Canned life

When I was young, my house was Itaewon. Maybe that's why? We had a lot of America goods in the house. Thursday, when a woman called Aunt Magane comes, was a day when food was pouring out. She who was working in a U.S. military compound entered the door in her long and wide skirt unsteadily. She took out all kinds of cans, toilet paper, cheese, and oranges under her skirt like magic. She came in waddle like a duck and she flew like a swallow on her way out.

She brought everything except ice cream whenever my father ordered. Among them, my favorite was spam, which I ate on top of hot rice.

Whenever my mother gave me a notice to study, there was something I pretended to read. That was the Sears catalog. The thick catalogue, like an encyclopedia plastered with photographs, was not boring to look at all day because even if I don't know English, I can roughly understand it. I used to see it like a fairy tale and sleep with it under my head.

Aunt Megane mainly brought food, but there was also a broker who looked plump and gross. When my father ordered home electronics, he quickly brought them from PX in US Army compound. There were many unpacked items in the closet. It was the collections of my mother for my wedding goods. I wonder what happened to those items after I came to America without getting married. My sister followed me a year later too.

After coming to New York, I lived in the same building as an elderly couple from Austria at the age of 29 to escape hunger after World War I. Having no children and having trouble moving around, they had difficulty going out because they lived on the fourth floor without elevators. Once a week I used to buy milk and go up to see her. On the old red and white checked tablecloth by the window where can see the Empire Building, there was toast and a cup of coffee. The oven was always clean whether they ate lunch and dinner canned food. She died after living a long life in the apartment until she was 95 years old without going to a nursing home.

I often eat canned food these days when it's hard to get into the market by Corona-19. The canned food tastes is not bad. Others advise me to eat well, but I like it because it's convenient to cook and my condition is not so bad these days.

When I was a young, I often saw American grandmothers on the streets of Itaewon, wearing pink lipstick and colorful polyester clothes. I hate to wear heavy clothes, necklaces, rings and luxury leather bags on my weak body. I wear polyester clothes and hold a cloth bag and eat canned food.

Inevitably, as time goes by, I am becoming a cheap American grandmother.