A Malaysian Chinese Mum In Melbourne Watched ‘Dear You’ — And Grieved The Language She Never Passed On
A Melbourne-based Malaysian Chinese mother’s Instagram post about Dear You — the surprise blockbuster about overseas Chinese migrants that has moved audiences to tears across Asia — has struck a nerve across the diaspora, capturing the quiet grief of a generation watching their ancestral language slip away, one generation at a time.
A Malaysian Chinese mum in Melbourne found Dear You deeply personal, reflecting on her Teochew Peranakan heritage and the language she understands but cannot speak.
Though unable to pass Teochew to her son, she preserves cultural identity through family recipes and stories, guided by the proverb "drink water, think of its source."
What she didn’t expect was to walk out feeling like the film had been made about her family.
The Instagram user behind @handmadelove — a first-generation Malaysian Chinese immigrant living in Melbourne, Australia — posted a carousel this week about Dear You (给阿嬷的情书), a Chinese family drama that has quietly become one of the most talked-about films across Asia this year.
Her post has since garnered hundreds of likes and comments, many from people who simply write: “This is my family too.”
As a first-generation immigrant here in Australia, she wrote that this movie hits home.
It made me reflect on my own Chinese, Teochew Peranakan culture and heritage.
Dear You follows a young man who travels to Southeast Asia to search for his estranged grandfather, only to discover that the decades of letters and remittances his grandmother had treasured were not actually written by the man she believed sent them.
The film is spoken almost entirely in Teochew — a dialect from the Chaoshan region of southern China — and has resonated deeply with overseas Chinese communities across Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and beyond.
For many Malaysian Chinese families, the film’s imagery is not fiction.
The tradition of qiaopi — handwritten letters bundled with money, sent home by early migrants who had crossed the sea to work in Nanyang, the old Chinese term for Southeast Asia — is a living memory.
Many families still keep those letters; some have never opened them.
The film’s soundtrack features Harapanku, a Malay-language adaptation of the Mandarin classic Nanyang Girl (南海姑娘) — a song written by a Malaysian that honours the sacrifices of early Southeast Asian Chinese migrants, underscoring a shared history that spans generations and borders.
Originally written by Penang-born Chinese school teacher Chen Yi-hua (陈艺华) and first recorded by Malaysian singer Yi Yun (艺云), Nanyang Girl (南海姑娘) became an Asian classic after Teresa Teng’s 1972 recording and its appearance on the 1973 film The Young Ones (彩云飞).
“I Try, But It’s Pretty Broken”
For @handmadelove, the film hit closest to home on the question of language.
She grew up hearing Teochew spoken by the adults around her and understands it, but speaking it is another matter.
Sadly, even after years of listening, I can only just understand but not speak it. I try, but it’s pretty broken.
Her husband is Teochew too; it didn’t help.
We know we’ve already lost the ability to pass on Teochew to our child. He will only just know very basic Teochew.
It is a loss that is rarely spoken about directly — the dialect that fades not through any single decision, but through the accumulated weight of distance, assimilation, and time.
By the third generation, in many diaspora families, it is simply gone.
