Early immigrants from China went abroad to look for opportunities and to seek a better life. They left behind families in their home villages. How they could support their loved ones in the home villages while they were abroad was always a crucial problem close to their hearts. To solve the problem, these pioneering and enterprising migrants had established a private mail delivery system, called Qiaopi (侨批), whereby money was sent by mail together with the family letter to their home villages in China. Hence, the history of Qiaopi is an integral part of the history of the Chinese in Singapore. Qiaopi was recognised and registered in the Memory of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) on 19 June 2013 with world heritage status.

The interplay of politics and power between colonial authorities and Chinese settlers in nineteenth century Singapore was determined in large part by the historical context of the system of government established during the foundation years of British rule. This paper will elucidate the issues and circumstances that created the modus operandi defining the relationship between the British colonial masters and their Chinese subjects and how the socio-political structures of the Singapore Chinese society evolved in response to the colonial condition. Changes in the power and leadership structures within the Chinese community in early nineteenth century Singapore could be seen as corresponding to the transitional phases of the colonial administration undergoing ebbs and flows even as British authority waxed and waned. Chinese power and leadership were neither solely contingent upon official patronage nor were they simply aligned along linear structures consisting of ethnic or dialectal lines. This paper does not dispute Yen Ching Hwang's work on the socio-political organization of the Chinese in early Singapore and Malaya, which shows how "kinship patterns of migration", "practical needs of immigrants", and "dialectal affiliation" had given form to a Chinese social structure where the leadership was determined by "seniority", "age", "social standing".