By Charlotte Li ’27

歡迎來到我哋嘅家，香港。

Welcome to our home, Hong Kong.

As the plane landed, those words in Cantonese filled the cabin, a simple greeting that suddenly felt like a warm embrace. It struck me how long it had been since I’d heard my mother tongue spoken all around me. Living in the United States, I’ve learned to move between English, Mandarin, and even French. Yet, Cantonese, the language that felt most like home, could rarely find its place in my daily life. 

When I arrived at Wesleyan University in my freshman year, I was immediately drawn to the vibrant language-learning culture. I enrolled in French during that first year, eager to explore a language completely new to me. Learning French was humbling. I stumbled through pronunciation drills and struggled to find my rhythm in conversations. But as I moved between languages, I started to realize that the way I speak changes with where I am — and who I’m speaking to. In French class, I was careful and deliberate; in English discussions, more assertive; in Cantonese, relaxed and warm. Each language seemed to place me in a slightly different world, revealing how my sense of self shifts across cultures.

That awareness made me appreciate Cantonese even more, not just as a language I grew up with, but as a space where I feel most like myself.

Language, I discovered, connects us not only to others but to the communities that shape us. I still remember the warmth of my first Hong Kong Student Association gathering last year — the scent of freshly baked egg tarts, the hum of Cantopop in the background, and the sound of Cantonese filling the room for the first time since I’d arrived. At that event, I met many people from Hong Kong or with ties to the city. However, something surprised and worried me at first– that only a few of us in the room spoke fluent Cantonese.  

That realization stayed with me: this beautiful language, so full of humor and rhythm, might one day fade if fewer and fewer people continue to speak it.

When the Cantonese Found its Space

The idea for what would become Wesleyan’s first Cantonese class began with a small question from my friend Ana, who would later become the co-founder of the Cantonese Student Forum. One afternoon, she excitedly showed me her progress on Duolingo, testing out her Cantonese skills. She started dropping the names of dim sum dishes — “siu mai,” “cheung fun,” “har gow” — and asking if she was pronouncing them correctly.

What started as a casual exchange soon turned into something much more meaningful. Teaching her Cantonese made me realize how little opportunity I had to speak the language in the United States, and how much I missed it. It also reminded me how language only truly lives when it’s spoken and shared.

Soon after, we connected with Xiran, an alum from Zhuhai, China, who had just graduated and also spoke Cantonese. Together, we began imagining a space where people could learn and practice the language, discover the culture behind it, and make Cantonese more visible on campus.

That vision took shape as the Cantonese Table, a weekly gathering open to all. Students from different backgrounds came together to learn tones, exchange phrases, share food, and play Cantonese games. Laughter often filled the room as people tried out new words, sometimes hesitating over tones but always encouraged by others. What began as an informal meet-up soon grew into a small but tight-knit community, one bound not only by language but by curiosity, friendship, and belonging.

From Table to a Class

After a semester of running the Cantonese Table, our small community had grown in both size and purpose. With guidance from faculty mentors Professor Gong Wei and Professor Lisa Dombrowski, Ana and I decided to take the next step. Together, we developed a proposal for a new student-led course: “Cantonese: The Language and Its Linguicide.”

The forum offers students a rare opportunity to study Cantonese in a structured academic setting, something Wesleyan had never offered before. Through weekly language practice and creative projects, students build conversational skills for everyday situations like self-introductions, shopping, and dining. But the course goes beyond vocabulary and grammar. It examines how language shapes identity and how Cantonese carries Hong Kong’s culture, history, and resilience.

Teaching the forum has been one of the most meaningful experiences I’ve had at Wesleyan. Standing in front of the classroom — switching between English and Cantonese — I felt the language come alive in ways I hadn’t experienced since leaving home. Sometimes students stumbled over tones and laughed together; other times, they connected the phrases we practiced to their own cultural experiences. Those small exchanges reminded me that teaching a language isn’t just about words — it’s about sharing a worldview.

Our forum also became a space for collaboration and dialogue. We invited Professor Lisa Dombrowski from the College of East Asian Studies and the Film Department to host a panel on Hong Kong cinema, exploring how film preserves and re-imagines the Cantonese identity. In another session, we connected with Professor Jennifer Lau, a lecturer in the Language Studies program at the University of Toronto-Mississauga and an organizer with the nonprofit Save Cantonese, which campaigns to support Cantonese education worldwide. Professor Lau will be sharing her experiences fundraising for community language programs and introducing us to Save Cantonese’s learning resources. Working with Professor Lau reminded us that our work at Wesleyan is part of a much larger movement to keep the language alive.

Cantonese has long been overshadowed by Mandarin in both education and media, even though it is spoken by more than 85 million people around the world. Many of us, either heritage speakers or new learners, have felt the effects of that erasure. Through the forum, we are trying to reclaim space for the language and explore why its preservation matters.

Keeping Language Alive

Through this student forum, we hoped not only to reclaim space for Cantonese but also to affirm that every language carries its own story, humor, and beauty. By combining instruction with culture and critical discussion, the Cantonese Forum bridges the personal and the political, creating a space where students can both learn and reflect on what it means to keep a language and a culture alive.

I hope our experience encourages other students at Wesleyan to do the same. Every language spoken on this campus deserves recognition, space, and a chance to be heard.