The Teochew Store Blog / movie
Images of Teochew Women (1870s–1940s) 潮州妇女影像（1870年代至1940年代）
The earliest known photograph in Teochew was of "A Young Swatow Girl" taken by John Thomson in 1871.
Through AI animation, we bring this and other historical photographs of Teochew women and girls from the 1870s to the 1940s to life, offering glimpses into the lives of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
Images sourced from Memories of Old Swatow 《汕头旧影》, Through China with a Camera by John Thomson, China and Formosa: The Story of the Mission of the Presbyterian Church of England, Mission Problems and Mission Methods in South China, Memorial Biography of Adele M. Fielde, Humanitarian, and the Terence Tan postcard collection.
AI animation by The Teochew Store.
Video production sponsored by Mr Allan Tan of the 1. Allan Tan YouTube channel.
Lives in the Letters | 侨批中的故事
In 1949, a woman in Teochew received a letter and a remittance of 200,000 gold yuan from her husband’s elder brother in Siam. She wrote back, not to her brother-in-law, but to her husband — the man she had not heard from for many years.
In her letter, she wrote:
“Since you left for Siam, you have not sent a letter home for several years. Fortunately, your elder brother has been sending us money, otherwise we would have starved.
“We have been married for almost ten years. Although our family is poor, I have no complaints. My only wish is for you to earn enough to support the family. Yet all these years, you have lived freely overseas, without concern for your wife and son. You are indeed a man without conscience!”
We may never know the truth behind this family’s story. Was the husband truly heartless, or did he suffer a fate like Bhagseng — one that his elder brother knew, but could not bring himself to reveal?
The Teochew Letters (or Khieu-phue 僑批 — literally “the sojourner’s letter”) are correspondences exchanged between tens of thousands of Teochew emigrants in Southeast Asia and their families back home. These letters, often sent together with remittances, preserve countless real-life stories of devotion to elderly parents, longing between separated spouses, and worries for children left behind—revealing struggles that shaped the resilience of the Teochew people.
Discover some of these stories in The Teochew Store’s new feature page: Lives in the Letters 《侨批中的故事》.
Discover some of these stories in The Teochew Store’s new feature page: Lives in the Letters 《侨批中的故事》.