During our last visit to Los Angeles, my son had fallen asleep in the car seat, but it was too hot to stay in the vehicle. So we all went into the supermarket and I sat in the corner with the boy, while my wife, daughter, and mother in law shopped for dried goods you can’t find in Vegas. When they came back, I went to the back of the store to use the restroom before commencing the long drive home.
As I walked through the store, I was struck by how familiar the everything felt. Admittedly, this Las Vegas is only a few hours from LA and we’re already full of California transplants. But I don’t get this feeling at my neighborhood Smiths or Walmart. I knew exactly how the bakery would look, and the produce section was stocked with everything I’d want. The shelves were packed with goodies and I knew without looking that the far corner was stocked with live fish; the utterly decrepit restrooms were no surprise. I imagine these Asian supermarkets must feel as exotic to outsiders like when I visit one of the local Mexican markets that are quietly repurposing the older, smaller supermarket shells abandoned by the Kroger and Safeway in their quest for fancier, larger facilities.
I grew up in the 80’s, but I was partially insulated from the homogeneity of popular culture because my dad didn’t let us have a TV nor go to movies. However, living in the suburbs, we could not miss that the world around us was dominated by a different culture, especially since we did not go to a Chinese church. Similarly, when we moved to San Jose, we did not end up in an Asian enclave. While I did not learn the theoretical construct of “other” till grad school, we lived it throughout our childhoods.
I remember the excitement when Ranch 99 opened up a supermarket in an old shell space near our part of town. Martin Yan came for a packed demonstration during the grand opening celebrations. Like any proper supermarket, it had a live fish section, but more importantly to my sister, dad, and me, it had a legit snack section. The unique tangerines and lychees in the produce aisle were delightful and we could now conveniently get all the junk food we wanted without a half hour drive to Cupertino. My dad quickly came up with a rule that we could each only pick out one item per visit, lest we eat ourselves to oblivion.
During college, Ranch 99 opened up their own complex in the nearby suburb of Richmond. I didn’t realize it then, but they were playing with this new typology in several locations. Unlike a traditional strip center where all the stores faced the parking lot, this was a small indoor mall with the Ranch 99 supermarket as the anchor tenant surrounded by small shops and services. Aside from the restaurants, I never patronized any of the small shops, but it quickly became part of my landscape. I grew at home entering these little asian islands filled with tenants displaying familiar unreadable characters on their walls.
After Katrina, Houston was threatened with an even more ferocious storm named Rita. She veered north, so all we got was a windy night with scattered rains while hunkered down at the school. The morning after, my buddy from Hong Kong and I decided to make a food run and invited some folks to come along. One of our classmates questioned whether anything would be open, but we knew. The weather was gorgeous as we drove through the eerily quiet streets with empty sun drenched shopping centers. As we neared the Chinatown strip, our instincts were proven correct at the first Chinese supermarket plaza, the parking lot was packed! The shelves were barren, but they were open for business and we all had nothing better to do than to visit, shop, and eat.
A few months ago, I was chatting with my coworker over lunch. We veered off of sports and started talking about food and cooking. I rattled off the names of the local Mexican chains, La Bonita, Marianas, Cardenas, and Marketon. His eyes opened wide and he smiled. He’s a single guy who doesn’t cook, but we both knew that outside of visiting his house, or his mamma’s kitchen, I had come as close as one could to visiting his world.
As my kids grow up in the bourgeois world of professionals in an suburban city, I’m certain they will be no strangers to the endless columns of unforgiving fluorescents at Walmart and the high blacked out ceilings at the Whole Foods. They will know you need to get sodas and chips in bulk at Costco, and you can get some cheap tacos and agua frescas at La Bonita. But I can’t help but think their home will end up being my home, filled with strange scripts, exotic fruits, cheap plastic stools, live fish, and lingering odor in the air. It’s not just a place where we buy things we can’t get elsewhere, but also our most intimate space outside of our homes. The supermarket is our world is on full display for anyone who cares to visit.