Not Dialects but Love

Dialects Are Coming Back? No. Love Is.

With the phenomenal worldwide success of the Teochew movie Dear You, some people have concluded that Chinese dialects are making a comeback.

I don't think so.

People are not watching Dear You because it is in Teochew.

They are watching it because it speaks the universal language of love.

If the same story had been told in Mandarin, Cantonese or English, it would still have touched millions of hearts.

Because the real power of Dear You is not its dialect.

It is its humanity.

That humanity is beautifully embodied by three ordinary people.

Mu Sheng shows us the love of sacrifice.

He works tirelessly, asks for little, and gives everything for his family.

Lan Zhi shows us the love of courage.

She quietly carries a burden that no one asked her to bear, choosing compassion over convenience for nearly twenty years.

Shurou shows us the love of faith.

She waits. She believes.

She remains steadfast through decades of uncertainty.

Together, they remind us that love is not merely a feeling.

Love is sacrifice, courage and faithfulness.

In the language of Love Intelligence (LQ), these are expressed through:

Care. Courage. Connection.

That is why Dear You resonates across countries, cultures and generations.

The audience may not understand every Teochew word.

But everyone understands love.

The movie is reviving something far more important than a dialect.

It is reviving our humanity.

And perhaps that is why it has become one of the most loved movies of our time.

Comments

What an Executive Coach and Business Coach Does

The Secret Under the Mattress: Why would a 79-year Man Bet So Big on 4D?

It was 2007 when we discovered his secret. While moving my father’s mattress, we found them: heaps and heaps of Singapore Pools 4D tickets. They were stacked in layers, a paper trail of lost hopes. What shocked us most wasn’t just the volume, but the stakes. He wasn’t betting a few dollars for fun. He was punting hundreds of dollars per draw—nearly ten times a month. At the time, my siblings and I were furious. Our father was a 79-year-old retiree. We wondered, with a mix of anger and confusion, why a man at his stage of life would need to win such "big money." What was he going to do with the money? We saw it as a reckless habit, a sign of poor judgment in his final years. Some of us would say, "If I were to give him money to buy 4D, why don't I use the money and buy 4D myself? At least I have better discipline". It has taken me two decades, and the experience of raising my own three grown-up children, to finally see the truth that was hidden under that matt...

Head Bleeding when the Chair Falls

The Weight of Silence: What Were We Really Arguing About? My earliest memories are punctuated by the sound of shouting. In 1970, when I was barely 6 years old, I stood as a small witness to the fierce quarrels between my father and my late eldest brother Kah Yang (he passed away in 1971 at the age of 17). As I grew up, these contradictions became the soundtrack of our lives, usually centered around our family's shoe shop and clothing stalls in Chinatown. In the court of family opinion, the verdict was almost always the same: my father was "wrong." He was judged as a man who didn't fulfill his role, who wasn't "burdening" enough for the family’s success. But as I look back from the vantage point of 2026, I have to ask: Was that actually true? Let me finally put to rest what my father did right: the truths that were buried under decades of criticism: Unseen Labor: He worked grueling, long hours. I remember him hauling boxes of goods and equipment to set u...

Business and Money Tips

Search This Blog