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I’ve lived my entire life between languages and cultures. I code switch effortlessly into ‘Anglophone Singaporean’ (it’s its own thing beyond just speaking English). I was surrounded by people like me so I never find multicultural multi linguistic anything impressive or interesting. It just was.

But the further I get from Asia, the more sensitive I am to how important some of this stuff is to me. None of the ethnic pride BS (I am especially allergic to all manifestations of Han Chinese pride), but rather to the idea that I am now in a part of the world where not everyone is like me.

It is weird, maybe, to be as obsessive about food and food quality the way every single person in that community has been. It is just not the norm.

That I can’t and won’t engage with English language food media coz I find it so revoltingly classist, but I look forward to talking about 18 hour soups and how to fold dumplings in all of my other languages.

Most of all, I feel a bit of heartbreak and loss: that it’s setting in that I’m very very far from home, wherever that is.

That’s why I do things like go to 3 different Korean grocery stores in Seaside / Marina, CA. I’m finding the rituals and conversations of engaging with people who care deeply about preparing and procuring food to be something familiar and anchoring, even if I only speak basic food Korean.

I have a deep yearning for a sense of home I’ve never even been (Swatow). It makes all the sense in the world (for me, culturally, linguistically) and none at all (as a place to spend any amount of time beyond tourism). But at the same time, leaving home for new homes is also something ‘we’ do.