Contributed by: Mingjia Liang
What sound transports you to another place? A sound that evokes a powerful emotion?
If I am walking along the road and hear someone speaking Hakka, I strain to listen to their words. This transports me to grandma’s home. I miss grandma. She lives in the countryside, and she’s retired. When I was born, she came to the city where I lived to help my mother raise me. I am very grateful to my grandmother. My grandmother is a Hakka native and speaks the Hakka dialect. So I naturally learned to speak Hakka while living with my grandparents. But I communicate with my parents in Cantonese, and I speak Cantonese or Mandarin with my friends. I live in Foshan, where people mostly speak Cantonese, and few people speak Hakka. When I hear Hakka, I’m transported back to the countryside in Meizhou. I love going to grandma’s hometown for the winter and summer vacation. Here the people are warm and cheerful. They are always willing to share with their neighbors. I’m so lucky to have grown up surrounded by this culture.
