Qiaopi letters find new life through a SZ-produced film

Near the end of 2022, while searching for ideas for his third film, director and screenwriter Lan Hongchun wandered into a museum dedicated to qiaopi in South China and stayed for an entire day.

Qiaopi — letters and remittances sent home by earlier generations of overseas Chinese — once traveled quietly across oceans, carrying longing and news from distant lives back to families waiting in China.

Lan read every letter on display, then bought stacks of research books. “The more I read, the harder it became to let go,” he said.

What moved him most was the emotional force hidden behind the fragile paper — the deep attachment to family and homeland, the resilience and integrity of earlier generations of overseas Chinese.

“I felt I had to tell these stories,” Lan said.

Now, they have made their way to the big screen.

“Dear You,” a low-budget film shot largely in the Chaoshan, or Teochew, dialect, has become one of China’s most unexpected box-office successes this year. Reportedly produced on a budget of just over 10 million yuan, the film crossed the 1 billion yuan (US$146 million) threshold at the box office as of Sunday morning, according to ticketing platform Maoyan, reaching a major milestone for the Shenzhen-produced film.

Despite lacking a star-studded production team, marquee actors or the kind of large-scale online marketing campaigns typically used to promote major theatrical releases, “Dear You” has defied expectations through strong word of mouth, drawing widespread praise from moviegoers, bloggers, critics and filmmakers.

The tear-jerker drama has also struck a chord with viewers, earning a rare 9.1-out-of-10 rating on Chinese review platform Douban — among the highest-rated domestic releases of the past decade — and has become a broader cultural talking point in China, sparking extensive discussion about the reasons behind its success and what it may signal for the country's cultural and creative industries.

Cai Shanchang (R), an actor in the film "Dear You," interacts with a visitor during the 22nd China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair in Shenzhen on May 21. Photos from Xinhua

In the film, Zheng Musheng leaves Guangdong’s Chaoshan region during wartime and later works in Thailand, hoping one day to return home. His wife, Ye Shurou, remains in South China, raising their children alone.

After Zheng dies overseas, Xie Nanzhi, a Thailand-based woman of Chaoshan descent who had befriended him, keeps sending letters and money to Ye in his name, hiding the truth about his death for nearly two decades.

Separated by the sea and having never met in person, the two women become quietly connected through years of letters, sacrifice and unwavering care.

A staff member dressed as an actor in the film "Dear You" writes qiaopi letters for visitors during the 22nd China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair (ICIF) in Shenzhen on May 21.

The emotional depth of the story has offered many younger Chinese audiences a glimpse into the nearly forgotten world of qiaopi.

“It is a beautiful film,” said Qi Wenjing, a teacher in Beijing who recently watched it. “The language in those letters, the Chinese calligraphy, the texture of the yellowed paper, all of it carried such deep longing across thousands of miles.”

The filmmakers say those emotions were drawn not from imagination, but from real qiaopi archives preserved across South China.

“I realized how many heartbreaking stories passed through those remittance agencies every day,” said actress Li Sitong, who plays the lead role of Xie Nanzhi in the film. “Compared with the movie, the real letters are even more moving.”

People stroll in a community themed on qiaopi letters featured in "Dear You" in Shenzhen on May 20.

In Guangdong Province, the Chaoshan region is known for its distinctive cuisine, teahouse culture and deep ties to overseas Chinese communities.

For generations, people from Chaoshan left for Southeast Asia and beyond, fleeing war, poverty and natural disasters in search of better fortunes. Between 1864 and 1911, nearly 3 million people departed the region, according to local customs records.

In one of the film’s most painful threads, Zheng Musheng spends his life doing grueling labor abroad — mining, pedaling tricycles and working aboard cargo ships — while sending nearly everything he earns back home.

“After hearing enough of those stories, ‘Dear You’ simply began to take shape,” director Lan said, calling the film a love letter to those ordinary yet extraordinary generations who held fast to their roots while reaching for a foothold in distant lands.

Zheng’s fate mirrors that of earlier generations of overseas Chinese who spent decades abroad, living frugally so that their families back home could survive. In the late 19th century, many, living far from banks or post offices, relied on fellow villagers traveling between Southeast Asia and China to carry their letters and money home.

The qiaopi they sent contained tender reminders to care for aging parents, worries over children’s education, and words of longing between husbands and wives separated by oceans.

A qiaopi letter written for visitors is seen during the 22nd China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair in Shenzhen on May 21.

But these letters carried something larger as well. During the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, overseas Chinese used qiaopi networks to send donations back to support the homeland.

“In this way, qiaopi are not cold historical documents,” said Li Yihang with the Guangdong Federation of Social Sciences. “They are living heritage carrying longing, trust and devotion to family and nation.”

“These letters recorded the strenuous efforts of the old generation of overseas Chinese and their profound love for the hometown and the motherland, and embodied the credibility and integrity of the Chinese nation,” President Xi Jinping once said during his visit to a museum dedicated to qiaopi in Shantou in 2020.

In 1979, qiaopi services were placed under the unified management of the Bank of China. UNESCO added the qiaopi archives to its Memory of the World Register in 2013.

Today, museums dedicated to qiaopi can be found in places such as Quanzhou City in Fujian Province and Guangdong’s Shantou City, where archivists continue restoring and preserving hundreds of thousands of letters.

Students visit a museum dedicated to qiaopi in Shantou, Guangdong Province, on May 18.

“We’ve seen a sharp rise in visitor numbers since the film ‘Dear You’ was released,” said Yang Dongmei, a tour guide at the qiaopi museum of the Shantou Archives, which houses more than 92,000 original qiaopi items.

Inside, visitors sit down with brushes, ink and paper to write their own versions of the old letters.

A student writes his own version of a qiaopi letter at the qiaopi museum of the Shantou Archives on May 18.

The renewed interest has spread overseas as well.

Director Lan said that many overseas Chinese are eager to watch the film, with audiences in Singapore, Australia and France reaching out to ask about overseas release plans.

The production team is now fast-tracking international distribution efforts, hoping to get the film to audiences throughout the world as quickly as possible, he added. (Xinhua)