by Alaina Zhang for The 44 North, Newsletter & Reviews Editor
“One must have integrity—those without it are not worth knowing.” —Ye ShuRou, From Dear You (2026)
Growing up, I often wondered about my family’s history. The tales of lost generations and ancestors seemed to reside behind a screen of mist. I liked to ask my parents about their youth, what my hometown was like back then, and compare it with the history I’d learned myself. Sometimes the two accounts stand in stark contrast. Other times, they’re a mirror. Either way, these tales always had a mythical quality, as if they belonged in an otherworldly space and time.
Watching the 2026 Chinese film Dear You with my family made me feel similarly. Dear You follows the journey of a grandson from Chao Shan, China, who ventures to Thailand in search of a grandpa he’s never met. What this journey unveils is a series of buried history between three characters—his grandmother Ye ShuRou, his grandfather Zheng MuSheng, and a mysterious woman named Xie NanZhi.
When the film begins, it has been forty years since Zheng MuSheng’s last letter to Ye ShuRou, in which a single photo of an unfamiliar woman and a group of kids is enclosed. Therefore, throughout the past forty years, Ye ShuRou has held onto the belief that Xie NanZhi, the woman in the photo, is Zheng MuSheng’s second wife in Thailand. From then on, all correspondence has halted between the family in China and Thailand.
Instead, the truth is that Zheng MuSheng died a few years after arriving in Thailand, and Ye ShuRou had been a great friend of his there, helping him draft letters back home. The film depicted a history I had never known. Due to the Chinese Civil War, many ‘peasants’ decided to cross the ocean to Southeast Asia in search of better opportunities, and Zheng MuSheng, although a fictional character in the film, embodied that experience.
Having grown up watching many Chinese films, I’ve realized just how entangled the history of a nation is with the personal fates of individuals. The era in which characters reside often determines the trajectory of their lives. Hence, lost relatives, untold family narratives, and misunderstandings are not rare occurrences. Each family has its own secrets and regrets—as China lurches forward, the ghosts of its past don’t simply disappear.
At the same time, I was drawn to the film’s portrayal of literacy and education in tandem with immigration and family. Because many Chinese immigrants were illiterate, those who could read and write took up the responsibility to not only teach those who couldn’t, but help them draft letters back home. While Zheng MuSheng doesn’t know how to read, he’s the one who encourages Xie NanZhi, someone with Chao Shan heritage who grew up in Thailand, to learn the language and eventually become a teacher. Xie NanXhi then goes on to draft many letters for him to send back home to Ye Shurou. These literate individuals were crucial in leaving a written documentation and archive of just how much loved ones missed each other across the wide ocean that divided them.
Dear You is a film about family, history, and education. But it’s also a film about two women and a man. What I loved most about it was the director’s intentional decision to steer clear of the idea that Xie NanZhi and Zheng MuSheng harboured romantic feelings for each other, making that Xie NanZhi’s motive for helping Zheng MuSheng write letters home. Instead, I appreciated the fact that while Zheng MuSheng was the thread that tied the characters together, all three protagonists are central to the story. Even after Zheng MuSheng dies, the string remains intact, and the two women meet each other in Thailand in their old age at the end of the film.
This simple narrative depicts an unconventional love story that’s so prevalent yet rarely portrayed in popular media. “Love stories” aren’t always about a couple—they can be about two friends, two families, people of the same origin in a foreign place, or even strangers who have never met. By defying gender norms, this story helped me see through the mysticism of stories from the past and how relationships between strong men and women were not always soap opera romances, but rather examples of incredible strength, mutual aid, and collective care that we can all learn from and lean on today. And even though times have changed, the medium of letter writing throughout Dear You shows how writing and language continue to be a beautiful way for people to connect and to express their love for each other. Sitting next to candlelight and reading the handwritten words from a loved one helps bridge the vast distance and time that stands in between.
Sometimes, there’s no real villain in our past—only a series of unfortunate circumstances, misunderstandings, and lost voices amongst the rushing tide of history.
