De cantón is not just a name or a tradition—it is a living expression of culture, memory, and everyday life shaped by centuries of history and human connection. On humid summer evenings in southern China, when the Pearl River exhales its slow breath and neon light trembles across water, de cantón is not spoken aloud—it is felt. It lingers in the clatter of porcelain bowls in open-air dai pai dong stalls, in the sing-song cadence of Cantonese opera drifting from a neighborhood theater, in the quiet discipline of a chef folding dumpling skins by hand. De cantón is not a…