“Kou-FOO”?
“Kou-Foo”.
“KOU-Foo”?
“Kou-Foo”.

We were standing outside the restaurant where (we believed) we were supposed to meet my Nai-Nai’s–or Mother-in-Law’s–brother and two sisters. As Lloyd could not read the Chinese name, we’d used a process of elimination to end up at the fancy “House of Canton” located in Festival Walk, an eight-floor shopping behemoth. While scanning the crowd for anyone remotely resembling my Nai-Nai, I was carefully practising the proper intonations of Sei-Yee-Ma (”Fourth Aunt”), Ng-Yee-Ma (”Fifth Aunt”), and my linguistic nemesis, Kou-Foo (”Uncle”).

I had learned early on that Cantonese is a tonal language, and that an ill-placed, albeit innocent
inflection could turn as innocuous a sentence as “I’m hungry” into “I have diarrhoea”. In the case of Lo-Yeh, a rising tone on the second syllable could turn an earnest attempt at “Father-in-Law” into “Old Fart”. The error is not as funny the second time around (or third, or fourth…).

Being a keen learner of languages, and having lived and travelled abroad, I’m usually comfortable in situations where English is not the medium of conversation. So why the frantic attempts at mastering Kou-Foo, while secretly wishing I could dart off to the nearest bubble-tea place?

Every new bride is nervous about meeting the in-laws for the first time. None of Lloyd’s relatives from Hong Kong were able to make it to the wedding so, over a year later, I was a new bride again. Add to this the fact that my in-laws (a) don’t speak English, and (b) come from a family background that has had little interracial marriage, and perhaps you can begin to understand my anxiety.

Multiculturalism is taken for granted in the Canadian, and especially the Vancouver, context. But while Hong Kong is home to peoples of many different backgrounds (and more specifically, has a thriving and diverse South Asian community, mostly fluent in Cantonese), one does not see the same extent of “mixing” that is commonplace at home.

Living in Richmond, I had a notion that Hong Kong would be a more frenetic version of No. 3 Road, with maybe a few more high-rises and dim-sum options. But a few hours there had proven me wrong already.

With all these factors weighing on my hyperanalytical and oversensitive mind, dim sum had assumed the importance of a world peace summit. “Always address them by their titles, and pour tea for everyone constantly”. Those words of my Lo-Yeh (low tone on the second syllable) were running through my head like a mantra.

But before I could overblow the enormity of the situation any more, Sei-Yee-Ma and Kou-Foo were
hurrying over to meet us.

***

So how did it all go? I don’t think that militantly refilling teacups and speaking like a native was as
important as making a heartfelt attempt to connect, and, in the end, all my worrying had been for nothing.

Despite my less-than-stellar mastery of the tones, my genuine attempts to address everyone by their Cantonese titles went over a storm, as did my limited repertoire of Cantonese phrases. Before we knew it, we were invited for lamb hot-pot dinner the following night.

Their subsequent reports home to Nai-Nai apparently spoke enthusiastically of my willingness to learn Cantonese and of my healthy appetite (I am now a convert to taro dumplings and lamb ribs).

But even with the glowing feedback, it meant more to me when, as we said goodbye before leaving for the rest of our trip, Sei-Yee-Ma shyly managed, in English, “I will miss you”. I was delighted to reply, in Cantonese, “Doje sai” (thank you).