Tomorrow 50 years later

As I sat with my wife on the stone bench in front of my childhood home in the village of 𝐴𝑎𝑤𝑢 (鸦湖 = “Crow Lake”), 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 15 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.

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.”

Over the years, several other residents of 𝑀𝑎𝑎𝑢𝑏𝑜𝑢 (茅㘵 = “Reed Field”; a neighbourhood within 𝐴𝑎𝑤𝑢), have told me the same story. Apparently, as a child I was quite loquacious and would go around greeting all the households in the laneways connected to 𝑀𝑎𝑎𝑢𝑏𝑜𝑢 Street. When news came about that my family would be moving to Canada, all the people of 𝑀𝑎𝑎𝑢𝑏𝑜𝑢 would ask me when the big day would be. For months my reply was always “tomorrow”.

Then tomorrow finally came. I left 𝑀𝑎𝑎𝑢𝑏𝑜𝑢 Lane 15 for a better life in Canada. In doing so, I left behind the people who filled those narrow laneways with life, including my grandfather, whose favourite grandchild I was. He died shortly after we emigrated. However, I took with me the 𝐴𝑎𝑤𝑢 dialect, preserved much as it had been in the 1970s – a linguistic time capsule untouched by later influences from standard Cantonese and Mandarin.

I was fortunate to move to Canada and even luckier to return to visit 𝑀𝑎𝑎𝑢𝑏𝑜𝑢. The others, like the old lady, stayed behind. My tomorrow was elsewhere; theirs unfolded in the village. Yet fifty years later our lives came full circle. As we parted, I told her, once again, that I would be leaving 𝐴𝑎𝑤𝑢 tomorrow.