Fan ke, the sojourner
The old word for a Chaoshan man who went south to make a living, and came home bringing goods from overseas.
Pronunciation fān kè｜Dialect and emigration｜One entry in the Chaoshan glossary
What it means
“Fan” is overseas, “ke” is a person. Anyone who went south to make a living and later came home, or travelled back and forth between the two places, was called a fan ke. A trip home meant bringing fan goods — cloth, medicine, sugar, clocks, bicycles: all of them rarities.
What the sojourner brought back was not only things but money and a wider view. The remittance letters, the overseas-built houses, the overseas-funded schools all came out of that road.
When you see it
Strongest from the late Qing through the Republic and on into the middle of the twentieth century. The emigrant villages of Chaoshan and the exhibits in the museum of overseas letters are all about this body of people.
Words easily confused
Fan ke is the person, guo fan is the act of going, qiao pi is the letter and money sent back. Three words for three faces of one thing.
Read next: Going overseas: from Zhanglin port to the South Seas.
Same group: going overseas, the remittance letter, Zhanglin port.
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Last revised: 3 November 2026