Twelve in Twelve

This month, we honor Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Month. I chose Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner, lead singer of Japanese Breakfast. I had always heard of Japanese Breakfast, being a big fan of Indie music since high school. Growing up in Austin, TX during the 2010’s was such an eye-opening experience in regards to music and the hipster scene. It was very much a time of “I knew about this band before they were mainstream” – something boasted proudly at IPA bars that we shouldn’t have been at, under the brims of multicolored fedoras and super tight skinny jeans. If Japanese Breakfast had been a band in the 2010’s, they would have absolutely been featured heavily in my personal rotation.

In 2021, when Crying in H-Mart was published, I remember saving the title in my Amazon shopping cart. I had seen it numerous times in Target in their book section. But I never bought it, suddenly feeling too busy to read it as I became a new mother, having barely enough time to decompress at night. I had my first child in the midst of COVID. There was a stress unheard off during that time for new moms, I think. Not only was I becoming a mother. But my son’s birth story was not something I ever expected or pictured. And as if being thrust into a new role and reality wasn’t enough, I was doing it all during one of the worst pandemics my generation had ever experienced. How on earth could I find time to leisurely read a book when I felt like I was racing against the world and everything it was throwing at humanity? Not buying a physical copy of the book is something I really regret. Maybe now I will, having read it, just to have it. There’s something magical about a good story in paperback form.

Reading this book, listening the Michelle narrate her personal history, I felt like I was listening to my own experiences play out before me. Ultimately, this book is about the loss of the narrator’s mother and their tumultuous relationship up until the day she died. Granted, there are obvious differences. I am not Asian. I had the privilege of growing up as a white woman in America. I grew up with parents that loved me in their own capacity, the best way they knew how without passing on too much generational trauma. But there were a lot of similarities in the dynamic that she shared with her mother. Again, I have to concede in places where it’s obvious. My mother was not Asian, and I did not grow up under the same pressures that Asian-American children endure while growing up. But there were similarities; my body was under scrutiny every day, my academic performance was always compared to my cousins (who are coincidentally half-Chinese). I did not go to an Ivy League university, but I did almost get a full ride at my university. I’ve never been smaller than a size ten, either. Both of my cousins are virtually sticks. But my mother never even got the opportunity to witness any of those “achievements”.

Like Zauner’s mother, my own mother passed away from breast cancer when I was just 14. Zauner was a few years post-grad when her mother passed from pancreatic cancer. They had what one could describe as the typical mother-daughter relationship as Zauner moved through middle school to high school. But in some ways, it was the furthest thing from typical. Their was what I can describe only as a constant coldness from her mother, a deliberate separation. A famous phrase of her mother’s that is mentioned throughout the book is “always save 10% of yourself”. Her mother practiced that with her religiously in the way she critiqued her daughters interests, passions, ambitions and choices. In my experience, my mother seemed supportive – to an extent. The similarities in how both of our mother’s criticized our appearances, however, gave me pause. For Zauner, growing up half-Asian half-white in a small town in Oregon, she never felt like she fit any American-dictated beauty standard. Her mother fretted over her daughter’s appearance constantly; there was always the allure of “whiteness” for her. Her mother wanted her to have “small” features, to be pretty and demure. In that regard, I identify entirely. My mother always wanted me to be small. She never wanted me to struggle with weight and being a bigger girl. She put me on diets, made me play sports (which that part I liked). But I was never what the picture perfect, all-American girl was supposed to be. And neither was Zauner.

However, when she and her mother made their yearly trip to South Korea to visit family, Zauner’s appearance and American features she inherited from her father, got her the attention and fascination she really wanted from her mom. She says “…in Korea, I was pretty”. And she noticed quickly that the praise of “good” was replaced with the praise of “pretty”. But it wasn’t just that she was meeting new and fulfilling beauty standard in Korea, that made those trips so wonderful for her. It was also the only time she ever felt like she got her have a mom, and really see her mom for who she was. She remembers not being able to sleep because of the jet-leg, and her mother getting up with her in the middle of the night to raid her grandmother’s fridge. They’d stay up in the kitchen, giggling and smiling as they tried to be sneaky about their late-night snacks. She would play traditional games with her cousin and aunts, go to the small family owned market down the street from the apartment. Here, in Korea, Zauner made core memories with her mother and her side of the family – all of which she cherished for the rest of her life. Korea was a place she felt happy and safe, and she clearly felt so relieved to see her mother seemingly acting like herself. Having the “good memories” when your watching someone pass away is vital.

As I mentioned before, Zauner’s mother did not pass away until she was older; when she was post graduation from college, and living on her own in New York with her then boyfriend. But in the years before her adult independence, her mother lost one of her sisters and her own mother. She witnessed the grief her mother experienced after losing her mother, being worlds away in Oregon, while their family was still in Seoul. Another phrase that appears in this book multiple times is “save your tears for your mother”. It’s something that Zauner’s mother repeats to her constantly. It was in that moment of losing her mother, Zauner truly understood what her own mother was trying to communicate.

As she goes through the process of watching someone die from cancer, Zauner is brutal and honest. She shares her frustrations and her anguish, respectfully. Personally, I don’t think there is any other way you can be when discussing the days, months, or years between diagnosis and your loved one’s final moments. She even discusses how relationships around her begin to really change and show their true colors, particularly with her father. The way that Zauner dissects every aspect of her life pre and post her mother’s diagnosis gave me so much pause, because it mirrored my own experience with my mother. And that is where I feel like I’ve found common ground in relating to this book. This was the kind of connection I was looking for in my previous read from Joan Didion. And I’m not identifying with it just because the mother has cancer. It’s mostly in the way that she talks about grief.

In Didion’s book, I felt like she spent more time distracting the reader (and herself) from feeling the grief of what had happened to her. In Zauner’s story, we’re right there beside her the whole time. We cry with her in H-Mart and we watch her care for her mother, and feel what she feels when she tries to connect with her. We feel that sense of longing and need from her. With Didion, it was hard to feel anything other than confusion; it was simply impossible to swim your way through the sea of unnecessary anecdotes and name drops. This grief felt real and tangible.

I could not recommend this book enough. It spent 60 straight weeks on the New York Times’ best-sellers list for a reason. I would say, as a word of caution, if you are not in a space to read a book so emotional and raw, I would keep it on TBR list, but maybe save it for later – when you’re ready. There is so much to explore in this book; identity, self-worth, acceptance and family….and all those themes tie into the underlying story of loving and losing someone you feel you barely know. That sentiment is what has stayed with me whilst reading this title. I hope you pick up your own physical copy of it one day. (Or listen along like I did).

For June, we are celebrating Pride Month with our next title: Queer Enlightenments:A hidden history of lovers, lawbreakers and homemakers. I hope you’ll join me for that one as well. Thanks for reading along with me so far.