2026-09-24
Yue Xia Zhu Cha: Demo to Vocal Take
“Yue Xia Zhu Cha” did not begin as a custom-written song for Dear You. The available production record places the song in 2022, when Chen Jia was invited by the lyricist to try a Chaoshan-language song and recorded a piano-and-voice demo. Its later use in the film involved more than one recollection: one June 11 account describes the lyricist retrieving the demo for director Lan Hongchun, while The Paper’s May 26 interview records Li Yihan saying he played Chen’s self-accompanied demo at a crew meal before the song was chosen as the theme.
The 2022 demo came first
A June 13 interview with music director Li Yihan states that “Yue Xia Zhu Cha” had already been written in 2022 and was not originally created for Dear You. That date gives the song a different production path from a standard commissioned theme: the film later found a voice that already existed.
In China News Service’s June 11 piece, Chen Jia says she was invited by the lyricist in 2022 to try singing a Chaoshan-language song. She read the score as restrained rather than showy, describing a woman boiling tea under the moon and waiting for the person she loves. Chen then arranged a section and recorded a self-accompanied piano demo.
Two accounts of how the demo reached the film
The June 11 China News Service account says Lan Hongchun’s team had not found music that fit the new film. The lyricist later brought out Chen Jia’s stored demo, and Lan decided after hearing it that this was the sound the film needed.
The Paper’s May 26 interview preserves Li Yihan’s own recollection. He said the theme song had not yet been decided; at a crew meal, he played Chen Jia’s self-accompanied demo for colleagues, and the song was later selected as the theme. These accounts should sit side by side rather than be forced into a single unconfirmed sequence.
The studio vocal was not just dialect correction
When Chen Jia returned to the studio, the June 11 account says it was hard to recover the original state of the demo. She recorded many takes, and when she tried too deliberately to restore Chaoshan dialect pronunciation, the vocal became less natural.
The Paper also notes that Chen practiced Chaoshan pronunciation and intonation for the song. Chen, a Beijing singer, described the larger challenge as changing vocal habits so that pronunciation could fit the melody and emotion. The final approach used a low, gentle voice and a plain singing style, polished repeatedly to keep the demo’s deep, inward quality.
Nan’ao Island speech and Shantou pronunciation
Li Yihan’s June 13 interview makes a clear version distinction: the film uses the Nan’ao Island dialect version, while the online MV uses the Shantou-pronunciation version. Here Nan’ao means Nan’ao Island in Guangdong, not Australia.
Li said the lyricist came from Shantou and he came from Nan’ao. The choice between Nan’ao and Shantou pronunciation depended on whether the melody sounded good after it emerged and whether it carried the desired mood. For this song, dialect was tied to melody, atmosphere, and vocal flow.
Why the restrained vocal fits the ending
The Paper’s May 26 interview identifies “Yue Xia Zhu Cha” as the film’s theme song and places it near the end, when the older Xie Nanzhi and Ye Shurou meet and lean on each other. That placement asks the song to gather feeling rather than overwhelm the scene.
Li Yihan later called Chen Jia’s singing a “re-creation” built on the lyric and melody. The finished theme is therefore not only a matter of composition or dialect accuracy. It is the result of a 2022 piano demo being reworked into a film vocal, with Chen balancing pronunciation, voice, and emotional restraint.