Somewhere in the depths of 2011, you can find a young girl and her mother in the T&T close to Cherry Beach. This Asian grocery store is the size of four Olympic fields, or at least it feels that way to a nine-year-old kid. Its shelves are stocked to the brim with dried, smoked, pickled, and fermented foods that are missing at Loblaws. The produce is cheap. The seafood lives in big glass tanks, and the girl loves to poke at the crabs with the pair of silver tongs that hangs at the side of their container. The girl pleads with her mom for marinated pig ears and chicken feet when they pass the ready-to-eat foods, and her mom rarely denies her. When they check out, they pack the week’s groceries into a rolling cart bag, the kind used exclusively by aunties and grandmas. They take the bus home, and eat. The girl never brings these foods to school.
This T&T closed in January 2020, but quickly reopened in August 2021 at their new spot at College and Spadina. It stands tall amongst the brand-new bubble tea shops which litter not only Chinatown, but every street, road, and avenue in the city. The day I knew something had changed was the day that a friend of mine suggested we all go get bubble tea after rehearsals. As a kid, bubble tea required the customary description after its mention; its definition became a practiced tagline spoken after the name. It was also no more than three bucks. On this day, it was being reintroduced to me by a white girl, and I didn’t have the seven dollars it cost to buy a cup. It’s undeniable that the only people with enough credible purchasing power to reinvent one of the busiest blocks in the city are those who benefit most from seeing everything, whether theirs or not, as a potential product. Markets cater to consumers with the capacity and the desire to buy, which often ends up being people with a historic, intergenerational, and economic advantage. It is no secret that this wealth originated in and continues to be built on the labour, land, and lives of those they exploit.
Karen Taylor, a white woman from Oregon, launched Breakfast Cure in 2017. She sells prepackaged portions of congee, “moderniz[ed] for the Western palate” so that it “doesn't seem foreign, but delivers all of the medicinal healing properties of this ancient recipe,” at fifteen bucks a pop. I see two possible reactions to this claim. The first is defensive: But isn’t that good? Isn't it a sign that the modern era seeks to champion diversity and incorporate foreign cultures? Don’t we want this kind of thing to happen? In short, no we don’t. Not like this. What’s happening here is cultural cherry-picking. Western markets have found that certain material aspects of Asian cultures are easily enjoyed. They choose to consume piecemeal portions of it, completely neglecting the people who live with these foods — not indulgent treats.
This phenomenon does not only apply to foods. Cultural practices like yoga have become a Sunday 10 am precursor to brunch, cupping and acupuncture are new-wave boho “alternatives” to Western medicine. The Western mainstream absorbs these traditions, devoid of the context — and the soul — that gives them meaning and utility. Foods, activities, and medicines which have developed alongside, and out of, their respective philosophies are severed from their ideological roots.
The second reaction comes from people like me, who have been raised outside of our parents’ home countries, and who have gone through vicious cycles of shame, resentment, rediscovery, and defensive joy in building healthy relationships with our Asian roots. In order to make a profit off of goods meant to be accessible (congee is usually just leftover rice and water), sellers like Taylor disregard the humanity and history of ethnic foods. Taylor’s attempt to situate Asian foods — and Asian people — in the past purposefully insinuates that we don’t eat congee (or rather, don’t exist) today. She asserts that nobody else has this knowledge, which enables her to privilege herself as not only a business, but a teacher. As the benevolent archaeologist, she can create whatever narrative she wants to sell her “ancient” product. By mystifying congee, Taylor gets to be the one to bring this alien product to the civilized world. She gets to be the one to tap into previously lost knowledge. She gets to make bank off of pretending that the people attached to the cultural good don’t exist.
On its own, Breakfast Cure still sounds more or less harmless. What, realistically, are the tangible consequences of buying a couple of pre-packaged meals? If they are from sellers like Taylor, this risks much more than an hour of minimum wage. Removing the history from practices of culture cannot happen without removing the people from these cultures; damaging their humanity. Canada’s “cultural mosaic” approach to immigration and cultural preservation has already come under fire, and been disproven as myth (Nystrom 2023). The erasure of history and heritage through prioritizing profit over people only supplements this phenomenon. There’s a push to saturate the market with only one kind of merchant — the kind that those designated as “proper” consumers can understand, and feel understood by.
The commodification of Asian cultural practices pushes the people behind the products (because products are what the people themselves have turned into) into the realm of nonexistence. Eliminating the consumers’ moral responsibility to others means that people can enjoy their treats without having to do the work of unpacking or understanding the products’ histories. However, without history, culture becomes a lifeless good. Putting in the extra work to preserve the place of people is worth it. Somewhere, a young girl tugging on her mother’s sleeve in an Asian supermarket for pig ears and chicken feet will appreciate it.
Lea Jiang (she/they) is a third-year student double majoring in Ethics, Society, & Law and Women and Gender Studies, and minoring in Political Science. Her studies encourage her to engage in post-structuralist analyses of the institutions and relationships around her. Recently, they've deeply enjoyed learning Hozier and Taylor Swift songs on the guitar and crocheting gifts for their friends.