Teochew Letters
   HOME





Teochew Letters
Teochew Letters () were a form of family correspondence combined with remittance, sent by Teochew people, Teochew immigrants in Southeast Asia (particularly Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia) as well as Hong Kong, to their families in the Chaoshan, Teochew region (now known as Chaoshan in Mandarin), in eastern Guangdong Province, China. These letters were sent from the early 19th century till the 20th century. They were initially delivered by men known as ''zui-kheh'' () literally "Water Traveller", who travelled frequently between Southeast Asia and the Teochew region for business. Towards the end of the 19th century, delivery of the Teochew Letters became a full-fledged industry, known as the ''Qiaopi'' industry (). Qiaopi agencies in Southeast Asia collected the letters and remittances from the migrant workers and sent them to their corresponding partner in Swatow. The agencies in Shantou, Swatow then distributed the letters to local agencies located ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Teochew People
The Teochew (), Teo-Swa, or Chaoshanese are an ethnic group historically native to the Chaoshan region in south China who speak the Teochew language. Today, most ethnic Teochew people live throughout Chaoshan and Hong Kong, and also outside China in Southeast Asia, including in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The community can also be found in diasporas around the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France. Names The ancestral homeland of the Teochew people is now known in China as Teo-Swa or Chaoshan (; Peng'im: ; ). This whole region was historically known as Teochew (; Peng'im: ; ), and this term continues to be used by the Teochew diaspora in Southeast Asia. In referring to themselves as Sinitic people, Teochew people generally use (), as opposed to (). Teochew people also commonly refer to each other as (). History The ancestors of the Teochew people moved to present-day Chaosha ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While the term ''Cantonese'' specifically refers to the prestige variety, in linguistics it has often been used to refer to the entire Yue subgroup of Chinese, including related but partially mutually intelligible varieties like Taishanese. Cantonese is viewed as a vital and inseparable part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swaths of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in overseas communities. In mainland China, it is the ''lingua franca'' of the province of Guangdong (being the majority language of the Pearl River Delta) and neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. It is also the dominant and co-official language of Hong Kong and Macau. Furthermore, Cantonese is widely spoken among overseas Chinese in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

19th-century Documents
The 19th century began on 1 January 1801 (represented by the Roman numerals MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 (MCM). It was the 9th century of the 2nd millennium. It was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was Abolitionism, abolished in much of Europe and the Americas. The First Industrial Revolution, though it began in the late 18th century, expanded beyond its British homeland for the first time during the 19th century, particularly remaking the economies and societies of the Low Countries, France, the Rhineland, Northern Italy, and the Northeastern United States. A few decades later, the Second Industrial Revolution led to ever more massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit, and prosperity, a pattern that continued into the 20th century. The Catholic Church, in response to the growing influence and power of modernism, secularism and materialism, formed the First Vatican Council in the late 19th century to deal with such problems an ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Shantou University
Shantou University (; abbreviated STU), is a university under the provincial Project 211 program in Shantou, Guangdong, was founded in 1981 with the approval of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, State Council. It's the only public university that receives funding from the Li Ka Shing Foundation. It's supported by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Education (MOE), the Guangdong Provincial Government and the Li Ka Shing Foundation. History Shantou University (STU) was founded in 1981 and started student enrollment in 1983. It is the only institution of higher education in the Chaoshan area. STU, a key comprehensive university under the provincial Project 211 program, was founded in 1981 with the approval of the State Council. As the only public university that receives long-term funding from the Li Ka Shing Foundation, it is jointly supported by the Ministry of Education, the Guangdong Provincial Government and the Li ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Memory Of The World Programme
UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It calls for the preservation of valuable archival holdings, library collections, and private individual compendia all over the world for posterity, the reconstitution of dispersed or displaced documentary heritage, and increased accessibility to, and dissemination of, these items. Following the establishment of the international register, UNESCO and the Memory of the World Programme have encouraged the creation of national and regional organizations as well as national and regional registers which focus on documentary heritage of great regional or national importance, but not necessarily of global importance. Overview The Memory of the World Register is a compendium of documents, manuscripts, oral traditions, audio-visual materials, library, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fujian
Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefecture city by population is Quanzhou, with other notable cities including the port city of Xiamen and Zhangzhou. Fujian is located on the west coast of the Taiwan Strait as the closest province geographically and culturally to Taiwan; as a result of the Chinese Civil War, a small portion of historical Fujian is administered by Taiwan, romanized as Fuchien Province, Republic of China, Fuchien. While the population predominantly identifies as Han Chinese, Han, it is one of China's most culturally and linguistically diverse provinces. The dialects of the language group Min Chinese are most commonly spoken within the province, including the Fuzhou dialect and Eastern Min of Northeastern Fujian province and various Southern Min and Hokkien dial ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Meizhou
Meizhou ( zh, t=梅州, Hakka Chinese: Mòichû) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Guangdong province, China. It has an area of , and a population of 3,873,239 as of the 2020 census. It comprises Meijiang District, Meixian District, Xingning City and five counties. Its built-up or metro area made up of two urban districts was home to 992,351 inhabitants. History Neolithic age stone tools and pottery have been discovered in dozens of places in the Meixian district of Meizhou. Ancient kiln sites from the Western Zhou dynasty and bells from the Warring States period were also found. Before the Qin dynasty, Meizhou was under Nanyue rule. After Qin unified the Nanyue, Meizhou was belonged to Nanhai Commandery. The original name of Meizhou was Chengxiang (程乡), established under the prefecture of Jingzhou during the Southern Han (917–971). The name was changed to Meizhou at the 10th century and Jiaying Prefecture at the 15th century. After 1912, it was changed back ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Jiangmen
Jiangmen ( zh, c=江门), postal map romanization, alternately romanization of Chinese, romanized in Cantonese as Kongmoon, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong provinces of China, Province in southern China. It consists of three urban districts (Pengjiang District, Pengjiang, Jianghai District, Jianghai, Xinhui, Jiangmen, Xinhui), Heshan, Guangdong, Heshan, and the more rural Siyi (Xinhui, Taishan, Guangdong, Taishan, Kaiping, and Enping), which is the ancestral homeland of approximately 4 million overseas Chinese. As of the 2020 census, Jiangmen had a total population of about 4,798,090. Its urban region, consisting of Pengjiang, Jianghai, and Heshan, had 2,657,062 inhabitants. Names Jiangmen is the pinyin romanization of Chinese, romanization of the Chinese language, Chinese name or , based on its pronunciation in the Standard Mandarin, Mandarin dialects of Chinese, dialect. Its former Wade-Giles spelling was . The Chinese Postal Map, Postal Map spelling "Kongmoon" was ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Southern Min
Southern Min (), Minnan ( Mandarin pronunciation: ) or Banlam (), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Chinese languages that form a branch of Min Chinese spoken in Fujian (especially the Minnan region), most of Taiwan (many citizens are descendants of settlers from Fujian), Eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and Southern Zhejiang. Southern Min dialects are also spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably in Southeast Asia, such as Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Southern Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Southern and Central Vietnam, as well as major cities in the United States, including in San Francisco, in Los Angeles and in New York City. Minnan is the most widely-spoken branch of Min, with approximately 34 million native speakers as of 2025. The most widely spoken Southern Min language is Hokkien, which includes Taiwanese. Other varieties of Southern Min have significant differences from Hok ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China and who speak a language that is closely related to Gan, a Han Chinese dialect spoken in Jiangxi province. They are differentiated from other southern Han Chinese by their dispersed nature and tendency to occupy marginal lands and remote hilly areas. The Chinese characters for ''Hakka'' () literally mean "guest families". The Hakka have settled in Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhejiang, Hainan, and Guizhou in China, as well as in Taoyuan City, Hsinchu County, Miaoli County, Pingtung County, and Kaohsiung City in Taiwan. Their presence is especially prominent in the Lingnan or Liangguang area, comprising the Cantonese-speaking provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi. Despite being partly assimilated to the Cantonese-sp ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hokkien
Hokkien ( , ) is a Varieties of Chinese, variety of the Southern Min group of Chinese language, Chinese languages. Native to and originating from the Minnan region in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern China, it is also referred to as Quanzhang ( zh, c=泉漳, poj=Choân-chiang, links=no), from the first characters of the urban centers of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. Taiwanese Hokkien is one of the national languages in Taiwan. Hokkien is also widely spoken within the overseas Chinese diaspora in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, and elsewhere across the world. Mutual intelligibility between Hokkien dialects varies, but they are still held together by ethnolinguistic identity. In maritime Southeast Asia, Hokkien historically served as the lingua franca amongst overseas Chinese communities of Han Chinese subgroups, all dialects and subgroups, and it remains today as the most spoken Varieties of Ch ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]