“I didn’t realise that some people move house without a care, especially Hong Kong people,” says Chan. “My home isn’t some romantic tenement building or village house, it’s just one of the flats in a building. But it has its history.”

Her attachment to her Wan Chai home – and the memories and relationships that are inevitably embedded within it – is the basis of her latest play, I will die in my home.

The play in Cantonese, which is being staged at Tai Kwun in Central from April 21-23, is directed by Hong Kong playwright Yan Pat-to.

“These past couple of years, what has constantly bothered me is the worry that the people closest to me will die, especially my mum,” Chan says. “This is a reality that cannot be changed, because everyone’s fate, at the end of everything, is death.

“Naturally, I thought about the house that I grew up in – from when I was born to when I became an adult – because this house is home to a lot of shared memories between my mother and I. So a lot of stories and experiences are attached to the house.”

Chan’s play is a poetic 100-year chronicle, set against the backdrop of a dynamic Wan Chai neighbourhood, that reflects on the past, present and future. Inspiration for the script came from her memories of growing up there.

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“Actually, Wan Chai had another name – Tokyo. There were a lot of Japanese people there,” she says. Walking to school above Hung Shing Temple on Queen’s Road East, she would pass by a mysterious Japanese motel which housed a number of geishas.

She incorporated them in the play, which ponders whether the motel was their home, how they felt about moving from Japan to Hong Kong, and what home meant to them.

Chan’s play also mentions some of Wan Chai’s old trees. She was particularly inspired by a banyan tree in the backyard of Hung Shing Temple whose roots intertwine with a set of steps. “It has witnessed so much,” she says.

Her research for the play involved interviewing several old people who lived for decades in Wan Chai. Based on their memories, she was able to add additional colour to scenes in I will die in my home.

One described how he would bike from Gloucester Road at night to pick up American fermented wine, while another recalled how he rushed out in front of a police car on Queen’s Road East because his son was suffering from a fever and he could not find a taxi.

The play is centred on Chan’s relationships with her late grandmother and her mother, to whom she still has a strong attachment. “She relies on me, and I rely on her,” she says. “I don’t know why, but from when I was young, I had this strong inkling of wanting to take care of her.

“We never said, ‘I love you’, but inside our hearts we knew there was this attachment. My mum jokes that her second lifelong passion is mahjong – she always plays it – and the first is me.”

I will die in my home investigates the meaning of home, and how it changes over time. Given our inescapable destinies, how do we honour the nostalgia, memories and relationships tied to specific places?

“People need physical things to recall memories,” Chan says. “I wanted to preserve these memories with my mother and my grandmother – the sentiments within these female relationships are real.”

I will die in my home, F Hall Studio, Tai Kwun, 10 Hollywood Rd, Central, April 21-23, 8pm; April 22-23, 3pm. In Cantonese. Tickets: HK$280, available from art-mate website.