Watching Dear You (给阿嬷的情书)

I kept hearing about the movie Dear You (给阿嬷的情书), sparking my interest so much that I searched for a way to watch it in Japan. And I struck gold. It so happens that this movie is screening in Japan, although in only some cinemas. In fact, only four cinemas in Tokyo, and a single cinema in the whole of Kanagawa Prefecture. But that single cinema is in Yokohama, and so I found some time today to watch it.

 

 

Opening in Japan on 26 June 2026, it is already into its third week, but still managed to draw a handful of people.

I just want to say that I am so glad I took time to watch this movie. The story is about a Teochew man who left his family in southern China, making a living in Malaysia and Thailand (where the movie took place largely). With my grandparents being Teochew and themselves migrants who left China to seek a better life in Singapore, this movie, with its amalgram of Teochew migrant stories, struck a deep chord in my heart. By the second half of the movie, I will crying. And I was not alone. I heard a lot of sobbing around me, with a majority of the audience being ethic Chinese.

 

The entire movie was mostly in Teochew, with a bit of Mandarin and some Thai. And while I grew up speaking Teochew to my grandparents, my Teochew has gotten rusty; plus the version of Teochew used by the movie was not the version spoken by my grandparents. However, Teochew is a very poetic language, and the remittance letters a reminder of an older time, when people used so few words to capture so many emotions. The Chinese (Mandarin) and English subtitles helped a lot.

 

While the story is about a Teochew migrant, it is not just about a Teochew migrant. This is a story that will resonate with all migrants, everyone who had to leave home to live elsewhere. Truly a love letter to all Chinese migrants

 

Trivia: I finally found out the characters for "daughter" in Teochew are 走仔, basically, the characters for leave 走 and child 仔, the "child who leaves" because, traditionally, daughters leave their parents to stay with their husbands after marriage.