try to get the best price for their wares.
All around her, the streets of Chinatown are alive.
It’s a forty-minute bus ride to get here. It’s not the most convenient on her schedule, but it’s the closest place that has all the Asian ingredients she needs.
Walking into the nearest store, she feels so plain against the vibrancy of it all.
Her neat tote bag and clean white shoes are stark against the gray cement and brightly colored packages.
The place is so small and packed that it’s hard to get around at first. Eventually, she finds solace in an empty corner of colorful grains and looks around.
Rows of spices, fermented condiments, and sauces line one wall, perfect for all your stir-frying needs.
On the other side, there are dried medicinal herbs and fruits by the bucketful and vacuum-sealed rice noodles ready to be made into a heart-warming soup.
Snacks of all shapes and sizes, sweet and savory, adorn the middle section, reminiscent of her childhood.
A warm sense of pride swirls up as she recalls what dinners were like at home.
How they would all sit together as a family, chopsticks picking away at the array of colorful dishes crammed onto their tiny kitchen table.
She approaches the wall of condiments, collecting a few items along the way.
On the bottom shelf, she spots a few peculiar jars of tomato sauce and boxes of pasta.
She remembers when Mom tried making spaghetti and meatballs once after she had refused to eat dinner, complaining about why they couldn’t just eat out like other families.
A pang of shame hits her at the memory.
She had grown angry after eating her Mom’s version of the Western dish because it had tasted too ‘Asian’.
Her Mom hadn’t said anything after that, only tried making the dish multiple times the next few months until it tasted like the ones from the restaurants.
Now, she thinks ironically, when she tries making dishes her Mom made growing up, it tastes too ‘American.’
She can’t help but feel like an imposter here sometimes.
Like she’s trying to find her roots that she lost along the way in her American assimilation.
Perhaps they were scattered even before her parents got to America in their pursuit of a better life for their family.
What would it be like if her family, like so many others, was never forced to flee?
Would she be here attempting to salvage her relationship to her heritage, a quiet fight to preserve her culture?
Would Chinatowns like this still exist?
On the bus ride back, she stares silently through the window.
Her bag is packed with an assortment of leafy greens, funky sauces, dried noodles, and childhood snacks.
Her thoughts stray to her family, playing back memories with her mom and Popo. How they would always ask her "Have you eaten yet?" Now, hundreds of miles away from family, silence rings in place of the question.
She watches as the bright hues of Chinatown are replaced by the grays and blues of the new downtown apartments, the chatter of different languages fading to the sounds of traffic.
American Grocery Store
The parking lot is full today.
Store employees collect the little green shopping carts, expertly maneuvering around the onslaught of last-minute shoppers coming into and out of the store.
Up above, the sun is just starting to set, casting an orange glow, on the building.
She’s glad that the store is so close to where she lives, she thinks as she grabs one of the carts at the store’s entrance, one arm still carrying the bag from Chinatown. It’s nice to be able to come at her own convenience.
She briskly pushes her cart past the tech junkies with their branded jackets waiting in the checkout line, avoiding the parents and their fussing children.
Perfectly placed products on rows and rows of shelves with stickers advertising “Farm-fresh!” and “Organic” and “Gluten-free” breeze past her as she grabs items on her grocery list and puts them in her cart.
Sighing, she looks around at the aisle she is in.
The international aisle.
How funny, she thinks, that she would end up here of all places in this store.
A conglomerate of jars and packages stare back at her.
Soy-free soy sauces, gluten-free pad thai instant noodles, authentic Asian pear crisps.
She does not recognize anything. What should’ve been the most familiar is the most foreign. It’s almost like a joke after coming from Chinatown.
She feels the most out of place in this aisle. Like this aisle wasn’t meant for someone like her.
Focus, she tells herself. You’re here for coconut milk.
She spots the cans of coconut milk and places the cheapest one in her cart.
As she waits in the checkout line, she scans her cart.
The expensive bags of granola, the kale in biodegradable bags, the coconut milk she doesn’t recognize. A sense of embarrassment bubbles up. So American, her mom would scoff.
Is this what she gets, she wonders, for living in a privileged college town? Convenience for American-branded ethnic food? She would think that with all the knowledge they have access to, that they’d be able to get things like this right.
Then again, she's not that surprised. If history has taught her anything, it's that they never cared in the first place. That it was just easier to squish everybody into the "international" aisle rather than deal with so many differing aisles.
Standing in line, she feels the need to cover up her cart so that no one can see what she’s buying. So that no one can compare her cart with the bag of groceries from Chinatown she still clutches at her side.
Memories of Chinatown surface. The Popos milling around, the vibrancy of it all. She thinks about the recent news of the attacks in Chinatown. What if that was her Popo being targeted? What would she do? Would she even be there or would she be in her apartment just eating her new expensive granola?
The cashier calls for the next customer, jolting her out of her contemplation. She pushes her cart to the front, glad to get out of the store as soon as possible.
Apartment Kitchen
It's dark by the time she gets back.
She hauls her bags of groceries into the kitchen, the weight of them straining on her shoulders. She places them on the counter. One by one, she takes out each parcel and starts putting things away.
The kale and gai lan go in the crisper. Granola and jasmine rice in the pantry. Coconut milk next to the shrimp crackers.
Reaching into a bag, she pulls out the jar of tomato sauce. She vaguely remembers grabbing it in that store in Chinatown.
Where should she put it?
Looking around, her eyes catch on the tray of bottles and jars of sauces and oils. The funny little shapes of the fermented soybeans.
There’s an empty spot next to it.
Trying not to knock anything over, she carefully lowers the jar of tomato sauce next to the soybeans.
They touch slightly, making a clinking noise like glasses of champagne on new year’s eve.
She steps back. The night air from the open window is crisp against her face. Being in her kitchen, her own space, it’s relieving.
There’s still a nagging feeling, though.
She can’t quite put her finger on what exactly. Like there’s something unfinished. Something within her and also something way bigger than her. Like a force tugging at her to keep searching, keep digging.
It doesn’t scare her. If anything, it intrigues her.
For now, she holds onto those feelings and moves to turn off the lights, the kitchen falling to darkness.
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