ERHUA (儿化) is the soft “r” attached to the end of a Chinese word, thereby reshaping its aural structure. Full of feeling, it is a sound with the ability to alter a word’s meaning despite having no set definition of its own. The signature identifier of the Beijing dialect, it rolls off the tongue to round out the sharpness of a character’s sonic structure, giving the city’s voice its warmth, wit, and unmistakable rhythm.