Teochew Min

And if you go to Malacca, where I came from, there's a whole street.

have got what we call a clan building, actually it's our temples, where we've got a Hainanese clan, we've got a Teochew clan, we've got a K'iche'en clan, we've got a Cantonese clan.

So what you do is for successive sort of refugees that came on board, they didn't know where to go, they say, oh, is there a Hainanese association? There's one.

So you go there and we'll have a president or the secretary will meet you We're all on bicycles those days, nobody has a car.

When I mentioned, you know, in my area, my place is called Merchant Road.

In Teochew, it's called Baicheng Koi.

And then there is this New Market Road.

Actually, a lot of people mistaken New Market Road and New Market Street.

Hong Ka is actually Christian.

Hong Ka Koi.

Then there is another one, Teochew Street.

Teochew Street is called Seng Koi Lai.

Um, we, we have a bit of Cantonese.

We've got a bit of Cambodian, uh, Teochew as well.

Um, so depending on which side of the family you were on, they were talking different languages.

But my grandpa had seven brothers and sisters.

And she always kind of like thought she was Thai.

She never actually identified too much with the Chinese aspect of her family... ...because one, to assimilate...they didn't really speak to her in Cantonese or Teochew... that was language of my grandfather but they just uh i mean this is the strangest thing about thailand like no matter where you come from in thailand whether you're south asian or chinese or you know southern thai like you know indigenous you're just all thai yeah and it's the same way as now i feel like i'd love to be able to identify myself as and say i'm i'm just australian but of course you know you get stared at no matter where you are now uh especially in

...in these rising

uncertain times.

In fact, the director discovered one of the movie's amateur actors on social media.

The whole film is in Teochew.

which means a large share of its mainland audience watched a Chinese movie with Chinese subtitles.

The director's previous project was a documentary about Teochew food.

At the time of writing, it sits at 9.3 on Duban, off 890,000 ratings, which is a level of widespread acclaim that you basically never see.

This week at Flips...

And then I'm not sure if Dear You.

Yeah, the Teochew

dialect.

Yeah, the one

Who doesn't? I have a sweet tooth.

I think it comes from my Teochew side.

I have two Teochew grandmothers.

And I think, yeah, that's where my sweet tooth comes from.

I think there's this stereotype, right, that Teochews have sweet tooths.

They

eat a lot of porridge, I know that.

The family drama is screening at more than 160 theaters in major cities, including Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and Vancouver, with English and Chinese subtitles.

Shot largely in the Chaoshan dialect, the film tells the story of remittance letters that connect overseas Chinese with their families back home, exploring memories, love and enduring family ties.

Directed by Lan Hongchun and featuring mostly first-time actors, DAU has grossed more than 2 billion yuan, or roughly US$298 million, since its release in the Chinese mainland on April 30.

And that's the news.

And we got to process it, right? We got to this is how we grow up through pain points, through, like you said, trial and error, and hopefully come out a little bit smarter, better, if you like, at the other end of the tunnel.

In response to Steve's thing about Singaporean movies, Hong says, Singapore also cannot show movies in Teochew without government approval.

Swings and Roundabouts, which is a reference to Dear You and the fact that here in Malaysia, it was shown in its original Teochew.

In China also, which is its country of origin.

But in Singapore, because of their... lack of dialect diversity, maybe I'll put it that way, it was dubbed.

Ah, okay, okay.

Uh, which is, uh, state, uh, uh, agents for Teochew embroidery.

Ah.

Yeah, sole agent.

Thian Hiang Tea Merchant.

Uh, Thian Hiang Tea Merchant [clears throat] is also very popular.

Those days, um, uh, uh, uh, in, in Teochew tea, uh, it's one of the, uh, very popular one.

Mm.