Letters correspond to bonds across Strait

Since 2019, the China Museum for Fujian-Taiwan Kinship has undertaken a preservation project to collect, study and interpret these cross-Strait letters. The museum houses over 4,000 letters from 28 provincial regions, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as Fujian and Guangdong provinces, spanning from 1913 to 2023.

Shen Wenfeng, deputy director of the museum, said these family letters reaffirm that "both sides of the Strait are one family".

According to Shen, from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) through Japan's colonial rule of Taiwan (1895-1945), letters exchanged between family members across the Strait never ceased. After 1949, direct postal service between Taiwan and the mainland was suspended. Letters were then sent via Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, the United States, or relayed through overseas Chinese compatriots.