Hot Girls Read Podcast

Julia

Whilst in London, I came across a fantastic bookshop in Hackney called Artwords. They have a beautifully curated selection of books and magazines and I could have stayed in the shop much longer than I did (we were running late to check out of our hotel across the way!). Luckily, soon after entering the shop, I picked out a thin volume hidden among the stacks, on whose spine I recognised the name of one of my favourite modern poets: Nina Mingya Powles. The book was Tiny Moons: A year of Eating in Shanghai – a collection of essays on food and belonging.

Food and belonging has always gone hand in hand for me, and I was so excited to read on a subject that I already spend so much time thinking about. Since I already follow Nina’s substack where she often writes posts about food and identity as well, I knew I would really resonate with the writing. Moreover, like Nina, I too am half Chinese, and specifically, from the South, and so the foods and memories she writes about often hit very close to home for me. 

Nina’s writing is so poetic and visceral, and so much of her writing, inherently nostalgic, feels like the production of my own memories and struggles with identity. Food is such a wonderful angle to approach the vastness that is ‘belonging’ and as I read through Tiny Moons, I continue to reflect on my own favourite foods and how they have built the story of who I am today.