"Khermican Food" (Close Reading 10/13)

http://lky.ph/post/49369673139/richard-parks-on-doughnuts

The article “Khmerican Food” by: Richard Park explores the mystery of the Cambodian owned Doughnut shops in America. Park goes all the way to Cambodia to explore what the doughnut market life is like with such a large impact in America. Overall the piece reveals the differences between the American and Cambodian culture and the effect in has economically on the production of doughnuts. To show all the aspects, Park exercises the use of detail, imagery, and diction.

Park stuffs a ton of information into the article. He seems like a complete expert on doughnuts, when he really just did his research. Still, certain details stick out in the entire piece. At one point, Park is describing the start of the industry with a Cambodian man named Ngoy, who has “no English skills, possessed of a wily entrepreneurial spirit” (Park). The inclusion of Ngoy’s lack of English and his “spirit” shows the reason that the doughnut industry grew in America. Because Ngoy really was able to influence a community to follow his lead. Soon many Cambodian refugees were following Nguy’s lead and opening their own shops. Without the inclusion of the “spirit” of Nguy, it would be harder to understand why he was able to succeed with knowing English, and why he had such an influence on the refugee community. Later, Park includes that there were about “2,400 Cambodian doughnut shops” at most in just California. Including this helps to show how prominent they are. Later, Park has an interview with one of the owners of the only doughnut shop in Phnom Penh. The shop is called USA Doughnuts. The entire conversation he included is about how little the shop makes. The American doughnuts is not popular in Cambodia because they do not like sweet food, according to the owner of the shop. The differences in the culture are well displayed by the differences in food and how well doughnuts do in each country. All the details conveyed the economic and cultural differences of America and Cambodia by just writing about doughnuts.

Park’s use of imagery is less common. At times, he uses visual description for things to display the Cambodian culture and sometimes the culture of an American doughnut shop. One special case of imagery, is when he describes the doughnut he has while in Cambodia. He says: “my knife gently crunched through the sugary granules of the deep brown settled icing before passing easily through the soft, aerated dough” (Park). The audience can connect quickly with the “crunch” of a good doughnut and know he is having one. He wants to show that though Cambodia may not have many doughnut shops, the one they have is good. He is almost sending a little praise to the owners of the shop in this part. Later, Park is back in America, at a doughnut shop,and  he describes his first glimpse with “a wide-smiling, aproned Cambodian woman” (Park). The image brings to mind a warm nature that is connected with a bakery or doughnut shop. The “aproned” aspect also brings a nostalgic feel to the sentence because the audience can imagine a baker making things in it and imagine the entire scene from that. He then goes on to point out a “golden Buddha statue with an American dollar bill hanging around its neck” (Park). The juxtaposition of this image brings both cultures together and gives the reader a sense of communion as well as contrast. The two cultures are both part of this industry, and this sentence truly shows that. Still, it also displays that the cultures are not nearly the same thing. The imagery in the piece pointed to a closer link with the culture of both America and Cambodia and how that translated into the doughnut shops.

The diction of the piece is really not too obscure. At times Park uses Cambodian words or phrases like “yam bai”. The inclusion of these few words helps to bring the audience into the Cambodian world. It is easier to connect when their language is used. Park also explains the words whenever he uses them to connect the ideas for the readers. The only time the language may be beyond colloquial is when Park is explaining the economic aspects of doughnut shops. The average person would not necessarily talk about “overhead costs” in an everyday conversation, but that does not mean that the language is foreign to the average person. Everything Park talks about is relatable and understood by an average person, but they reader is able to connect more with the culture of Cambodia when he relates things to understood words. Just dropping the Cambodian language in the piece would only accomplish something for himself. The extra explanation makes connections between cultures and also reaches many people. Overall, Park uses diction that is easily relatable and can show the reader what is going on without any confusion.