Year of the Dog

Some film I shot in 2018 in my mother’s hometown, Shantou, China. That was the first time I had been back to China in a decade. It was Lunar New Year and there were many prayers and offerings made to the spirits, ancestors, and my grandfather who passed away when I was a teenager. We stayed in my grandmother’s apartment which she has since moved out of. Depressing because I didn’t think that would be the last time I would get to spend time in that place. So many memories. I think the first time I went to that apartment I was probably around 3 years old. Funnily enough I could only speak to my mum and my grandfather at that time because the first language I spoke was Cantonese. No one else knew what I was saying. They mostly spoke Mandarin and the Swatow dialect. But now it’s a language I don’t remember anymore.