Smells

I got my wish: summer is here. With the heat and mugginess come the smells. During the winter, to quote a professor, "all the shit is frozen", but now when i walk down the street, all the familiar and often unwelcome smells are back. Just walking home, I smell fried dough (油条), sichuan peppercorns, and 包子. And of course, that unpleasant street smell that is composed of garbage, exhaust fumes, and children's (and probably adult's) urine. Although many China smells are bad, I kinda like it…it's smells like a place where people live. Phoenix smells like desert and concrete, which I also like, but it's mostly sterile.

Smell is especially evocative for me. I've been visiting China since I was young, and some of my strongest memories are the smells. Sometimes I'll encounter them in the States too--like one I can only describe as "construction", which immediately brings me back to my grandparents' apartment complex--and when I do come across them in a different environment, I literally stop in my tracks in confusion. There's also that musty, metro station smell that I find sometimes in the garage in the summer.

One thing I really pay attention to when traveling is scent. Korea was very interesting, because the smells there really transported me out of Asia. For one, a lot of people wore perfume or cologne. Instead of Chinese BO and Chinese old man breath (anyone who knows old Chinese people knows what this is like…), I was surrounded by smells I typically associate with America. I smelled cologne that brought me back to high school prom and waterfront walks in Annapolis. I smelled perfume that reminded me of getting ready for a night out on Mill Ave. But there were plenty of Korean smells too: I remember donuts in the metro stations, fish markets, pickled vegetables, sterile museum.

And anywhere in the world, the combination of beer and chain-smoker breath…decidedly unsexy, but it still makes my heart squeeze painfully, even three years later.

I wonder if anyone else pays as much attention to smell. It probably explains why delicious food is so important to me.