5 Questions and a Secret: Mai Shearer brings a store full of Asian influence to the Oregon coast

 

By KATHLEEN O’CONNOR/YachatsNews

There’s an explosion of colorful chaos that greets you upon entering Mai Asian Market on East Olive Street in Newport. The shelves are so crowded with such a variety of Asian products that it’s hard to decide where to look first.

The ceiling is full of lanterns and shelves are brimming with bright packages of Asian snacks and traditional blue porcelain dishes. There’s also a huge selection of ingredients needed for Asian cooking, and a whole shelf of Chinese herbal supplements.

Mai Shearer (pronounced “My”) owns the shop and runs it with the help of her daughter, Lisa Shearer.

Mai Asian Market is made even more delightful by Mai Shearer herself. She is a petite ball of energy, welcoming each visitor to her store with a wide smile.

Mai is from Vietnam. She met her husband, Danny Shearer, in 1966 when she was working at the U.S. Army base in Saigon. He was there recovering from a combat injury. They married and went through the tangled process of getting through the paperwork necessary to allow Mai to emigrate to the United States.

Danny is from Elmira, so that’s where they settled in 1968. Although Mai was quickly busy with their three children she also started working as a nutrition educator for the Oregon State University Extension Service.

When her husband was transferred by Georgia Pacific to the paper mill in Toledo, Mai began working as a health assistant at the grade school there.

After her children were grown she opened a small Asian restaurant in Toledo, which was very popular. She had one shelf of common Asian cooking ingredients for sale and the number of ingredients kept growing as people asked for more items. One of the restaurant customers suggested that she open a market that provided a much larger variety of goods, and in 1996 that is exactly what she did.

 

Question: What is your family’s history?

Answer: My great grandfather was Cao Xuan Duc, one of the advisors to the last king of Vietnam, Vua Duy Tan. He was from the same village as Ho Chi Minh, and he was held in high esteem throughout Vietnam. When the communists came into power most people associated with the royal family were executed, but because of my great-grandfather’s fine reputation my family was allowed to live. However, as the communist rule became more oppressive we had to flee from our village. I was two years old when we escaped in the night, sometimes taking cover from bombs. My mother was six months pregnant with my sister. We went to Hanoi, but that was very unsafe, too. The U.S. military evacuated us from Hanoi to Saigon when I was four.

I went to a French boarding school in Saigon and learned to read and write French before I learned to read and write Vietnamese. We were taught English, too.

Q: You and Danny left Vietnam shortly after the Tet offensive in February 1968. What was that like?

A: The Tet offensive happened during Chinese New Year. We were supposed to be in a cease fire. I was at a swimming pool and suddenly there was the sound of bullets everywhere. At first we thought it was fireworks for the New Year but then everyone started running. The streets were filled with people running and guns firing. I ran to my cousin’s house and stayed with her for a week. We hid under a table for the whole week, barely coming out to eat. When we finally went outside we found the streets literally covered with bullet casings. It was a terrible time.

Q: What was the most difficult thing about moving to the United States?

A: I had to leave my mother and sister behind. My sister married a Swiss man and emigrated to Switzerland. She sponsored my mom to go to Switzerland in 1980, and in 1988 my mom visited me for the first time, 20 years after we were separated. My sister and her family and my mom finally joined me permanently in the United States in 1996.

Q: How do you decide what to offer in your store?

A: I know what all the ingredients are for most Asian cuisines, so I have all of those. Lisa and I go to Portland most Mondays to pick up fresh and frozen items. We also have ingredients needed for Hawaiian cooking and for Middle Eastern and Indian cooking. If we don’t have something a customer needs, we will order it.

We offer Chinese herbal supplements because people have asked for them. I am not trained in Chinese medicine, but I have studied it extensively over the years. As for the other things in the store, Lisa and I are always trying to find something a little bit new and different while still providing traditional Asian things like Chinese lanterns and Good Luck cats.

Q: What do you like best about owning this store?

A: I treasure talking with the Vietnam veterans. We all have memories together that no one else has, and it’s nice to be able to talk with each other about that time period. And to cry together sometimes.

I have always been a curious person, so I enjoy getting to know all my customers. I like to help them in every possible way so they get exactly what they need. Most of my customers are happy they don’t have to drive to Portland to get the Asian things they want.

Tell us a secret.

When I finally got my passport to leave Vietnam it was signed by Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. He’s the general holding a gun to a Vietcong soldier’s head in one of the most famous pictures from the Vietnam war, taken by Eddie Adams. I still have that passport.

• Mai Asian Market, 256 E. Olive St., Newport; 541-265-5868; Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.  Closed Sunday and Monday.

 

• Kathleen O’Connor is a Waldport freelance writer who can be reached via email at kmoc8916@gmail.com