New Gezai Opera show is based on letters of remittance sent by overseas Chinese during the 19th and 20th centuries, Chen Nan reports.

For overseas Chinese today, connecting with their families is easy with phone calls, messages on their smartphones or talking face-to-face through online video platforms.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, overseas Chinese from southern China's coastal areas like Guangdong and Fujian provinces had their own way of contacting and offering financial support to their families with qiaopi.

Qiao means overseas Chinese and pi refers to letters. Qiaopi, also known as yinxin, or letters of the overseas Chinese, is basically letters and documents of remittance, resulting from communication between Chinese emigrants and their families in China. They were usually sent through post offices and private banking agents.

A performing arts troupe of Xiamen Gezai Opera Research and Study Center staged a show telling stories about people involved in this unique service industry. Titled Qiaopi, the show made its debut at Tianqiao Performing Arts Center in Beijing on July 16.

Gezai Opera, also known as Xiang Opera, was on the first list of national intangible cultural heritage, and is mostly popular in Fujian province and Taiwan. Performed in the Minnan dialect, Gezai Opera, which combines a variety of art forms such as singing, dancing and acting, is the only existing Chinese opera to originate in Taiwan.

"Both qiaopi and Gezai Opera are part of the unique cultural heritage of Fujian. We combined them in the hope of introducing the old culture to more people," says Lin Dehe, head of Xiamen Gezai Opera Research and Study Center, who is also an award-winning Gezai Opera actor.

It tells the story of people of southern Fujian going to work in countries in Southeast Asia after 1840. One of them is Gezai Opera performer Huang Rixing, who won trust of overseas Chinese people and helped them to send letters and money back home.

"The stories reflect the content of the letters, which cover a wide range of topics, from family affairs to talks and reports about the economy, politics, culture, and the social life of overseas Chinese people," says Hu Xiulei, director of the academic research department of Chinese Institute for Chinese Overseas Studies.

"For example, the letters coming with money clearly offered instruction about how to use the money, such as spending it on children's education and on parents' medical treatment," says Hu. "When you read the letters, you can feel the homesickness of the authors and their love for their families, even though they were far away from home."

Hu adds that while the qiaopi system has disappeared, it has become a unique and valuable cultural heritage that shows the cultural and political exchange between China and the rest of the world at the time.

In 2013, Qiaopi and Yinxin: Correspondence and Remittance Documents from Overseas Chinese was included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Program, which was established in 1992 to preserve the world's documentary heritage.

"They record firsthand the contemporary livelihood and activities of Overseas Chinese in Asia, North America and the Oceania, as well as the historical and cultural development of their countries in which they were residing in the 19th and 20th centuries. They constitute evidence of the Chinese international migration history and the cross-cultural contact and interaction between the East and the West," the UNESCO website explains.

Now, a large number of examples of qiaopi are kept and preserved at museums, research centers and archives. For example, Shantou Qiaopi Museum has a collection of more than 120,000 items of correspondence.