Description
Book SynopsisQiaopi is one of several names given to the silver letters Chinese emigrants sent home in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These letters-cum-remittances document the changing history of the Chinese diaspora in different parts of the world and in different times. Dear China is the first book-length study in English of qiaopi and of the origins, structure, and operations of the qiaopi trade. The authors explore the characteristics and transformations of qiaopi, showing how such institutionalized and cross-national mechanisms helped sustain families separated by distance and state frontiers and contributed to the sending regions' socioeconomic development. Dear China contributes substantially to our understanding of modern Chinese history and to the comparative study of global migration.
Trade Review"Makes substantial and significant contributions to our ongoing struggles to attain better understanding of migration as a most human, yet greatly disruptive, element of our global society and economy." * Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review *
"A pertinent contribution to extant scholarship on the history of Chinese migration and diasporic ties between 1820 and 1980. . . . Students of oral history, social memory, in addition to migration researchers, will find this book an intelligible and informative read." * International Migration Review *
"No matter what a reader of
Dear China might think they know at the beginning, by the end of their perusal of this intensively researched and wide-ranging work they will know and appreciate a great deal more." * Journal of Chinese Overseas *
"This fascinating volume by Benton and Liu proposes many noteworthy arguments for Southeast Asian history research because it pays heed to overseas Chinese society as one of the key factors in the region’s historical changes." * Southeast Asian Studies *
Table of ContentsList of Maps and Tables
Foreword by Wang Gungwu
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Genealogy of Qiaopi Studies
2. The Structure of the Qiaopi Trade and Transnational Networks
3. The Qiaopi Trade as a Distinctive Form of Chinese Capitalism
4. Qiaopi Geography
5. Qiaopi and Modern Chinese Economy and Politics
6. Qiaopi, Qiaoxiang, and Charity
7. Qiaopi and European Migrants’ Letters Compared
Conclusions
Appendix: Selected Qiaopi and Huipi Letters
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
