A film rediscovers the 'Qiaopi', letters from Chinese migrants in Southeast Asia
The unexpected success of "Dear You”, a film produced on a small budget and in a local dialect, is reviving interest in China about the important role played by letter writing, which for over a century migrants used to send money and news to their families back home. These letters played a decisive role in China's current economic development, but were often accompanied by expressions of nostalgia and pain, written by local scribes. Beijing, however, is giving them a patriotic twist.
Fujian (AsiaNews) – For decades, in the coastal cities of Fujian and Guangdong provinces, many locals eagerly waited for letters from relatives who had emigrated abroad, to Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, or even Cuba, along with small sums of money. In Chinese, they are called Qiaopi, or remittance letters.
Today, that world is virtually extinct thanks to smartphones and digital platforms, but thanks to the recently released film Dear You, it is suddenly back in the spotlight, quickly becoming an unexpected cultural phenomenon in China.
Shot on a modest budget of 14 million yuan (around US$ 2 million) with dialogue in the Chaoshan dialect, the film grossed more than 600 million yuan (more than US$ 88 million).
The story revolves around family ties broken and mended by migration to Southeast Asia, showing how Qiaopi held together for generations worlds separated by seas.
The film's success has highlighted again figures like Jiang Mingdian, 77, considered one of the last Qiaopi writers still active in Shishi, a city in Fujian. Jiang has been writing letters on behalf of the elderly or illiterate for nearly 60 years.
His story, reported by several Chinese media in recent weeks, showed an aspect of the identity of southern China, where for more than a century, millions left their coastal villages to work overseas. These emigrants were called fan ke, or wanderers, their wives, children, and parents – as seen in the film – left behind waiting for their return.
Between 1864 and 1980, according to figures cited by official media, more than 30 million Qiaopi arrived in China, with remittances worth more than US$ 10 billion, money that helped build homes, schools, bridges, and roads in the coastal regions of southern China long before the economic boom of the past few decades.
Many men left at a young age, promising to return within a few years. Some died abroad, others started new families in their countries of destination. The women who remained in the villages lived in limbo, waiting, some for a long time.
Jiang still remembers a sentence written dozens of times to a man separated from his mother who had emigrated to Singapore: "I miss you so much, but I hate you."
The Qiaopi system operated thanks to an informal but extremely sophisticated network of intermediaries. In many cases, the agencies even advanced money to families when workers abroad did not receive their wages on time.
For historians, these archives today represent a valuable source for understanding not only the Chinese diaspora, but also the emergence of transnational economic networks that connected Southeast Asia to China before the advent of modern globalisation.
It is no accident that in 2013, the Qiaopi archives were included in UNESCO's "Memory of the World" register.
In recent years, Beijing has begun to exploit this memory for political and identity purposes. Letters from emigrants are presented as a token of the patriotism of the Chinese diaspora and its contribution to national modernisation.
During the war against Japan, for example, many overseas workers sent money to support the Chinese resistance, state media report.
The success of Dear You also reflects a renewed interest among younger Chinese generations in their family roots and the history of migration.
In cities like Xiamen and Fuzhou, immersive exhibitions, writing workshops, and cultural initiatives dedicated to Qiaopi are being launched, with young artists reinterpreting the old letters through comics and performances.
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