Grandmother Tongue

by Kienna Shaw


一 (jat1, yut; one)

I don’t remember when my grandmother started teaching me Cantonese. But first thing every morning I stayed with her, when I would wake up to the smell of blueberry pancakes and perfumed hand cream in her small apartment, she would greet me.

Zou san. Good morning.”

I’d repeat after her, sleep-tied tongue tripping over the intonations. Gently, she’d repeat it again and I would respond again, a morning ritual of call and response until the words settled in my mouth again. And she would smile, serve me a plate of blueberry pancakes, and we would have our quiet morning together.

二 (ji6, yee; two)

Second generation Chinese-Canadian, two generations of removal from speaking Cantonese.

My grandmother raised my dad and aunts and uncles in a mining town in Northern Ontario, one of two Chinese families in the entire area. Even if it wasn’t written into the law, English was the language that was demanded of them.

It was the same in the large cities that my dad and grandmother eventually moved to, even the ones that boasted of being multicultural. And so I grew up with English as my first language, and Cantonese was never really my second.

三 (saam1/saam3, sam; three)

My grandmother never spoke much about her life back in China. I can only remember three times that she ever told me stories of her sisters and her mother, of their life before and during the war. Always in fragments or in passing, she seemed to focus on the stories of my aunts and uncles and cousins before she ever told her own.

Studies have shown that our memories are tied to the language that we experienced them. Sometimes I wonder how many stories she could have told in her own words, her mother tongue, that I never got to learn about because I didn’t know the right words to understand them.

四 (sei3, say; four)

“Four is unlucky,” my grandmother told me one day while I was practicing my numbers. “It sounds like the word for death.”

The same way that intonations flowed from character to character, so did the small lessons of traditions and culture flowed from the words. From learning how to say Gung hei fat choi, I learned what to eat on New Year’s for long life and fortune and how to avoid sweeping out the good luck. From learning how to say lai-see, I learned the significance of the colour red and familial connections and structure.

Like the Cantonese words merging into my vocabulary, the Chinese traditions merged with my Canadian life. My words weren’t fluent and my understanding of the traditions were never truly traditional, but they were my family’s.

And every time I saw that an apartment building didn’t have a fourth or thirteenth floor, I would smile because I knew why.

五 (ng5, mm; five)

Food became a way to share traditions. Within each dish is a story of recipes passed through generations and an expression of love. These dishes and ingredients with their Cantonese names became the food that I shared with my family at the dining room table.

Even now there are foods that I don’t have English words for because the Cantonese names are so integral to what they are. I may not be able to read the menu at a Chinese restaurant, but I can safely order five different menu items in the only words I know how to.

六 (luk6, look; six)

“But you’re not really Chinese.”

I was six the first time I heard someone challenge my identity, and it was certainly not the last. It confused me why someone would, especially when they knew my family was Chinese.

They always listed the same reasons. I was second-generation, I didn’t have the same values, I wasn’t fluent in Cantonese. Each time it felt like it was an affront to the things that my grandmother had carefully passed down to me, the family traditions and heritage that were tied to the few words I knew. But I don’t know how to explain the importance of a language that wasn’t my mother tongue, and so I stayed quiet.

七 (cat1, chut; seven)

When ALS slowly took away my grandmother’s strength, one of the first things to go was her ability to speak. The small language lessons became mine to teach as I helped her learn sign language so that she would still be able to communicate with us. We used seven signs the most.

Yes. No. Hungry. Thirsty. Full. Thank you. I love you.
And when it was my turn to teach her the numbers, I went through them in sign language and Cantonese. Yut, yee, sam, say…

八 (baat3, baht; eight)

She passed away in the spring, a few months after her 80th birthday. Eight is supposed to be a lucky number, sounding similar to the word for good fortune. The irony felt heavy on my tongue when I remembered that lesson and muttered it under my breath.

For a moment I looked over to see if my grandmother had heard, if she would be proud of me for remembering. Although I hadn’t heard her voice or had a lesson in such a long time, it was only then that everything felt so quiet.

九 (gau2, gow; nine)

Over the years, my other relatives tried to teach me small bits and pieces of Cantonese, but it never felt right.

Eventually, I only used the words for the traditions and the foods when I didn’t know the English word.

Nine years later, I’m in university, giving my friends chocolate coin lai-see and having a small potluck of secreted snacks and mooncakes. It’s close to midnight in the residence dining hall and we’re having a lively discussion about traditions and food, about being Asian diaspora. In a moment of quiet, my friend turned to me.

“How do you say good morning in Canto?”

For a moment I smelled blueberry pancakes and perfumed hand-cream. Then I smiled, and with my grandmother’s voice guiding me, I spoke.

十 (sap6, sup; ten)

It’s been just over ten years since my grandmother passed away. Every few months, we visit where her ashes are scattered and we bow three times in front of her nameplate. As I stand between the trees and I look up to the skies, I think about all of the small things she taught me, woven into those language lessons.

Cantonese will never be my mother tongue. I accepted that fact before I even truly understood what it meant. But the word for mother and the word for paternal grandmother are only one intonation away from each other, so perhaps it’s my grandmother tongue.

It’s the language of the history and the heritage.
It’s the language of the food and the traditions.
It’s the language of my grandmother’s story and mine.

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