Dear You: Costumes, Props, and Two Filming Locations

Preparation began with a guide to daily life

Before work began, Tian recalled receiving a crew-written Siam Life Guide of more than two hundred pages. He received this reading material before preparing the costumes. His account offers a concrete starting point for the design process: reading about the setting was part of the work before clothes reached the set.

While preparing costumes for the opening ritual procession (营老爷), the team asked at what Tian described as a local museum of an overseas-Chinese hometown (侨乡博物馆) whether period clothing was available. Tian stressed how difficult it was to reproduce the colors of old garments through distressing. Alongside the guide to daily life, the museum inquiry focused attention on the appearance of old clothing.

Two women, two patterns of wardrobe change

Tian described Shurou's color progression as bright in youth, darker in middle age, and bright again in old age. For her red striped qipao in the procession, he drew on his image of a young woman from a wealthy southern household. In his explanation, the design establishes a social starting point, while later colors change with her stage of life.

In the family photograph with her three children, the outfit Shurou wears is made within the story from fabric Musheng sent from Nanyang. That is a narrative detail, not a statement about where the crew bought its fabric. Separately, Tian described white hair and shapewear used to portray middle age. Color, garment form, and body shape provided distinct tools for marking time.

Nanzhi's contrast centers on the inn fire. Tian said her earlier sleeveless tops and skirts responded to Nanyang's heat. For trips to the cinema, he also described locally influenced outfit combinations and a bag. These choices address both the character's surroundings and specific activities in her daily life.

After the fire, her clothing became plainer in color and long-sleeved. Tian explicitly connected that shift with financial hardship. Where Shurou's palette traces several stages of life, this part of Nanzhi's wardrobe is organized around the before-and-after of a particular event. The two costume patterns follow different turning points.

The bureau crowd and objects from daily life

In the remittance agency scene, Tian identified new arrivals through an ensemble he called guofan sanjiantao (过番三件套); the interview did not enumerate its components. An exhibition at the Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Museum combined film props with qiaopi-related artifacts. Its film objects included Nanzhi's dressing table, the Xie Ji snack stall, Musheng's working tricycle in Thailand, and a Xiannan Cinema poster, distinct from the original qiaopi letters also displayed.

The exhibition's total of seventy-eight items or sets combined film props with qiaopi-related artifacts. Historical materials and film stills were also used; the Chaoshan section included farm tools, old household objects, and ritual lanterns and banners. Props made or used for a film and historical artifacts serve different purposes, even when an exhibition brings them together.

The later-life home and the final reunion

Shurou's home in old age was filmed at an old house called Zhangcuonei (张厝内) in Shantou, the grandmother's home of the film's Chaoshan cultural consultant Chen Ye. The same place thus has a fictional role and a real family connection. Identifying the location does not make Shurou a biographical portrait of its actual owner.

The two grandmothers' final meeting and embrace were filmed at Chunhui Pavilion in Xiangrong Villa. The pavilion is within Chen Ye's ancestral residence Deheli. These are specific settings for different moments: the later-life home and the final reunion. On a rewatch, distinguishing their narrative uses is more useful than treating every name on a location list as another name for the same fictional home.