Neighborhood

In the part of the city where I live, people crowd the streets to buy from the fruit stands. During the evening, they leave their apartment doors open so that the delicious aroma wafts around the hallway. At the hair salon where I get my hair cut, it smells heavily of perm and is filled with the sound of the aunties’ chatter. During the holiday season, I can hear the faint noise of beating drums from the lion dance teams practicing for the upcoming annual Lunar New Year parade. At school, we all played cards during breaks, we went to Chinese school on the weekend, and we got rice balls and tea as a treat from our parents afterschool. Whenever I came back home from school, I always had a good bowl of my grandma’s soup waiting for me. Throughout all this chaos, I’m consistently reminded of what’s important: community.