Building her sometimes complicated relationship with her mom during her childhood, Michelle, the writer, shows various feelings from fondness to anger and jealousy. She also brought some touching memories about losing her mom to advanced pancreatic cancer. To be honest, since this story is a self-reflecting saga involving many personal moments, I felt like this book was not for readers but herself.
The fascinating part of this book is that the author uses Korean foods to commemorate her mother by learning how to cook them and eat them deliciously. She even navigates through her childhood and the process of grief with Korean foods, saying that food was her mom’s way of expressing love to her.
I first heard about this book through AAJA (Asian American Journalism Association) and knew it was about food and mother. But what impressed me was how the author connects her upbringing with varied recipes and foods.
It was easy to relate to Michelle’s relationship with particular Korean foods and the cooking she grew up with. I also feel the connection to my mom and grandma through cooking as I came here to the US alone after growing up. Foods that I grew up eating easily trigger homesickness. At the same time, it is the most effective way to treat me.
However, I have to point out that I did not really follow some of her logic when she generalized her mom’s behavior as ‘typical’ Korean moms’ behavior. I was born and raised in South Korea. From my perspective, sometimes, I felt like she internalized the western stereotypes about Asian parents or culture and perpetuated them in this story. For instance, she considers her mom’s reaction to her injury as a Korean thing, comparing it to “white people’s” one. But to the best of my knowledge, I cannot say that there is a tendency for most Korean moms to scold their children like Michelle’s mom. How they react purely depends on an individual’s personality.
Overall, Crying in H Mart is a well-written story about the tricky and complex mother-daughter relationships, multicultural backgrounds, grieving, forgiveness and the power of food.
