The low-budget Chaoshan-dialect film Dear You, shot on a meager budget of 14 million yuan ($2.07 million), has struck a chord across China and Southeast Asia. At its heart is a forgotten piece of history: qiaopi – the letters and remittances sent home by overseas Chinese migrants who left their villages to earn a living abroad.

The story took center stage at the 2026 conference on social etiquette and civility in rural areas, held from July 16 to 17 in Linyi, East China's Shandong province, where the production team shared the making of the film and the cultural heritage behind it.

Zheng Runqi, the lead actor and a Chaoshan native, grew up hearing stories of these migrant workers. "But it wasn't until I joined this film that I truly understood: qiaopi are not just yellowed paper," he said. "They carry longing across oceans, heavy responsibility, and family honor. They are the moral code of our people – and of all Chinese."

Wu Xuanzhen, a villager from Shantou, Guangdong province, has kept some of the letters from her great-grandfather, a migrant worker. In one, he urged all of his grandchildren, boys and girls alike, to attend school, describing this as non-negotiable. Her mother became one of the few educated women in the village because of that advice.

To date, over 90,000 qiaopi have been preserved in Shantou's archives. Local officials have digitized them and woven their values into village rules. As the production team said at the conference, these letters are not relics but living moral anchors – a "textbook" for rural civility.