My Grandma Son

Grandma Son stood just under five feet tall. Short but thick, she projected a powerful presence. Most days she wore a white apron over her jeans and sweater, accessorizing only with a Day-Glo colored fanny pack where she wadded hundreds of dollar bills. Perhaps her most striking feature was her eye makeup. Reminiscent of football players’ reflective black eye stripes, Grandma sported a thick black swath of eyeliner above each eye. Everyday Grandma got up at six in the morning to go to work at Hyahn, an Asian-fusion restaurant in the US heartland and owned by her son. I worked four nights a week at Hyahn, and quickly learned that though the menu had been adapted for America, Grandma and the power structure of the restaurant had not.

Soy Sauce

Grandma ruled as a dictator despite the two managers and head chef. She had a comment and an instruction for every employee in the restaurant from how to chop the green onions to how to greet the customers. One of my prep jobs was to make new soy sauce. This task was laden with responsibility and stress. I was to take the plastic pitcher, fill it half way with concentrated soy sauce and top it off with fish stock. There was an elaborate procedure that followed my mixing where Grandma would seize the right-sized ladle, swish the concoction around and taste. If it was too strong she would yell “eww! tastes like medicine, I no likey.” The first month this ceremony was agonizing and my stomach would cramp as I waited for the official word on whether my soy sauce was worthy. Finally I remembered that in drawing class we measured proportions with our fingers. Once I started measuring proportions of soy sauce to fish stock, Grandma pronounced me the best soy sauce maker in the house. She would say “ You makey soo good” and flatter me into making more every time the pitcher was empty.

Although autocratic, Grandma was also a very generous woman, especially when it came to food and family. During the time I worked there, my father was diagnosed with cancer. Upon learning this, she said how sorry she was and pressed me with several salmon heads, “for your daddy.” Grandma was a big fan of salmon head soup and advocated its nourishing qualities, especially for someone recovering from surgery. The two heads did prove very useful, but not as a meal. After the salmon sat in a deep freezer for several months, I took them to my studio and painted them. Now my apartment is decorated with a different sort of aesthetic, a fresh fish variety. For many months following this, Grandma would remember my dad and ask if he was doing better.

Sometimes horribly cruel, sometimes extremely sweet, Grandma’s personality ran the gamut. Some days though, she was just downright strange. Hyahn served a lot of sushi and went through vast quantities of wasabi, or Japanese horseradish. Grandma was mixing a large bowl in the back kitchen when I came through with some dirty dishes. She ordered me to get back and stay out because the wasabi fumes were so strong they would burn my eyes and make me cry. Distancing myself, I asked if her eyes weren’t irritated. Putting down the mixing bowl, she grabbed a clear plastic sack, yanked it over her head and tucked it into her collar around her neck! Standing before me like an astronaut with a plastic bubblehead, she resumed mixing the green paste. “Grandma-don’t!” I yelled, “You are going to suffocate!” Raising the bag like a helmet to sit on her forehead, she told me that every time she mixed wasabi, she had to seek protection under a plastic bag.


I quit work at Hyahn to move to Pittsburgh after working there for three summers and one school year. I was happy to be moving on to begin graduate school, but it felt very odd not to interact with a woman I had seen more than either of my ‘real’ Grandmas. Last week we spoke on the phone for the first time since I had left. “Hello Grandma!”
“Hello sweetheart! Don’t cry sweetheart”
“I won’t Grandma! But I’m coming to visit you at Thanksgiving!”