When I was a child in Maaubou, I caught shrimps from the village pond and carried home fish when it was drained for harvest. When I returned to my village, I strolled by the pond and sought the space in front of the Chan Ancestral Hall where I had played as a child. By the benches there under the banyan tree I saw a gathering of elderly residents. As I made my way to them, I was warmly greeted as they recognised me. We had a lively conversation in our Aawu dialect. One elder laughed and asked how a man who left at age four could still speak the dialect. Another asked whether my siblings and cousins in Canada still spoke it. To their amusement, I even got my wife to sing in the local dialect a childhood nursery rhyme that I taught her. All were pleasantly surprised that I proudly retained the dialect after almost fifty years. I explained that I spoke with my parents exclusively in dialect growing up. However, their astonishment is not without merit. Over the years, standard Cantonese and then Mandarin have overtaken the area as the village urbanised and migrants from other parts of…
As I sat with my wife on the stone bench in front of my childhood home in the village of Aawu (鴉湖村), an elderly lady walked by us and without pausing asked if I was the boy from that house who left nearly fifty years ago. She finally stopped fifteen metres away below the arch at the front of the laneway to rest by the entryway shrine. I followed her there and confirmed that I am indeed that boy and we quickly slipped into conversation in our Aawu dialect (countryside Cantonese), which instantly gave us a connection. I explained the reason for my return to the village. I had never visited my grandfather’s grave. Nor had I fulfilled another Cantonese obligation: Introducing my wife to him. With the extra fear of the village disappearing due to rapid urbanisation, I had finally returned to Maaubou (茅㘵, a neighbourhood within Aawu) to fulfil my duties. As we spoke, an elderly gentleman walked by and he too without stopping remarked as he strode past us, “I remember Kai. He would always say ‘tomorrow’ whenever we asked him when he would be moving to Canada.” The lady laughed and confirmed the story. Over the… 
