Doritos

I bought some doritos today.  The Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch kind.  They say that smell and taste are the most closely linked senses to memory (and now thanks to medical school, I know what tracts make this true), but as I was eating those Doritos, I had some major flashbacks.

Back when I was growing up in Korea, American food was RARE.  Instead of skittles, I had these misshapen, slightly off-tasting Korean copies (Unfortunately, I cant remember the name).  Instead of m&m's, I ate chocolate covered 해바라기씨 (sunflower seeds).  Fruit rollups?  Gushers?  Get out of here, every blue moon, someone would bring some from their vacation in the States and they were everybody's best friends for all of the 30 minutes their stash lasted.  I remember one time, I got punked into getting a free fruit-by-the-foot if I ate some "candy" this guy gave me.  Turns out the candy was some bitter bitter medicine that numbed my taste buds and I couldn't taste the fruit-by-the-foot at all.  Lucky for that person I don't remember who it was.

Yet there was a way I could eat Doritos.  Sometimes, I could get on the American Base (gate 52!) and persuade the clerk to sell me candy without a base pass.  Sometimes.  Then after a point, I must have begun looking too much like a terrorist to pull it off.  No more Doritos.  Compared with the tiny 500W bags of korean chips I could get, those humongous $2.50 Doritos bags were a kid's dream come true.  I would love eating them with my fingers and then licking my fingers clean - sometimes it seemed that the chips themselves were just a way I could get to licking my fingers.

When I was feeling down, my mom would make an extra trip out to the base to get me the only New York style pizza you could find in Seoul - Anthony's Pizza on the base.  She'd get me a fresh box of pizza and the only Taco Bell in the entire city - on the South Post.  I'd sit at home until she'd call me, then I'd come out and help her balance the big Taco Bell cup on the pizza box as we climbed the stairs.

Life was simpler as a child - I think I felt America was such a bigger place than Korea, with much better snacks, more freedom and more opportunity.  Every other summer, I'd go to America and spend an entire day sitting in the Barnes and Noble, catching up on my Redwall series and browsing through the comics.  Then we'd get our annual Panda Express at the mall before I picked up my one Nintendo game that would last me the rest of the year until I came back to the States.  and I was happy.

Now with everything that I wanted as a child, I'm living the paradox of wanting to return to being a child.  I don't think its a matter of the grass being greener on the other side.  I've seen a lot more of the world, and I've realized that there's fewer things as precious as the childhood I spent growing up in Korea, between two worlds, and between Doritos.