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China’s surprise blockbuster Dear You is a love letter to the Nanyang generation
A little indie movie has captured hearts across China, but its greatest achievement may be reviving the story of Nanyang migration for a new generation.
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What Dear You, China’s surprise blockbuster of the year, does is rewind the clock to remind audiences that before there was prosperity, there was hardship.
PHOTO: GOLDEN VILLAGE
Before I knew what a remittance letter, or qiao pi, was, I knew that my grandfather helped homesick men stay connected to the families they had left behind.
He ran a remittance business in the 1960s and 1970s from his shophouse on Purvis Street. A general merchant supplying groceries and necessities to the British Armed Forces, he was also the man fellow Hainanese immigrants turned to when they needed to send money, letters and news back to Wenchang in Hainan.
