Previous

“The memories I had stored, I could not let fester. Could not let trauma infiltrate and spread, to spoil and render them useless. They were moments to be tended. The culture we shared was active, effervescent in my gut and in my genes, and I had to seize it, foster it so it did not die in me.”

This quote comes from the latter half of Chapter 19, towards the end of the book. Here, Michelle relates her own memories to the process of making kimchi. She realizes that the way she looks back on her mother’s life can be informed by the fermentation process necessary for making kimchi; she wishes to give the memories she has of her mother a second life within herself, rather than letting them decay and go to waste. She mentions the culture she shared with her mother, and recognizes that her identity as a Korean person is not wholly reliant on her mother being alive, that it continues to exist in her because of the life she has lived with her mother up until this point. This book is a way that Michelle has “fermented” her memories, turning them into something beautiful that keeps her mother alive in some way.

Previous section Famous Quotes Explained Page 3

Take a Study Break