A region steals the scene

When Dear You quietly entered cinemas during China's fiercely competitive May Day holiday season, few expected the modestly budgeted film — with dialogue largely in the Chaoshan dialect and featuring no major stars — to become a surprise hit.

The film follows a young man who travels to Thailand in search of his long-lost grandfather, hoping to uncover a hidden family fortune. Instead, he discovers a decades-old secret behind the letters his grandmother treasured for years, leading him to uncover an extraordinary story of love, sacrifice and separation spanning generations.

Audiences were drawn to its intimate story of family, memory and homecoming. Yet, for many, the film's most lasting impression came from something even older: the living traditions of Chaoshan.

The Chaoshan region, comprising the cities of Shantou, Chaozhou and Jieyang in South China's Guangdong province, is renowned for its strong clan culture, ancestral rituals and distinctive folk arts.

Rather than serving merely as picturesque backdrops, these traditions emerge as characters in their own right, carrying centuries of memory, migration and belonging.

For viewers beyond southern China, the film offers a rare first glimpse into one of the country's richest regional cultures.

For Lin Yanyun, an award-winning Chaoju Opera actress with the Guangdong Chao Opera Institute who specializes in xiaosheng — the refined young male roles in traditional Chinese opera — watching the film was unexpectedly emotional.

"So many of the opera scenes were performed by actors from our own troupe," she says. "Everything felt so familiar. I was deeply moved."

She believes the film offers many younger viewers their first genuine encounter with Chaoju.

"The opera runs throughout the film," she says. "People, especially those who aren't from Chaoshan, can finally experience what Chaoju is really like."

Emotional bond

Believed to date back nearly 600 years, Chaoju is one of China's oldest surviving opera traditions. Performed almost entirely in the Chaoshan dialect, it combines elegant literary verse with expressive singing and a distinctive orchestra featuring instruments such as the erxian, a two-stringed bowed instrument, the yehu, a coconut-shell fiddle with a mellow tone, and the small suona, whose bright, piercing sound heightens dramatic moments.

Performers are often accompanied by a traditional supporting chorus that amplifies the emotional power of each scene. Its repertoire is equally enduring, filled with stories of historical heroes, filial devotion and loyalty.

"The lyrics are refined," Lin says. "The scripts are beautifully written."

For Lin, however, the art form began not in the theater but in childhood.

Growing up in Chenghai, Shantou, she followed her grandmother from village to village whenever an opera troupe came to perform.

"There were no smartphones and very few televisions," she recalls. "I didn't even know it was called Chaoju Opera. I simply followed the adults to watch. Sometimes I'd fall asleep before it ended."

Those makeshift village stages remain an essential part of life across Chaoshan. During Chinese New Year celebrations, temple fairs and family ceremonies, opera performances continue to bring entire communities together.

Yet, Chaoju's reach extends far beyond China.