Dear You - A Teochew budget chart buster from China

 This is the most unassuming budget movie Made in China, from a relatively unknown producer and with a crew of relatively unknown and first time actors and actresses. It would have simply be blown away with time in Singapore if not of the attention it gathered from being politicised by Lianhe Zaobao. According to Sim Tze Wei, the writer of the article, it was China's 'united front work' to win the hearts and minds of overseas Chinese. How did this writer came up with this interpretation of the film, who authorised her to look at it from this angle, who approved the article for publication, are no longer important. The attention it got from local and foreign readers has stirred great interest in a small budget film that many would not be bothered to take a second look. 

Like they say, forbidden fruit tastes better, or attracts more undue attention. The film is now the talk of the town, especially among the Teochew dialect speakers in Hougang. All tickets were sold within a couple of hours of listing. And the Teochew speaking Singaporeans are appealing for more screening in the original Teochew dialect instead of the Mandarin dubbed version, more authentic flavour and nuances, closer to the hearts. It  is good to feel with the heart. To the older generations that were Teochew speakers, there is this sense of nolstagia to listen to the language live again in full glory, to reflect and live the time when the early Chinese migrants, mostly poor and illiterate peasants, arrived in a foreign land to eke a living, and how they adapt to the harsh and unfriendly local environment. The film touches mainly on the emotions, relationship and attachments of human beans when their main concern was about filling the stomach, about feeding and caring for the families they left behind in their Motherland...when they had barely enough to feed themselves. It was a time when everything was not enough, when life was simple, eat, sleep, work and responsibility to their dear ones they left behind in China.

To the strawberry generation of entitlement and eating too much, stomach too full, tired of eating chicken and meat, the film is a good reminder of the hard times their forefathers had to face, to start from scratch, from nothing. Many left their villages with nothing except the clothes on their backs. What unemployment rate, what jobs? There was no job in China, especially for the illiterate peasants. The jobs available in Nanyang were mainly manual labour, to be coolies, trishaw pullers, odd job labourers, servants etc etc. No 8 to 5 jobs in the offices, no gig workers, no employment benefits, no permanent jobs, no retirement benefits. The few cents or dollar they earned were from blood, sweat and tears. 

Their dwelling or abodes were mostly cubicles, tiny rooms divided by wooden planks, sometimes several heads in a room. A single room, not bigger than 10ft by 10ft, could be home to a family of 5 to 10, and sharing a common toilet or kitchen with many families. No radio or TV. Life was rustic, simple and bare. No 5 Cs, no posh cars, condos, good class bungalows, no HDB flats. The cubicles survived till the early 1970s in Chinatown area. The big fire in Bukit Ho Swee swept away a large part of early Singapore.

Life in those those time was anything but politics. No united front work till the fight for independence from colonial rule in the 1950s. What Singapore is today must not be taken for granted by the entitlement generation. Singapore was built from the bare backs of our forefathers, literally from nothing. Do not give Singapore away freely to the new foreigners who are here to pluck the low hanging fruits from the trees our forefathers planted. It is not easy for what we have today, everyday dreaming about becoming millionaires, about condos and GCBs, about jobs that paid a million. 

Go see the film and have a peep at what life was in early Singapore, the times of have nots, of deprivation, when any job is a good job, when every job available is manual labour. Dear You is a little bit of history of how we started and arrived here today. Do not forget your past, do not forget how we get here. Don't think easy come easy go. The Singapore today is a cumulation of the struggle and hard work of several generations of pioneers, built piece by piece from a virgin tropical jungle.

Put aside the silly thought of united front work. This is 2026, not the 19th Century or early 1900s.