一封侨批写了三十年：《给阿嬷的情书》

A film shot entirely in the Teochew dialect

has earned over four hundred million yuan nationwide.

The film is called Letters to Grandma.

No big stars.

No big advertising campaign.

No big money behind it.

But within three weeks of its release,

it cracked the top eight of the 2026 box office.

Why?

Today I want to tell you about this film,

and also tell you about the thing behind the film,

called "qiao pi."

First, the story.

The grandma in the film is called Shurou.

She lives in southern China, in Chaoshan, Guangdong.

Her husband went to Thailand for work decades ago.

In that era,

many Teochew men went down to Nanyang.

"Going down to Nanyang"

means taking a boat from southern China to Southeast Asia to find work.

Thailand was one of the most common destinations.

They went there to do the hardest labor,

then sent the money they earned back to their families in China.

At that time, there were no telephones, no WeChat.

How did they send money?

How did they write letters?

They used something called "qiao pi."

"Qiao" is the qiao in 'huaqiao' (overseas Chinese),

meaning Chinese people living abroad.

"Pi," in Teochew, means "letter."

So "qiao pi" is the letter an overseas Chinese sends home from abroad.

But it isn't just a letter.

It also carries money.

The letter and money, sent home together.

This is a very special culture of the Chaoshan region.

For over a hundred years,

each qiao pi

was the most important connection

between the wives in Chaoshan

and the husbands in Nanyang.

But some of these men,

not long after arriving, were gone.

They had died over there.

The Teochew compatriots who'd traveled with them

didn't want to tell the wives and children back in China.

They decided:

we'll write in his place.

They used his name.

They wrote:

I have money now.

I'll send you money.

I love you.

I miss you.

Sometimes, they wrote in his place for five years.

Sometimes, for thirty years.

The story of Letters to Grandma

begins from one of these fake qiao pi.

There are three main characters in the film.

The first is grandma Shurou.

She waited for many years in her home in China.

She thought her husband was still in Thailand.

She thought he was sending letters every month.

She thought he was sending money every month.

She didn't know:

he had been gone for thirty years.

The second is her husband, Musheng.

He went down to Nanyang,

and never came back.

The third is Nanzhi.

Nanzhi was of Chinese descent.

She grew up in Thailand from childhood.

She and Musheng were good friends.

After Musheng was gone,

Nanzhi decided:

she would write in Musheng's place.

She would send money in Musheng's place.

She wouldn't tell the family in China.

She wrote for thirty years.

Nanzhi, in Thailand,

never married.

She didn't have children.

She ran small businesses,

and the money she earned,

about half of it,

she sent to Shurou in China.

She had never met Shurou.

She didn't know Shurou's child.

She didn't know Shurou's grandchild.

She got nothing in return.

But she kept it up for thirty years.

Now in the film, grandma is old.

Nanzhi is old too.

Musheng has been gone for a long time.

Grandma's grandson, Xiaowei,

has some problems of his own,

and he goes to Thailand

to find his grandfather and ask for money.

He'd heard his grandpa was a wealthy man in Thailand.

But what he finds

is not his grandfather.

It's Nanzhi.

The moment Nanzhi sees Xiaowei,

she knows he is Shurou's grandson.

She finally tells him the thirty-year truth.

She says:

your grandpa has been gone for thirty years.

I'm the one who wrote those letters in his place.

I'm the one who sent that money in his place.

Xiaowei, after hearing this,

cried for a long, long time.

He went back to China,

and he told grandma.

What moved me most

was what grandma did next.

Grandma didn't cry.

Grandma wasn't angry.

Grandma stood up,

and went to check the food she'd been cooking.

She said:

if the food gets cold, it won't taste good.

Just that one line.

When I got to this scene,

I cried for a long time too.

Because I suddenly understood:

grandma actually knew long ago.

Or, at the very least, she had accepted it.

She didn't care whether the person writing was her husband.

What she cared about was:

that someone, in those thirty years,

hadn't let her be alone.

She said:

Nanzhi is my good friend.

Nanzhi is also my family.

She said:

my thirty years

weren't lived by one person.

They were lived by two women, together.

This is the power of the film.

It doesn't loudly proclaim any great event.

It just slowly tells you:

real love

doesn't have to be marriage.

Real love

doesn't have to have ever met face to face.

Real family

isn't always blood.

Real family

is the person who, in those thirty years, didn't let you be alone.

Outside the film,

director Lan Hongchun said:

to make this film,

he visited three hundred families,

and read one hundred and twenty thousand real qiao pi.

He spent over twenty years preparing this story.

He said:

every village in Chaoshan

has a woman like Shurou.

Their husbands went to Nanyang,

and never came back.

They waited for many years.

They only learned at the end:

the one they were waiting for was actually someone else.

So this film

is more than just a film.

It is a piece of history.

It is the history of Chaoshan.

It is the history of southern China going down to Nanyang.

It is the story of women

left behind in China by that era,

who then, one letter at a time,

lived through many years.

Finally, I want to ask you a question:

in your family,

is there a person like this?

She might not be your grandma.

She might not be your mom.

She might be someone else.

But in those long years,

she didn't let you be alone.

If there is,

please today,

give her a call.

Tell her:

I remember.

Thank you for listening this far.

See you in the next story.