2026-09-20
Qiaopi Digitization Is Not Full-Text Search
Scanned images, catalogue records, cross-archive systems and public full-text search are separate things. The 2022 Meizhou project and the July 2026 Guangdong-Fujian agreement offer concrete examples of what digitization reports establish, and what they do not.
Scans preserve the visible letter
Qiaopi are letters and remittances sent by overseas Chinese to family members in home villages in China. They are also described as original archival documents combining money transfers and family letters. Digitization projects address how these paper records are preserved, managed and used.
In 2022, Guangdong China Hakka Museum advanced a digitization protection and use project for its qiaopi holdings. The work included sorting, scanning and catalogue description under a qiaopi archival description standard, while a Meizhou qiaopi archives information management system was being built for shared resource construction and use.
Catalogue description is not full transcription
A scan creates an image of the physical item. Catalogue description creates management data that helps staff identify and retrieve the item. Both are real digitization steps, but neither automatically means the full handwritten letter has been converted into searchable text.
By November 2022, the Meizhou project had completed sorting and scanning of 7000 sets, catalogue description of 6000 sets, and a stated 90% completion rate. Those figures use different work units: 7000 belongs to sorting and scanning, while 6000 belongs to catalogue description.
The 2022 numbers have limits
The remaining work was expected at that time to be fully completed by the end of December 2022, along with establishment of the Meizhou information management system. Without a later completion figure, that expectation should not be turned into a current completion claim.
The same museum also helped Meixian District Longteng Museum complete scanning and catalogue description for 116 qiaopi sets. That smaller figure shows how digitization can include support across institutions, while still keeping scanning and catalogue work as distinct tasks.
Cross-system sharing is another layer
The Meizhou project planned to transmit catalogue records and corresponding image data to the Guangdong Provincial Archives Bureau qiaopi archives management system. The paired wording matters: catalogue records help locate an item, and image data preserves the visible document.
By July 2026, Guangdong had built a qiaopi archives management system and completed collection of 110000 data entries. A data entry is not the same as a full-text letter, and the available facts do not establish OCR use, handwriting-recognition accuracy, download rights or public interface fields.
The Guangdong-Fujian database is a co-build start
On July 3, 2026, Guangdong and Fujian archival departments signed a qiaopi archival work cooperation framework agreement in Shantou and launched co-construction of a qiaopi archives database. Their planned mechanism covered resource sharing, historical-material collection, and compilation, research and development.
That step supports wider collaboration around qiaopi, but it should not be read as proof that a public search box already reaches every scanned letter. Starting database co-construction is different from launching open full-text search across images and transcriptions.
Collection size is not searchability
The July 2026 figures should be kept separate. Guangdong archives and cultural-museum institutions held more than 342000 qiaopi items, Fujian archives at all levels held more than 80000, and the combined total for the two provinces exceeded 420000.
Guangdong also said about 180000 scattered qiaopi items from Shantou, Jiangmen, Meizhou and other places had been moved to comprehensive archives for centralized custody, and public collecting institutions across the province had cumulatively collected about 76000 items. Custody, collecting, data gathering and public full-text search are different stages for viewers to recognize.