Forum: Screening Dear You movie in Teochew would help preserve dialect heritage

While I was in China in May, I managed to catch the movie Dear You. The movie tells the story of the hardships faced by Chinese immigrants working in South-east Asia. It was filmed almost entirely in Teochew, with Chinese subtitles.

Watching the movie left a deep impact on me. As a young adult with Teochew on my birth certificate, I found the challenges depicted in the movie strikingly parallel to what my grandparents had likely faced after migrating to Singapore.

I never had the chance to hear these tales from them directly. Yet, when watching Dear You, I felt strangely connected to them, as though they were recounting this story to me.

And although I did not understand more than 10 words in the entire movie, it was precisely the fact that the movie was in Teochew that allowed me to feel this sense of connection, distant and intimate at the same time, to this often-forgotten window of our past.

On hearing that the movie was being released in Singapore, I planned to take my family – parents, aunts, uncles – to watch it.

But I was shocked and disappointed to learn that only a Mandarin-dubbed version of it is set to be screened in Singapore, with only eight special screenings in Teochew as part of a cultural showcase.

A cornerstone of the movie’s impact is its retention of the Teochew dialect. To have it available only in Mandarin would be doing a great disservice to the movie and the experience of moviegoers.

I’m wondering if the authorities would consider regular screenings of the movie in both its Teochew and Mandarin-dubbed versions.

It is puzzling that foreign movies in other languages, like Thai, can be screened without being dubbed, but not a Teochew movie.

Chinese dialects are rapidly declining in Singapore. If efforts to preserve such heritage continue to face such obstacles, such heritage is likely to eventually fade away altogether.

Language is more than a medium to convey a film’s storyline; it is also an inextricable element tied to memories and relationalities. Releasing Dear You in Teochew would let the movie resonate more deeply and personally with Singaporeans, especially those from the older generation. For my late grandmother, who spoke only Teochew, I know it would have.

Tan Jun Yi