Published : 26/05/2026
The Greater Bay Area has another screen sensation. Since its release on May 1, the Shenzhen-produced film Dear You has quickly become a hit, grossing more than 700 million RMB and earning a 9.1 rating on Douban, making it the top-rated Chinese-language film of the year.
The film has also turned "qiaopi" into a buzzword, while drawing fresh attention to museums across the Greater Bay Area that preserve the memory of overseas Chinese communities.
Here, we take a look at four of them and revisit the "letters to Grandma" from years past.
Directed by Shenzhen filmmaker Lan Hongchun, Dear You uses "qiaopi" as a thread linking generations of longing between China and Nanyang.
The film follows Grandma Ye Shurou, who spends her life holding the family together while waiting for her absent beloved, only to uncover the moving secret that another woman had been writing letters in her name for decades.
Drawing on the real experiences of overseas Chinese and featuring authentic Chaoshan dialect, the film vividly captures the emotional ties and hardships of ordinary people against the backdrop of migration to Nanyang.
Qiaopi was a way for overseas Chinese to keep in touch with families back home, often combining remittances with personal letters. In Dear You, it forms the film's emotional thread, carrying longing and devotion.
Director Lan Hongchun has said that many scenes were drawn from real family memories — stories that still live on in overseas Chinese museums across the Greater Bay Area.
Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Museum
If you want to see the film props from Dear You, you must first visit the Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Museum (廣州華僑博物館).
The museum is currently hosting "A Century of Qiaopi, Accompanied by Light and Shadow" — a special exhibition of film props from Dear You, running until 31 May 2026.
The exhibition displays film props such as the dressing table, Musheng's tricycle in Thailand, and the Wumiguo (rice-less dumpling) stall from his hometown, alongside original, handwritten Qiaopi.
Visitors can see Musheng's letter declaring "remarriage is absolutely out of the question" a scene that was cut from the film due to time constraints.
They can also learn about the touching detail of Nanzhi writing on his behalf after Musheng's death. Costumes such as the female lead's red cheongsam and Nanyang-style tube skirts are on display as well. A thoughtfully arranged queuing area invites visitors to pore over the original qiaopi letters at leisure.
The Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Museum is located at 183 Yanjiang West Road, Yuexiu District. Its predecessor is the former site of the Wuxianmen Power Plant, built in 1901.
It is the first museum in the country dedicated to overseas Chinese that has been converted from a century-old building, earning it the reputation of a "Qiaopi memory bank in a century-old building".
Shenzhen Longhua Qiaopi Culture Exhibition Hall
In Shenzhen, there is a museum converted from the old site of a Qiaopi agency. It is the Longhua Qiaopi Culture Exhibition Hall (龍華僑批文化展覽館).
The Shenzhen Longhua Qiaopi Culture Exhibition Hall is located in the Guanlan Ancient Market, and the old characters for Bao'an County Liyuan Qiaopi Agency (寶安縣利源僑批館) have been preserved on the wall.
It is the only remaining Qiaopi agency site in Shenzhen and a precious mark of the century-old hometown of overseas Chinese.
In its heyday, the Liyuan Qiaopi Agency handled nearly all the qiaopi business for Longhua and parts of Dongguan, serving over 8,000 overseas Chinese and remitting an average of more than 40,000 silver dollars a month. The exhibition hall occupies a simple yet elegant two‑storey Hakka‑style building of about 134 square metres.
The exhibition is divided into four sections: "The Origin of Qiaopi", "The Evolution of the Qiaopi Industry", "Qiaopi in Times of War", and "The Enduring Love for Family and Country in Qiaopi".
It features nearly 130 items, including documents and photographs. Display cabinets hold "water-guest" permits, agency seals, remittance slips, and yellowed qiaopi letters, each one brimming with love, kinship, and devotion to family and homeland.
The hall also uses holographic interactive technology to recreate scenes from the past, while a dedicated qiaopi writing area invites visitors to compose and post their own letters, immersing them in the deep affection that once traversed overseas.
China Qiaodu Museum of Overseas Chinese in Jiangmen
Known as China's "Capital of Overseas Chinese," Jiangmen is home to a wealth of museums on the subject.
The most representative is the China Qiaodu Museum of Overseas Chinese (中國僑都華僑華人博物館), located at Wuyi Overseas Chinese Square in Pengjiang District.
Covering about 17,000 square metres, it is a National First‑Grade Museum acclaimed as "the key to understanding the history of Wuyi's overseas Chinese."
The museum houses over 40,000 overseas Chinese artifacts, making its collection one of the richest and most valuable of its kind in China. Highlights include Wuyi and overseas Chinese passports.
Together, these items tell the arduous yet glorious entrepreneurial journey of Wuyi's overseas Chinese and their descendants, and reflect the richness and depth of Wuyi overseas Chinese culture.
Zhongshan History Museum of Overseas Chinese
The Zhongshan Overseas Chinese History Museum (中山華僑歷史博物館) is located in a standalone building in the Shiqi District of Zhongshan City, on the south side of the new building of the Zhongshan Museum, and is the first thematic exhibition hall in Zhongshan City to focus on displaying the culture of overseas Chinese from Zhongshan.
The museum's exhibition hall spans about 1,000 square metres and displays over 500 items drawn from a total collection of more than 5,000 overseas Chinese artifacts.
These include gold‑panning sand, national salvation bonds, military medals, and donation receipts for hospitals founded by overseas Chinese.
In the museum's permanent exhibition hall, "The Vastness of the Sea: Exhibition on the History of Overseas Chinese from Zhongshan," qiaopi take pride of place.
Together with "Gold Mountain trunks," everyday overseas items, and other objects, they map out the struggles and the deep love for home and country that define Zhongshan's overseas Chinese community.
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