With Chiarina Chen, John Tsung, Siyi Chen, Jiaoyang Li, Ou Ning, Tang Xue

Guòzǎo (过早), a morning ritual from Hubei, traditionally takes place between 6–9 AM. You rise early, visit bustling breakfast stalls and noisy street corners, and become part of the city’s most vibrant soundscape. Here in New York—12 hours behind Wuhan—we gather from 6–9 PM for a surrealist dialect salon after dusk. A breakfast that haunts the night.

An evening where food, accent, and noise became language. We transformed CTHQ into a sonic archive, a late-night food stall, and an open-mouth choir.

Through the forgotten edges of the Hubei dialect, we gathered not to translate, but to tremble—to mispronounce, to echo, to slip. Dialect here is not a code but a diasporic glitch. Sound study reflections by Ou Ning, Wuhan dialect lessons with Wuhan-born writer and researcher Chiarina Chen, and a live sound activation ritual by John Tsung, Siyi Chen, and Jiaoyang Li, interwoven with poetry by Yu Xiuhua and Qu Yuan. Bowls of 热干面, 蛋酒, and 豆皮 by Tang Xue were served, alongside the clatter of chopsticks transformed into sonic landscapes. In the background we screened Wuhan short films by Zi Jie and Gong Hao: Wuhan: Seven Days of Joy, Go to the Street, and With Boat Towards Co-op. The kitchen became an orchestra. Breakfast after dusk became resistance.

You ate, spoke, and listened. Fugitivity lives in the voice that breaks (Fred Moten).

So let it break. Let it boil over. Let it become a song only ghosts can hum.

Accent Dialect Corner is an ongoing program inviting participants to speak in their own dialects and explore subcultures and local restaurants.

Free & open to all. Come hungry. Come noisy.