cut fruit: home
Cut fruit was my family’s staple. Without fail, after every dinner my mom would sit down with a large plate, a couple fruits, and her trusty knife and deftly peel, core, and cut uniform cubes and slices. In the midst of hours spent in my room studying, mom or dad would quietly set a little bowl of cut fruit on my desk.
It’s a practice traditionally necessary for consuming the unclean produce from wet markets in Asia, but fastidiously transposed by my parents to America and on to me. Even in my dorm, I faithfully grab my paring knife and de-skin my apples and my pears, cutting myself a plate of fruit in a clumsy imitation of my parents.
Cut fruit is just one of the ways Chinese family and heritage shapes the second generation experience, even through the smallest acts. Similarly, this playlist is a mix of songs that show how my Chinese cultural ties permeate my outlook on music and entertainment: The Cantonese-pop of my parents’ high school days, played on repeat on long car rides. American 80s hits that they first learned to love when they immigrated here. Theme songs to the Hong Kong soap dramas I loved to watch as a kid. These are the songs of my immigrant home.
