Monday, June 4, 2007

Here’s a cultural constant: Asian grocery stores are certifiably gross. You could build a house–or, more appropriately, a pagoda–upon this enduring truth, from Queens to Chicago to North Carolina, but there you have it. I’m sorry if this sets Asian Awareness back a few inches. Okay, marginally sorry. A few weekends ago, I walked into one such store and, sure as the floating lotus floats, was reminded of another constant: the leavin’ feeling situated so closely to the entrance.

In an attempt to be big people, so they say, I reasoned there will come a time when my culture will embrace me as a prodigal son, welcoming me into a province flush with lavish delights: delicious food, spellbinding music, and literature steeped in the lore of ancients unperturbed by daily facial growth. This was not that time. Initial thoughts turned to the health rating of the food court, cleverly hidden from the populace, and moved onto the throng itself, the noise, the stench of seafood, the crush so noticeably absent from a Harris Teeter.

A lot of it is the insulation, I think, and the conviction that almost all the products on the shelves come from places where the FDA is but a mythical beast, a quaint concoction of those white devils. But that’s the free marketplace for you, where, just as the proprietors can choose to stock their shelves with what they please, so too can I choose to shop or not shop there. Besides, why worry, right? We’re not talking about pet food here because, y’know, that supply chain turned out so well.