The truth behind Dear You, from a first-generation Nanyang migrant

Less than 40 days after its release, Dear You has blown past every other film in China and grossed over 1.6 billion RMB (US$237 million) at the box office, as online discussions have swirled like a sandstorm.

Dear You is a story of migration (过番, guofan, lit. crossing the sea) — a tale so old, it seems tacky. The backdrop is shabby, the budget is low, yet the emotions are genuine. Apart from Zhao Shuguang — known for playing Qing dynasty scholar Xia Yulai in the eponymous 1990s comedy series — who makes a few cameo appearances, the entire cast consists of newcomers.

This nostalgic film is about the Chaoshan people who ventured to Southeast Asia (Nanyang), and I found it all too familiar, having made the journey myself 70 years ago.

Even a stone lion would weep

Given that people have been talking about the plot of Dear You for over a month, I need not say more about it.

But have you heard of the terms guofan, Tangshan (唐山, referring to mainland China) or qiaopi (寄批/侨批, letters/mail sent home by overseas Chinese)?

I am one of those migrants who experienced all of it, but I have never spoken about it to my children or grandchildren. They could never feel what it was like, and might even say, “That was during your time!”

If one were to travel in time, it would be to go into a fun and exciting world. Who would want hardship?

Eight years ago, Teochew language scholar Professor Lim Lunglung wrote in the foreword to a book that I edited, Chinese Sentiment in Qiaopi (《侨批里的中华情》): “Even a stone lion would weep.”

Stone lions existed long before robots. Just watch the film and learn something about the past. Don’t get too caught up in it; otherwise, people will keep arguing endlessly, each from their own perspective.

In the middle of the last century, Nanyang — Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines — was generally poor, but those who came from Tangshan were poorer still. Their worldly possessions could fit into a rattan basket: two sets of clothes, a towel, a large enamel mug, and a straw mat to sleep on. Those from slightly better-off families might bring along some slices of rice cake as provisions. Some would bring a handful of soil from their hometown and throw it into a well when they arrived in Nanyang (which they called fanpan 番畔), to help against maladjustment in a foreign land.

New arrivals were called sinkheh (新客, lit. “new guests” or newcomers). Over time, they became laofan (老番, old migrants) that took care of the next wave of newcomers. The many clan and regional associations found in Singapore and Malaya were originally established to unite fellow townsfolk, serve society, and take care of newcomers and the poor.

In Nanyang, the migrants did manual labour, taking on the dirtiest, toughest and most back-breaking jobs. As coolies, they lived a rootless existence, often unable to count on even three meals a day. Yet, however hard life became, one dream sustained them: to send money home to their loved ones and, when they had finally earned enough, to return to their homeland.

Did migrants write love letters?

In those days, when one left home, news was scarce — a letter could take months both ways.

In the loneliness of a foreign land, one clung to thoughts of home and family. People waited desperately for word from home. When a letter did come, they read it over and over again before carefully storing it away like a treasure.

In the film, the male protagonist Musheng goes to Thailand and sends remittances and money to Shurou, his wife in China. Many of these qiaopis are filled with affection. “There is no spring in Siam; you are my spring.” “As the ship sails into the night, a bright moon rises over the river. Though rivers and seas stretch for thousands of miles, thoughts of you bridge every distance.”

These love letters that sound like they came from The Book of Songs (《诗经》) contain no flowery language, yet touch the depths of the heart.

Shurou thinks of her husband by day and dreams of him by night. In a letter, she writes: “You returned on Qixi, unchanged from your youthful days. When I awoke, my heart was at peace — a dream so sweet was blessing enough.”

In those days, such correspondence between husband and wife was extremely rare. Men generally wrote home to their parents, or sometimes their grandparents — concern for a wife might be expressed only in a casual question at the end of the letter. Indeed, the love letters in Dear You are the creation of a romantic-minded screenwriter.

Fulfilling a promise

Nanzhi — a fellow villager in Thailand — supports the family by selling kueh (Southeast Asian snacks) from a roadside stall and takes care of Shurou on Musheng’s behalf, writing qiaopi, remitting money, and even sending salted pork. For decades, that is how she fulfils a promise of friendship.

Later, when Shurou travels to Thailand to visit her benefactor, Nanzhi is suffering from dementia. Yet, she asks, “Was the salted pork I sent you good? If it was, I’ll send more.”

That scene was excellent.

Why these women seem impossible today

Some viewers cannot understand why Shurou devoted herself to a man who left for Nanyang and later disappeared without a word. Was he really worth spending a lifetime waiting for and raising his children? Others dismiss the story of Xie Nanzhi supporting Musheng’s wife and children as pure fiction, added only to tug at the audience’s heartstrings. To many younger viewers, the sacrifices made by these two women make no sense at all.

Yet this reflected the dominant values of that era — a Chinese culture where loyalty and righteousness trumped all. Sadly, the more society progresses, the less people identify with such deep sentiments.

In the 1980s and 1990s, overseas Chinese returning home poured all their effort into supporting their hometowns and families. They sent money to help relatives get married, build houses, repair ancestral halls, set up schools, and build roads and bridges. At Singapore’s docks sat piles of wooden crates filled with items, waiting to be shipped back to China.

Why did they do it?

New migrants today cannot imagine that sense of responsibility and duty towards their hometowns, or the trust and mutual support among relatives and friends. Chaoshan women were gentle yet strong. They were resilient, capable of enduring hardship, and willing to swallow their grievances without complaint. Such qualities are worlds apart from the self-interest that prevails today. In matters of love, values and life itself, the gap between then and now is simply too wide for any real resonance.

Some hope that this film can recover many of the fine traditions that Chinese society has lost. But people are shaped by the age they live in. Those days are gone and cannot be retrieved. All we can do is look back and remember.

Misconception of wealth

The Chinese young lady who watched the film with me came out of the cinema with a voice hoarse from crying. She said, “We always thought overseas Chinese were wealthy and happy. I never imagined life was so hard for them after they left.”

That was a unique period in modern Chinese history. Those who have never experienced parting and separation, or being down and out in a foreign land would not easily understand.

The scenes in the film are familiar to me. The burning of shacks, for example — such sights were all too common for the poor who lived in attap huts.

My thanks to director Lan Hongchun for helping overseas Chinese release decades of pent-up longing and emotion, while allowing younger generations to understand the hardship and homesickness endured by those who journeyed to Nanyang. Only after watching the film can one see the real lives of these migrants marked with blood and sweat, appreciate the sincerity of overseas relatives, and communicate on the same wavelength.

Feeling seen

In this age of utilitarianism, nostalgia can be healing.

Today’s new migrants live in a completely different world from the guofan migrants of old. A video call on a mobile phone is all it takes to see family back home. There is no need to worry endlessly about loved ones or send remittances home; if anything, they may still be receiving support from their families.

In those days, migrants worked themselves to the bone and stuck it out until they could go home — not necessarily wealthy, yet their generosity to family and relatives was a wholehearted outpouring of all their love. Ironically, this created serious misunderstandings, as relatives thought that foreign lands were paved with gold, and their desire knew no bounds. They did not know how painful life was overseas, sustained only by the hope of earning enough money to return home one day.

One elderly man was desperately homesick; he scrimped and saved and even agreed to carry goods home for others to scrape together enough money for the journey. After returning to his hometown and distributing all the items he had brought, he had nothing left to give. He came out of a bath, only to find that the trousers he had left hanging by the door had been stolen.

In tears, the old man howled in anguish, “I will never come back!”

A few years later, he was heard to be raising money to go back to Tangshan again.

This was the pain of blood and kinship that could never be severed — like broken bones still bound together by sinew. It is a pain beyond words.

The longing for the homeland, the devotion to preserving one’s cultural roots, the tears of women left behind, and the burden of migrants setting out once more — no single film can possibly capture it all.

By revisiting the past through the lens of the present, the film allows elderly overseas Chinese to recall the sacrifices they made for their hometowns, toiling without complaint and asking for nothing in return. It eases the burdens they have carried for years, allowing them to smile through their tears.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “一个过番人说世纪佳片《给阿嬷的情书》”.

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