Across the Southern Seas: My Parents' Journey to a New Life in Malaya

Across the Southern Seas: My Parents' Journey to a New Life in Malaya

By lim ju boo - Chinese name: lin ru wu (林 如 武) 

 

A Tribute to All Parents

 

This personal story I write here is also dedicated to all parents who faced hardship and difficult times to bring their children up to be better than themselves.

To you dear parents, I dedicate this story of mine to you.

As I watched the film "Dear You" I found myself thinking not only about the countless Chinese families portrayed on the screen, but about my own parents. Their lives followed a remarkably similar path. Like millions of overseas Chinese, they left everything they had ever known, crossed the dangerous South China Sea, and began life again in a foreign land so that their children might enjoy opportunities they themselves never had.

Here is my story: 

My father was born on Hainan Island, a simple farmer with little formal education. My mother came from Canton (Guangzhou). They were ordinary people in every sense of the word. They possessed neither wealth nor influence. They had no university education, no business training, and certainly no guarantee of success.

What they did possess was courage.

Sometime during the early decades of the twentieth century, they boarded a small wooden boat bound for British Malaya. I often wonder what they carried with them. Probably only a few bags of clothing and a handful of personal belongings. Everything else—their parents, relatives, familiar villages, ancestral graves, and childhood memories—was left behind forever.

The South China Sea has never been a gentle sea. Long before modern ships, radar, weather forecasts, or satellite navigation, every voyage carried uncertainty. Storms could arise without warning. Overcrowded wooden vessels offered little protection against the enormous waves. Many migrants never reached their destination.

Yet my parents accepted these dangers because they believed that beyond the horizon lay hope.

They landed at Minyak Beku, then a tiny fishing village on the southern coast of Johore. There, their new life began—not with comfort, but with hardship.

My father first travelled inland to Yong Peng, where dense jungle covered much of the landscape. With his own hands, he cleared the forest and established several acres of rubber plantations. Every rubber tree represented months of exhausting labour before it yielded even a single drop of latex.

But farming alone was not enough to support a growing family.

Later, he moved to Batu Pahat, about thirty kilometres away, where he built a new future through determination and relentless work. Over the years he established a cold storage business, a hotel, and two restaurants, while continuing to farm and oversee his rubber estates.

Looking back today, I marvel at how one man managed such an extraordinary workload. By day he supervised his plantations, attended to farming, managed his businesses, and provided for his family. There were no weekends, no annual leave, and certainly no retirement plans. Every day was another day of hard work.

His greatest obstacle, however, was not physical labour—it was language.

During British colonial rule, operating a cold storage business required communication with British officials, suppliers, and commercial companies. Business correspondence had to be written in English. Orders had to be placed. Accounts had to be maintained. Yet my father arrived in Malaya unable to speak or read English.

My mother knew even less. The only English word she knew—and could pronounce—was "cocoa."

Rather than surrender to this disadvantage, my father enrolled in night classes to learn English after completing his exhausting work each day. Slowly, patiently, word by word, he taught himself a new language.

His determination bore fruit.

Eventually he was able to read The Straits Times, correspond with Cold Storage companies in Singapore, write business letters, and converse confidently with British customers and officials. His classroom was not a university lecture hall but the realities of life itself. His teacher was necessity.

To me, that achievement was every bit as remarkable as earning a university degree.

My parents' greatest legacy, however, was never measured by the size of their plantations or businesses.

It was their children.

Together they raised eight of us—four sons and four daughters. They gave us what they themselves had been denied: education.

Three of us eventually reached university. Among us is my youngest brother, Professor Dr Lim Yew Cheng, who later became a Mayo Clinic-trained Senior Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon. As for myself, my own academic and professional journey eventually led me into medical research and higher education.

Whenever people congratulate us for our achievements, I quietly remember where those achievements truly began.

They began in a small wooden boat crossing the South China Sea.

They began with two young immigrants carrying almost nothing except faith, determination, and love for children who had not yet been born.

Today, historians often speak of the Chinese diaspora in terms of migration statistics, shipping routes, labour movements, and economic development. These are important chapters of history.

But behind every statistic stood a father who swung his axe from dawn until dusk.

Behind every business stood a mother who quietly endured hardship without complaint.

Behind every successful child stood parents who willingly sacrificed their own dreams so that the next generation could pursue theirs.

In that sense, I too am one of the diaspora who arrived in Malaya because two ordinary people dared to believe in an extraordinary future.

As I watched Dear You, I realized that the film is not simply about letters sent across oceans. It is about invisible bridges built by love, duty, and sacrifice. It reminds us that while some migrants could send home money and letters, many gave something even greater—their entire lives—to ensure that their descendants would never have to make the same difficult journey.

Their names may never appear in history books.

Yet they are the true architects of the lives we enjoy today.

Every generation stands upon foundations laid by those who came before. My parents built those foundations not with wealth, but with sweat; not with privilege, but with perseverance; not with comfort, but with sacrifice.

Whenever I think of them, I cannot help but whisper the simplest words of gratitude:

Thank you, Father.

Thank you, Mother.

Everything we became began with the courage you found to sail across the Southern Seas.

 

 

"With Love Across the Southern Seas: In Search of the Grandparents Who Never Returned"

Echoes from the Nanyang - Roots Across the Sea 

 by:

 

lim ju boo - Chinese name: lin ru wu (林 如 武)  - whose parents too were from China. I am one of the diaspora who landed in Malaya then 

 

There is currently a very popular movie called being  screened  in China, Malaysia and Singapore called “Dear You (给阿嫲的情书)”

It  is a massive sleeper hit in China about qiaopi—the historical remittance letters and lifelines sent between Chinese emigrants in Southeast Asia and their families back home. It follows a debt-ridden grandson who travels to Thailand searching for his estranged billionaire grandfather, only to uncover a heartbreaking decades-old secret about love, duty, and sacrifice.

The film is not only a box-office phenomenon but has also captured the hearts of audiences across China and Southeast Asia for its unique cultural focus:

 

The Core Story

 

The story is about Xiaowei’s search. He travels to Bangkok to track down his grandfather, Zheng Musheng. Decades prior, during the Chinese Civil War in the 1940s, his grandfather left coastal China for Southeast Asia to avoid being conscripted.

 Upon arriving in Thailand, Xiaowei discovers his grandfather died long ago. He unravels a startling truth: the man who had been exchanging love letters and money with his grandmother (Ye Shurou) back in China for over 50 years was actually a complete stranger who took on the responsibility of writing them.

The movie highlights qingyi (deep supportive bonds) as it explores how his grandmother and a fellow village woman in Thailand navigated a half-century of hidden feelings and devotion, maintaining the ritual of keeping someone alive across oceans through paper and ink.

The movie is very popular in China about regional roots. It is shot almost entirely in the Teochew dialect (Chaoshan dialect) instead of standard Mandarin. This has deeply moved  audiences, sparking a cultural resurgence and reconnecting Chinese youth with their ancestral heritage and diaspora roots.

 By focusing on the historical qiaopi tradition, it strikes an emotional chord with generations of families whose ancestors migrated to countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. It acts as a beautiful meditation on duty, patience, and how families stayed emotionally connected despite years of separation.

Though made on a modest budget, its unexpected viral success has led to global screenings, spreading the story of overseas Chinese immigrant communities to a worldwide audience.

 

Meantime, I have also received a commentary on “Dear You” -  written by SC Shekar. It was forwarded to me by Mr. Mano  through WhatApp

Here’s what Shekar wrote:

 

Dear You and the Lives We Inherited.
Last night, my wife and I went to our neighbourhood cinema to watch the Teochew film 'Dear You'.

I must confess that I have probably watched only two Chinese-language films in a cinema in my entire life. So when I walked into the TGV hall and saw just 12 people seated in a cinema built for about 100, with me quite possibly the only Indian in the room, I assumed the film was headed for failure.

I was wrong.

By the time the film ended, my wife and I were wiping away our tears and the elderly gentleman seated beside me was sobbing into his handkerchief.

Dear You begins in present-day Shantou, where Shurou, an 87-year-old matriarch, is celebrating her birthday. Around her are family members, neighbours and friends who revere her not merely because she has lived a long life, but because she survived one. In the 1940s and 1950s, she raised three children on her own after her husband, Zheng Musheng, left for Bangkok (in an attempt to dodge the Chinese military draft) and never returned.

Decades later, her grandson Xiaowei, in debt and looking for a way out, travels to Thailand in search of this absent grandfather, who is rumoured to have made his fortune there, endowed schools, and started another family.

On paper, it may sound like another story of abandonment, migration and family secrets. But Dear You is far more than that. Its power lies in its specificity. The film is spoken entirely in Teochew, a language rooted in a particular place, memory and people. The cast is made up largely of non-professional actors, many drawn from the local community. There are no stars or celebrities. What it offers instead is something far rarer: the emotional truth of ordinary lives.

Made on a shoestring budget of about 10 million yuan, or roughly US$1.5 million, the film went on to become a major hit in China, earning more than 600 million yuan. On Douban, it scored 9.1, putting it in the company of films such as Titanic, Spirited Away and The Shawshank Redemption. That alone says something. Audiences recognized themselves in it.

But what moved me most was not the box-office success or the statistics. It was the way the film opened a door into my own family history, and also into my wife’s.

There is a scene towards the end where people line up before a letter writer, each telling him what to say to a loved one far away. That scene broke me.

It reminded me of a world in which reading and writing were not taken for granted. A world where literacy was power. Where the person who could write a letter became the bridge between a mother and a son, between a husband and a wife, between a family left behind and a life being built elsewhere.

Before telephones became common, before email, before WhatsApp and video calls made distance feel almost meaningless, there was the letter. And for those who could not write, there was the letter writer. He was not merely a man with pen and paper. He was witness, translator, messenger and confidant. He carried grief, longing, apology, duty, love and news across oceans.

That part of the film struck me deeply.

It brought back the memory of my father writing letters to his father in India. I remember the postal money orders he sent, and the small household items and medicines he would occasionally arrange to send back to the village, things that were unavailable there or difficult to obtain. These were not grand gestures, they were acts of duty.  They were the obligations of an immigrant son who had crossed the sea but had not severed the cord.

My father came from India into a world that demanded discipline, restraint and sacrifice. He understood the value of education not as an abstract ideal, but as a way out. For immigrant families of that generation, education was a ticket out of poverty. It was survival. It was the difference between dependence and dignity. It was the one inheritance poor parents could leave their children when there was no land, no wealth and no certainty.

Like so many men and women of his generation, he carried his family  in remittances, letters, silence and work. The distance between Malaya and India was measured not only in nautical miles but in longing, responsibility and the ache of absence.

The film also reminded me of my mother’s stories of growing up in Singapore in the 1930s. She used to speak of an “imported young Chinese girl” the family had purchased, who lived with her as a companion and maid. This girl, still so young herself, had been brought across from China, as so many were in those years, into homes and lives far from where she was born.

Then came the war. The world closed in. Borders closed. Ships stopped. Families disappeared into history. That young girl could never return to China.

I do not know what became of her. Perhaps my mother never knew either. But watching Dear You, I thought of her again. One small life carried across the sea, then trapped by history.

Sitting beside me was my wife, Lynette, whose own Hokkien ancestry carries another version of the same story. Her grandparents struggled in Kuantan to raise ten children. Then my father-in-law who had to raise and educate his 9 siblings when his father passed away. Ten children. It is easy to say that now, as a number, but it must have meant years of work, rationing, worry, school fees, illnesses, food on the table, clothes passed from one child to another, and the constant arithmetic of survival.

There was no romance in that struggle. There was only the daily demand to keep a family together.

And central to that struggle was education. Immigrant parents of that generation may not have had much themselves, but they knew what school meant. They knew that a child who could read, write, count and speak with confidence might one day stand a little taller in the world. They saved for schoolbooks. They worried over fees. They insisted on discipline because they had seen what life was like without choices.

This is the history we often forget when we speak too casually of success. Behind every educated child, every shopfront, every family business, every modest house, every university graduate, there was often a grandmother who stretched a meal, a grandfather who worked until his body gave way, a mother who went without food, and a father who carried more than he ever said.

How many such lives must there have been across Asia? Chinese, Indian, Tamil, Teochew, Hokkien, Cantonese, Sikh, Ceylonese. Men and women moved by hunger, debt, hope, colonial labour systems, family obligation and the stubborn belief that tomorrow might be kinder than yesterday.

This is why Dear You matters.

It is not only a Chinese story. It is an Asian story. It is also a Malaysian story.

The immigrant communities of this region were built on hard work, discipline and austerity. They arrived poor, often alone, often unable to return, and they built lives in places that did not yet fully belong to them. They raised children, buried parents from afar, sent money home, learned new languages, endured humiliation, and slowly became part of the soil.

They also placed their faith in education, sometimes with a severity that later generations misunderstood. Books were not decorative objects. Examinations were not merely academic events. A report card could decide the mood of a household. A scholarship could change the fate of an entire family. A letter from a child abroad could be read and reread until the paper softened in the hand.

I have seen similar traces in Kaki Bukit, the small mining town in Perlis where a Hakka community once built its life around tin and limestone. There, too, letters connected families separated by distance, work and obligation. Kaki Bukit has the makings of a similar film: migration, mining, hardship, education, and a community trying to build a better life from very little. Perhaps a Malaysian filmmaker will tell this story sometime soon.

Today, many of their descendants live with comfort their grandparents could not have imagined. But somewhere beneath that comfort are scars. Some are visible. Many are not. They remain in the way families speak of sacrifice. In the fear of waste. In the reverence for education. In the obsession with work. In the old letters kept in drawers. In money sent home. In names slowly lost. In languages that survive only at the dinner table, then slowly disappear.

Dear You understands this.

It understands that communication is not merely the exchange of information. It is how families remain families across distance. It is how the absent remain present. It is how the dead continue to speak. It is how the abandoned are remembered, the forgiven are named, and the forgotten are brought back into the room.

Cinematographer Hai Tao’s images are warm without being sentimental. The mid-century production design by Wang Zichao and Zhao Junxiang has a lived-in quality that gives the film its texture. The performances, especially by Li Sitong and Wang Xiaohui, do not feel acted.

My only real complaint, watching it in Malaysia, was the placement of the English subtitles at the bottom of the screen. It made it difficult at times to read and watch the film properly. For a film so dependent on faces, pauses and gestures, that is no small thing.

Still, Malaysians should watch Dear You.

Not because it is a “Chinese movie”. Not because it has become a hit in China. But because it reminds us of something we too often forget: that every settled life we take for granted today was built by people who once lived unsettled lives.

Immigrants, then and now, do not leave home easily. They leave because something has broken, or because something must be built. They leave because a family is waiting on the other side of hunger. They leave because the future has become impossible where they are.

And if they are lucky, decades later, someone makes a film about them. Not about heroes or tycoons or national figures, but about the people who wrote letters, waited by doors, raised children alone, sent money home, taught their children to read, and carried entire histories without complaint.

That is what Dear You did for me last night.

It reminded me of my parents.

It reminded me of my wife’s grandparents in Kuantan, and of the ten children they raised through difficulty and resolve.

It reminded me that education was never simply about getting ahead. For families like ours, it was about staying alive, staying connected and refusing to let poverty have the final word.

And in the darkness of a half-empty cinema, it reminded me that some stories do not need a full hall to be understood. They need only one person willing to remember.

SC Shekar
6th July 2026

Photos downloaded from the web

 

 

https://kolumpoart.com/2026/07/07/dear-you/?fbclid=IwZnRzaAS7UgBwZG9mA2ZkaWQWUKJ8c9jSd2z_bke3ri5teJZmHNLMkGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7Rry4E7xzFsmHKAHtATvKMYdAPbnqqZfjA-BKuIDP-1pauahi1x2P-wIo8zQ_aem_0O18vmSmcnLW5TlXSpLxbg

 

https://kolumpoart.com/2026/07/07/dear-you/?fbclid=IwZnRzaAS7UgBwZG9mA2ZkaWQWUKJ8c9jSd2z_bke3ri5teJZmHNLMkGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7Rry4E7xzFsmHKAHtATvKMYdAPbnqqZfjA-BKuIDP-1pauahi1x2P-wIo8zQ_aem_0O18vmSmcnLW5TlXSpLxbg

“Let Food Be Thy Medicine”: Wisdom, Misquotation, and the Limits of Turning Medicine into Food

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” has often being quoted as coming from Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Is this really true? I don’t think Hippocrates has ever said that? 

I used to attend health and nutrition talks given by well qualified doctors as well as by some lay speakers. I have also myself given untold number of talks to academic, professional and medical societies and to the public. 

One of the first slides some speakers projected on the screen was this assumed adage: 

 “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” 

I almost walked out seeing that being projected on the screen because if the speakers didn't even realize that "advice" is wrong, how could the speaker give an entire talk lasting an hour that would be scholarly correct and educationally acceptable? It would  misguide the audience. 

I don't  think this statement  was put into the mouth of Hippocrates long after he died by any pharmaceutical company to promote their drugs and medicines as food? It is absurd to prescribe or to promote  drugs and medicine to replace food. 

It may be reasonable that food is able to nourish, and to a certain extent act as medicine to heal the body. But how can  drugs and medicine be  “food”? 

‘let medicine be thy food’ is absolute trash. 

I don’t think Hippocrates had ever said that, and  I don't think doctors or drug companies have ever advised that either.  Food may act as medicine to a certain extent, but to advise taking medicine as food is completely out of tune. Like drugs and medicines, even certain food can act as a poison - to be avoided in certain diseases. But we shall talk about this separately in the next article due to their technical length that requires some explanation.  

 Historical and literary reviews of the Hippocratic Corpus show that this specific phrase “"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food" is a modern literary invention. I think this is a mis attribution of the quote, though its origins lie more in internet-era wellness marketing than a pharmaceutical conspiracy.  Medical historians have searched ancient texts extensively and confirmed that the phrase does not appear anywhere in the writings of Hippocrates.  A separate, closest ancient text, a cryptic phrase is found called On Aliment (often associated with the Hellenistic period rather than Hippocrates directly). that translates roughly to: "In food excellent medication, in food bad medication, bad and good relatively".  

In ancient Greek medicine, food and medicine were strictly distinguished. Food was defined as sustenance that digested and became part of the physical body (like muscle or bone). Medicine (pharmakon) was an agent meant to alter the body's metabolic states or humours but could not be assimilated into bodily tissue.  

But how does the misconception spreads? I think the quote grew in popularity through the global functional food, natural health, and holistic wellness movements. It is typically weaponised as a catchphrase to promote dietary supplements, organic lifestyle products, or alternative wellness practices by appealing to ancient authority.

 If this was the reason, then it contradicts “let medicine be thy food”. In short, it is highly unlikely anyone would promote  drugs, so called “medicine” as food for good health? This does not make sense to any educated and intelligent person.

 My observation hits on a valid semantic and practical distinction in modern healthcare. The purpose of food is to provide nutrition for good health. Food provides the daily building blocks and chemical energy required for cellular maintenance and prevention of chronic diseases. The purpose of pharmaceuticals and modern synthetic drugs are for acute, targeted interventions meant to treat, manage, or cure specific biological dysfunctions when a person is ill.  Personally, I don’t think any legitimate medical body or pharmaceutical marketing strategy advocates for healthy individuals to treat daily synthetic chemical drugs as "food" or nutritional upkeep.  

Ultimately, I personally think  we need to entirely reject the literal reading of the quote. Food serves a distinct physiological purpose from pharmaceutical drugs, and ancient physicians never suggested treating them as identical substances

 

Let's get into this quote deeper. 

The phrase “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” is one of the most quoted statements in health and wellness literature. It is commonly attributed to Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician often called the Father of Medicine. The quotation appears in countless books, advertisements, nutrition campaigns, health supplements, and social media posts as if it were a foundational principle of ancient medicine.

But did Hippocrates really say it?

Historical and literary scholarship suggests that the answer is almost certainly no—at least not in the exact modern form commonly repeated today.

Researchers who have examined the surviving collection of ancient writings known as the Hippocratic Corpus have not found this phrase appearing anywhere in its familiar wording. Instead, historians point to a much older and more ambiguous statement from On Aliment that roughly translates:

“In food there is good and bad medicine.”

This ancient idea is quite different from the modern slogan.

Ancient Greek medicine did recognize that food influences health and disease. Physicians of that period frequently prescribed dietary changes, rest, exercise, and environmental adjustments before stronger interventions. However, they generally maintained a conceptual distinction between nourishment and pharmacological treatment.

Food was understood as something assimilated into the body to sustain life and build tissues. Medicine (pharmakon) was regarded as an active agent used to alter bodily states and restore balance. They were related—but not identical.

Over time, the modern phrase appears to have gained popularity through wellness culture, functional food movements, nutritional advocacy, and commercial health marketing. Invoking Hippocrates gives authority to a message that sounds ancient, wise, and universal—even when the quotation itself is not historically authentic.

Yet dismissing the phrase entirely may also overlook an important truth.

Food does indeed act as medicine in many situations.

Modern nutritional science demonstrates that dietary patterns influence cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, some cancers, fatty liver disease, gut health, and overall longevity. Nutrients and naturally occurring bioactive compounds—such as fibre, omega-3 fatty acids, polyphenols, phytosterols, glucosinolates, organosulfur compounds, probiotics, and bioactive peptides—participate in physiological pathways that influence inflammation, immunity, metabolism, oxidative stress, and cellular signalling.

Examples include:

• Dietary fibre helping improve metabolic health and reducing cardiovascular risk.
• Sulforaphane from cruciferous vegetables activating protective cellular pathways.
• Allicin and related compounds from garlic affecting vascular and antimicrobial responses.
• Fermented foods supporting aspects of gut microbial ecology.
• Dietary approaches reducing the incidence or progression of chronic disease.

In this sense, food can indeed serve preventive and supportive medicinal functions.

However, the second half of the quote—“medicine be thy food”—becomes problematic when interpreted literally.

Medicines are not designed to replace nutrition.

Pharmaceutical agents are developed for targeted biological intervention. Their purpose is usually to prevent, treat, control, or cure specific pathological processes. Drugs may save life, prolong life, relieve suffering, and restore function—but they are not intended as universal daily nourishment.

No major medical organisation recommends that healthy individuals routinely consume pharmaceuticals as though they were ordinary food.

Even medications taken long term, for example in hypertension, diabetes, thyroid disease, or cardiovascular prevention are prescribed because the expected benefits outweigh risks under specific clinical conditions, not because medicines themselves constitute nutrition.

The confusion may partly arise because some substances occupy both categories.

Vitamin D, iron, folate, omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, and certain medical nutrition products can function both as nutrients and therapeutic interventions depending on context. Likewise, several drugs originated from natural food or plant compounds. Aspirin traces historical roots to willow compounds; statins originated from fungal metabolites; many antibiotics originated from microorganisms.

Nature and pharmacology often overlap.

Perhaps the most reasonable modern interpretation is this:

Food should remain the foundation of health, while medicine should remain a precise tool for illness.

Good nutrition may reduce the need for medication in some circumstances, but medicine remains indispensable when disease exceeds what nutrition alone can manage.

Hippocrates may never have spoken the famous words, but the discussion they continue to provoke reminds us of something valuable: prevention and treatment are partners, not competitors.

The healthiest society is neither one that worships food nor one that worships pharmaceuticals, but one that understands the proper place of both.

 

My professional view as a nutritionist, clinician, food scientist and medical research scientist on  evidence-based synthesis of nutrition and medicine is this: The central criticism is strong when directed against literal interpretations of “medicine as food.” But  personally I do not think  physicians or pharmaceutical companies broadly promote such an idea of using medicine as food. . Modern medicine generally places nutrition, lifestyle, prevention, and pharmacology into different but complementary roles. It  touches a question that physicians, nutritionists and nutrition scientists still debate today: Where does nourishment end and treatment begin?

I shall write the second part on this subject later :

"When Food Helps, When Food Harms

Functional Foods, Therapeutic Diets, Contraindications, and the Limits of “Let Food Be Thy Medicine” 

 

References for further reading

1. Hippocratic Corpus

2. On Aliment

3. World Health Organization — nutrition and chronic disease prevention

4. American Heart Association — dietary approaches and cardiovascular prevention 

5. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — food and preventive health