By noon on a recent Sunday, Jin Bong's monthly grocery shopping trip was almost complete. She paid $250 for meat, noodles, spices and vegetables at the Super H Mart in Naperville, then thanked the bagger who escorted her to the parking lot and lifted a giant box of cabbage into her trunk.
With that done, Bong had just one thing left on her to-do list: A two-hour, 116-mile drive home.
"To buy here is more convenient," insisted Bong, who used to hop from one tiny Asian market to the next near her home in Clinton, Iowa. But even then, she couldn't always find fresh ingredients for her Korean beef bulgogi.
"They have it, but sometimes it's kind of old," she said.
Every weekend, Asian immigrants like Bong wake up early to drive from Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa — even Nebraska — to spend hundreds of dollars in the large, flourishing Asian grocery stores in Naperville, Arlington Heights and Niles.
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