Filming locations

2026-09-02

Why Shantou’s Qiaopi Museum Matters

Dear You Movie Guide Editorial Team

After Dear You, Shantou’s Qiaopi Museum can feel like the film’s emotions made physical. Its collection of more than 90,000 qiaopi letters gives viewers a direct way to connect the movie’s family separations, waiting, and messages with real objects from Chaoshan life. The city also linked the film to a route that ties the museum with spots such as the Small Park area and Zhugang Ancient Port, so the screen story now has a walkable map in the city.

Why 90,000 letters catch viewers first

Shantou’s Qiaopi Museum holds more than 90,000 qiaopi letters, a number that immediately changes how viewers think about Dear You. The film’s letters, waiting, and family ties stop feeling abstract once you know there is a place where this kind of cross-sea communication has been kept in such volume. Qiaopi are overseas Chinese family letters that also carry remittances, so each piece links money, news, and home in one object.

That is why the museum can feel unusually close to the film’s emotional center. The movie turns family absence into a story; the museum shows how that absence was managed in real life, through written updates and money sent back home. For viewers, the collection makes the film’s quiet emotions easier to picture as lived practice, not just drama.

How the film turned archives into a walkable route

After the film’s popularity, Shantou put together a movie-themed route that connects the Small Park area, the Qiaopi Museum, and Zhugang Ancient Port. For visitors, that means the film no longer lives only on a screen; it becomes a city path that can be followed step by step. The route gives the movie’s family memory a practical geography.

The museum and filming spots also became more than photo stops. They now work as places where viewers can move from a cinematic feeling to a direct cultural experience of Chaoshan life. Someone who enters because of the film can leave with a clearer sense of how overseas travel, home letters, and local streets belong to the same story world.

Why Shantou, Jieyang, and Chaozhou fit together

The film’s locations and related narrative span Shantou, Jieyang, and Chaozhou, so the viewing experience stretches across Chaoshan rather than staying in one town. Reported filming places in Jieyang include Xiqi Village and Yangqi Village in Denggang Town, plus restored street scenes on Xima Road in Jieyang’s old city and Jiefang Road in Mianhu. That spread makes the story feel rooted in a whole regional landscape.

The production also matters here: the team traveled more than 80,000 kilometers to find locations and gather historical material, and before filming began the director visited nearly 300 Chinese households. For viewers, that scale helps explain why the film’s family details feel grounded. The museum then becomes the place where those details can be traced back to a wider migration history.

What viewers notice after stepping inside

Once the movie is fresh in mind, the museum’s letters become easy to read as more than old paper. They carry greetings, remittance notes, and updates from people who left home to work overseas, and they show how families stayed connected across distance. This makes the title Dear You feel less like a poetic phrase and more like a real letter-writing tradition.

The museum also helps viewers see Chaoshan as a way of living, not just a place name. One generation traveled, another stayed, and both sides kept the household together through written contact and remittance. Seen beside the film, the collection gives the movie’s silence and waiting a solid frame, so the emotional aftertaste lasts longer once the screening ends.

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