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Mabel Lui

For hundreds of years, people all over the world have written letters to express their affection and longing for family and loved ones who are far away.
This is no different in China, where filial piety has been ingrained into people thanks to Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist values that have been enshrined for centuries.
The Chaoshan region, in eastern Guangdong, is home to a particular historical culture of letter writing called qiaopi, also known as Teochew letters.
Qiaopi – qiao referring to emigrants and pi being the expression for letter in Minnan dialect – refers to the correspondence and remittance letters that were sent to China during the 19th and 20th centuries by Chaoshan, or Teochew, emigrants who had moved abroad.
These letters, added to Unesco’s Memory of the World Register in 2013, are valued as historical objects because their contents offer insight into the history of Chinese migration.
From national issues and international relations to daily activities and family affairs, qiaopi were a reflection of society and of the lives of Teochew people.

To learn more about these letters, we ventured to the Qiaopi Museum – also called the Qiaopi Cultural Relics Museum, or the Museum of Overseas Remittance Mail Relics – in Shantou, a city on the eastern coast of Guangdong.
Also commonly called Swatow, it is one of three cities – along with nearby Chaozhou and Jieyang – that make up the Chaoshan region. Many overseas Chinese can trace their roots to this region – its coastal location allowed for easier access to other countries, especially in the 19th century when all overseas travel was by boat.
At that time, those looking to escape poverty and earn more money abroad set sail from the port of Zhanglin in Shantou, a transport and trade hub that flourished during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912).
Once settled, having found work at their destination – often as low-paid labourers – the migrants would send their earnings home through informal channels to provide support for their families, as formal means of posting money home were not available yet. Thus were qiaopi born.
Often, the migrants were young men who left their wives, parents and children in China when they set off.

More than 20 million overseas Chinese have roots in Guangdong, including Chaoshan.
“Just about every family [in Guangdong] has someone who migrated to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, America, Australia and all over the world during the 19th and 20th centuries,” Zheng Wenbi, whose hometown is Shantou, told the Post in 2008.
“It sounds like a fairy-tale to us. But it was really a sad experience [for] those who had to leave home to go thousands of kilometres away across the sea.”
Living abroad was not easy for the millions of migrants who chose to leave China. In one qiaopi shown at the Shantou Qiaopi Museum, the Chinese character for “difficulty” is written boldly in black ink, reflecting the hardships that overseas Chinese faced.
In another short but heart-wrenching letter, a Chinese immigrant in Thailand tells his wife to use 50,000 yuan to retrieve his daughter, whom his wife had sold because she was unable to support two children at the same time.
The Qiaopi Museum has more than 120,000 such letters and copies of letters – whose writers tell various everyday stories and express a range of emotions – in its archives.
Over time, qiaopi culture grew to such an extent that it gave rise to a profession – that of the shuike, whose literal meaning is “water traveller”.

The shuike’s job was to transport people, letters and other goods between Southeast Asia and the Chaoshan region; the museum highlights the story of one shuike who was well regarded until he disappeared in 1943 after setting off for Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam with a group of villagers who were hoping to escape famine in Chaoshan.
It did not take long for the shuike profession to flourish and for remittance agencies with partners in Shantou to be set up in different countries.
Because many migrants were illiterate or semi-literate, professional letter writers also emerged. Often, the overseas Chinese would work with letter writers and agencies who were from their own communities and spoke their dialect.
Aside from the practical nature of the remittance letters, qiaopi also contain snippets about some of the momentous changes China went through, and offer a view of the politics and culture of the 1800s and 1900s.
One letter in the Qiaopi Museum details how, once news of China’s 1911 revolution – which saw the end of the country’s last imperial dynasty – reached Indonesia, the overseas Chinese there ecstatically shaved their heads and cut off their braids.

Since 1645, with the Manchu ethnic minority in power, Chinese men had been required to wear the Manchus’ “queue” hairstyle as a symbol of solidarity with the ruling dynasty. Those who did not comply were beheaded.
Featuring a bare forehead and a long braid at the back, the hairstyle had long been a source of tension and animosity between the elite and the lower and middle classes, who were mostly Han Chinese.
While the Manchus wanted to use the hairstyle as a means of unifying the country, many viewed it as a symbol of oppression.
As well as the letters on view at the museum, stamps and other objects provide further insight into qiaopi culture and the emigrants’ journeys. The practice of sending qiaopi lasted until the late 1970s, when the government ordered all qiaopi functions to be moved to the state-owned Bank of China.
Today, the history of qiaopi lives on mainly through the Qiaopi Museum in Shantou, various exhibitions and the Chaoshan people, many of whom have returned to, or have visited, Shantou and invested money in the city’s growth.


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Chinese migrants’ letters home, from happy to heartbreaking, on display at museum

Filled with sorrow, joy and reflections on politics and events, letters to loved ones written by Teochew migrants from Chaoshan in southern China are on display at the Qiaopi Museum in Shantou, Guangdong. Photo: Mabel Lui

A display at the Qiaopi Museum – also called the Qiaopi Cultural Relics Museum, or the Museum of Overseas Remittance Mail Relics – in Shantou. Photo: Mabel Lui

One of the remittance letters on display at the Qiaopi Museum. Photo: Mabel Lui

In one letter shown at the museum, the Chinese character for “difficulty” is written boldly in black ink. Photo: Mabel Lui

Qiaopi refers to the family correspondence and remittance letters that were sent to China during the 19th and 20th centuries by Teochew emigrants who moved overseas. Photo: Mabel Lui 

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People who left Chaoshan, southern China, for work sent back remittances and reflections on life. A museum in Shantou displays their letters


People who left Chaoshan, southern China, for work sent back remittances and reflections on life. A museum in Shantou displays their letters.


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