Asia Pacific
EN
Teochew film Dear You fuels heritage tours to China’s Chaoshan. How are villages responding?
['Melody Chan']
Channel NewsAsia Asia Pacific News
CHAOSHAN, GUANGDONG: For Singaporean human resource professional Jennie Lim and her 69-year-old mother, Dear You was more than just a movie - it became the push for a trip they had long wanted to make.
Filmed almost entirely in Teochew, a language widely spoken in China’s Chaoshan region, the film tells the story of a young Chinese villager named Zheng Xiaowei, who travels to Thailand in search of his grandfather, Musheng, who fled in 1948 to escape conscription during the civil war.
Set against the backdrop of the mass migration of Teochew people from Chaoshan to Southeast Asia during the 1940s, the film explores themes of family, identity and homecoming.