Care packages — glorious boxes filled with goodies and prized mementos from home. For those who receive care packages, they are the highlight of the week, the email from the Resource Center that is actually looked forward to, the surprise (or sometimes expected) reminder that no matter how far one goes, home is still important. For some international students, care packages are a direct link to a home that is thousands of miles away.

Yingxin Tan, a CAS sophomore from Singapore, began receiving care packages during her first year as a student. Her favorite food to receive is douhua.

“It’s a soy bean curd, pudding-like thing,” Tan said. “My parents sent me powdered soy milk to make it with, because it’s really hard to make from scratch. I like it because I used to eat it every weekend in Singapore, and it reminds me of home.”

Tan added that though the drink is not readily available in many grocery stores in New York City, she has managed to find it in Chinatown.

Stern sophomore Haojie Hu also utilizes the cultural diversity of the city to sate his desire for food from Shanghai because he does not get a lot of care packages.

“We usually don’t have a tradition of care packages,” Hu said. “I would be really moved if there was a care package with moon cakes, dumplings and any other food that is festive. I think international students should have food that reminds them of home.”

Even when people stay in the same country, they can feel completely estranged from their culture. Tyler Benjamin, a Gallatin sophomore from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, said he gets packages three times a semester with foods he loves that are not sold in New York City. One of Benjamin’s staple care package foods is boudin balls, which are a conglomeration of rice, ground meat and pig intestines, and have a very similar appearance to falafel. Some of his other favorite items include spices such as crawfish and krill seasonings and Chester hot fries.

“At the end of the semester I was really grateful,” Benjamin said. “[I] had had enough of NYU dining. It was horrible; it wasn’t well-seasoned. I was used to really spicy, and to go from a lot of spice to no spice is bad.”

Whether students come from halfway around the world or just a state away, the food inside of care packages represents a small piece of home that helps them remember their roots while in a new environment.

Email Michael Frazier at [email protected].