Crying in the Crying in H Mart Signing Line: A Reflection
My first encounter with Crying in H Mart was in early May 2021. I was blasting Japanese Breakfast’s new single, Be Sweet, through the stereo in my car, flooring it at every green light in my small, Midwestern town. It was hard to contain my excitement. The book had been released a little over a week ago, one that I had been anticipating for a long time, and I was running on the high of being able to snag it in person before they were sold out–something that felt like a luxury after quarantine.
When I arrived at my local Barnes & Noble, I was determined to find the book myself. I marched through the doors with confidence, expecting to see a stack of fresh hardcovers on display where they kept all the new releases, but it wasn’t there. It’s okay, I told myself, it should be in the memoir section, then. I headed over and frantically scanned each title, one by one. Thinking I might have missed it, or that it may have been hiding somewhere out of order, I looked again. And again and again until I was beginning to feel my face turn red.
One of the workers eventually approached me in my stunned state. “Can I help you find anything?” she asked.
“Um, yes, do you have Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner?” I stuttered out.
“Hmm,” she drew out the sound, started shaking her head. “The name doesn’t sound familiar. If it’s not there with the other Zs, then I don’t think we have it.” I remember desperately holding my phone up to the woman, having pulled up a photo of the book’s cover: the noodles draped over two pairs of chopsticks, the iconic bright red enveloping the jacket. Recognition flashed behind her eyes.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I think I might have seen that one. Follow me.” Again, we zigzagged our way through shelves full of board games, Stephen King novels, and home improvement magazines until we reached the cookbook section. The cookbook section. I was appalled, thinking it couldn’t possibly be sandwiched somewhere between Ina Garten and Martha Stewart. She traced her long, maroon nail along the spines of each one, murmuring, “Zauner, Zauner…Aha! It must be down here.”
To my absolute horror, she made a grand scene of getting down on all fours and pawing through the bottom shelf. Her bracelets mingled loudly, attracting nearby customers’ peripheral attention. I began to reprimand myself for insisting on coming in rather than just ordering the book online when she finally rose to her feet and handed me the store’s only copy.
I remember feeling embarrassed walking out with the book tucked beneath my arm, not just because of the woman and her floor assistance, but it was also dawning on me that I must have been the only one in my entire town looking for it. My competition, in reality, was nearly nonexistent, and it seemed sort of on the nose that the shy, awkward Korean kid should want to read the memoir about a Korean woman and her mother.
I devoured Crying in H Mart in a matter of days, hunched over on the floor of my room and burying my nose into our dog’s soft fur to hide my tears. Zauner’s words opened up a grief in me I hadn’t recognized before. As a transracial adoptee born in Seoul and having left the city when I was just six months old, there was always a missing part of me that yearned for the culture and language–an understanding shared between others that looked like me, but that I couldn’t partake in.
In the book, Zauner grapples with what it means to be half-Korean and to feel like she’s losing the Korean side of herself when her mother dies of cancer. Along with her, I too began processing feelings of shame and guilt for being severely detached from my Korean heritage.
There is a moment in the book when Zauner describes how she followed a YouTube tutorial so that she could prepare doenjang jjigae for her family members the morning after her mother’s funeral. It reminded me of a night when I was suddenly overtaken by the urge to make garaetteok, Korean rice cakes, from scratch. Rice flour was all over my hands, on my forehead, and powdered my shirt. My phone, too, was sticky from my thumb scrolling up and down on a recipe page. Most of the ingredients I had ordered off of Amazon because they couldn’t be found at any Meijer or Trader Joe’s.
I recognized the name of the creator whose recipe Zauner followed, Maangchi: the woman who taught her how to make soybean fermented soup also taught me how to make rice cakes. This small connection made me forget how that night had ended, with me sweeping my misshapen garaetteok in the garbage can, tears welling in my eyes because I just couldn’t get it right.
I felt empowered knowing that Zauner could make her Korean relatives proud with Maangchi’s guidance, and I remember grabbing my phone and placing an order for gochujang and toasted sesame oil to give it another try.
It’s been almost two years since I first read Crying in H Mart, and last night I was reminded of how incredibly powerful this story is. Zauner was celebrating the book’s paperback release with a series of talks and signings, and my college town was the last stop on her tour. I arrived to the event early and found myself sitting next to a middle-aged Korean man in the fourth row.
“Have you read the book?” he asked me, pointing to the paperback copy in my hands. I told him yes, and that I was very excited to see her. He smiled and said that he, too, was looking forward to hearing what she had to say.
This then launched us into a rapt, hour-long conversation during which we shared with each other our stories. He told me that he grew up in Ann Arbor, and that his greatest wish was to visit his relatives in Korea. He bent his head low in embarrassment when he admitted that he and his sister would need their cousin to translate for them, and all that I could offer him was a soft nod in understanding.
He even showed me his tattoo, his Korean name written in Hangul across his arm. It was beautiful, and I was moved by how similar we were in the things we felt and how we felt them. At one point we both turned around, peering at all the faces behind us. The theater was packed, and I remember thinking, I wonder how many other people are sitting here tonight thinking that they are alone in their grief, in their guilt.
I will never forget the words shared between us, and I will always remember the heavy emotion in my chest when we said our goodbyes. Crying in H Mart profoundly changed my relationship with my Korean identity, and I get the sense that many of us left last night knowing the strength of each other’s shoulders, finding solace in being able to lean on one another.
