Qiaopi culture

2026-09-01

A Visitor’s Route Through Shantou’s Qiaopi Museum

Dear You Movie Guide Editorial Team

For viewers of Dear You, Shantou's Qiaopi Museum is best approached as a route rather than a number. Start with the letters and remittance records, then connect what you saw to the surrounding old streets and migration history. The route turns the 90,000-piece collection into a visit that can be followed step by step.

Start with the letters, not the collection number

Qiaopi are overseas Chinese letters that also carried remittances, so each item joins money, handwriting, and family news in one object. The Shantou Qiaopi Museum keeps more than 90,000 physical pieces, which makes the collection feel less like a display case and more like a long family shelf.

That size matters to viewers because the film’s emotions are built from small domestic details: waiting, sending, reading, and saving. When a museum can show tens of thousands of letters, the feeling of one household opens into a wider pattern across many homes and generations.

From archive to walking route

After the film drew attention, Shantou linked the Qiaopi Museum with sites such as Xiaogongyuan and Zhanglin Ancient Port. For visitors, that means the letters are no longer confined to one stop; they can be read alongside streets, port history, and the city’s older overseas connections.

The route also makes the movie easier to follow in real space. Instead of treating qiaopi as distant history, the journey places it in the same coastal setting that shaped migration, departure, and return. That helps viewers connect the film’s household emotions with the places that carried them outward.

Why the collection feels active

Qiaopi were described as a combined form of letters and remittance, and they were listed in the Memory of the World context in 2013. That gives the collection weight beyond nostalgia: it records how overseas families kept contact, sent support, and held on to promises across distance.

The museum’s appeal is not only the number 90,000. It is the fact that each item can suggest a sender, a recipient, a journey, and a waiting period. For viewers coming from Dear You, that makes the archive feel close to the film’s emotional center: family obligation carried through paper.

What makes overseas viewers stay longer

The film’s later rollout included Hong Kong, Macao, and markets such as Singapore and Malaysia first, then more countries. That wider path fits the subject itself, because qiaopi history is tied to overseas Chinese communities across Southeast Asia and beyond.

The director also visited nearly 300 Chinese families before filming and the production traveled more than 80,000 kilometers to find locations and material. Those numbers help explain why the museum visit feels resonant: the story was built through many family echoes, not just one fictional household.

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