Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast Explores Grief, Food and Korean Heritage by ‘Crying in H Mart’

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

H Mart is a supermarket chain specializing in Asian foods. It’s also where Michelle Zauner begins her new memoir, writing, “you’ll likely find me… sobbing near the dry goods, asking myself, Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?” “Crying in H Mart” analyzes Zauner’s relationship with her late mother and their shared Korean heritage through meticulously described meals — like the soybean paste stew doenjang jjigae and chonggak (“ponytail” radish) kimchi —and the contexts in which they were eaten. We’ll talk with Zauner about processing her grief in both her memoir and music as the artist Japanese Breakfast, as well as her art’s evolution in anticipation of her upcoming album, Jubilee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:38.3	I Very. From KQED. From KQED, From KQED Public Radio in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim.
0:51.3	Coming up on forum, in honor of National Poetry Month, we've been playing
0:55.2	original poems every Friday in April that you, our listeners, have sent us. And today we
1:00.5	close out the month celebrating the power of poetry with more of your original work. And we'll
1:06.3	meet writer and musician Michelle Zoner, who performs as Japanese Breakfast. Zonner has a new memoir about grieving the loss of her Korean mother through food
1:14.7	and grappling with her biracial identity.
1:17.4	It's titled Crying in H-Mart.
1:20.0	She joins us after this news. This is Forum. I'm Nina Kim.
1:40.3	H-Mart is a supermarket chain specializing in Korean foods, and it's where writer and musician
1:46.3	Michelle Zoner begins her memoir, about losing her mother to cancer.
	...

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