Thank you @PinkNoodle for this very interesting, enjoyable and thoroughly educational post. Imagine what the world would be like if everyone in the world was as curious and interested in written language as everyone in this thread has been.
2 Likes
I’ve received few cards with my Traditional Chinese address, I think these are cute, the first one I’ve received was from a German and one of the characters was too hard to write I assume that he didn’t finish it, really cute haha
2 Likes
He got tired halfway through, maybe? 
I’m always afraid of omitting parts of a character myself!
No, it was the second character, the rest of them he did well!! But I’ve drew a postcrosser who only leave the Czech address and there was another one who only leave the Russian address, I thought I did them really bad
1 Like
Probably not! I’m sure you did just fine. 
Even if letters look funny sometimes (mine do), postal services interpret all kinds of handwriting, and still manage to deliver the mail!
1 Like
Yes, I think that, too! They’re really good at recognize all kinds of handwriting!
2 Likes
that is smart for any asian country i am taking Japanese it is easy at some points but its hard righting the letters
I love it as well as the “stolen” font! 
It’s a little impractical for me right now, though, mainly because it takes extra time and effort, haha. I’d enjoy giving it a go one day… I do have tracing paper on hand. 
I just copy by eyeing it, but to be fair, I took some Chinese classes back in the day (wow… I’m not as old as that made me sound) so it’s mainly just writing practice for me. My main issue is trying to get the address in English and Chinese to fit!
1 Like
Recently, for the first time, I tried copying a Chinese address by hand, without using a ruler or tracing paper!
I was terrified the entire time of messing up (especially the recipient’s name–that’s the last thing I want to look sloppy), but it turned out okay! 
Still, I was tempted to go back to tracing.
2 Likes
Congratulations!! 
Yes… I get borderline nervous as well, haha. I don’t want to deal with white out/correction tape and make the address look all messy. Especially their name! 
I did use a fine nib and the address turned out well on my most recent attempt, so yay.
I think I’ll try your method the next time I’m given an address to a Chinese-speaking country, just for fun. 
1 Like
Hi everyone!
I think that China Post didn’t widely use machine to classify the mails now. So to a person, it’s easy to read addresses in Chinese break in anywhere, since Chinese addresses didn’t break at all.
For example, when we write“广东省广州市天河区”(Tianhe District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province) , it is actually like “guangdongprovinceguangzhoucitytianhedistrict”. But everyone, who could read Chinese, can break it like “广东省 广州市 天河区” easily. So even if you break character and character in random places
(like
“广东
省广州
市天
河区”),
they can still recognize it easily.
When I send letters to friends in China, I always just write them in order and break to another line when this line is full.
But,don’t break a character!
If you write like
“广东省广
州市天氵
可区”,
it will be confusing!
7 Likes
I’m actually afraid to write an address in Chinese as I understand that getting one single stroke wrong will ruin the whole thing. “Where is Great Pig Street?” “What are these ‘Mud Building’ apartments?”
There are addresses in ethnic minority autonomous regions, which are transliterations from non-Chinese languages and therefore fairly long. Even this cheater’s way may become more laborious 
1 Like
WHY all the effort when in the end you’re using a sticker anyway? 
There are stickers you can print on directly…
Consider the old-fashioned method with a pencil.
1 Like
Same reason for me not to try to write Cyrillic addresses.
By the way, the postmen don’t have the responsibility to deliver every postcard according to the present laws in China. So they could give up easily when recognizing a confusing address. So if you are not confident about your handwriting addresses, just print them.
1 Like
First of all, this is all meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I never said it was low-effort; only that it’s cheating.
I now write Chinese addresses the normal way for a Westerner: by sketching the characters faintly in pencil, then tracing with a pen, being careful not to ruin them with my tears.
Second, not everyone has a printer or label printer at home. Whatever method you use to write your addresses is fine. I just figured someone could get a laugh out of my unnecessarily complicated process.
This made me laugh; thank you. Also, thanks for the clarification about line breaks!
1 Like
Thank for you sharing that show me how hard the Chinese writing it is
After watch that , I very want receive your hand write postcard with my address ,but pity is deliver has been banned
1 Like
Oh, don’t be discouraged! I think that only parcel service from the US to China is suspended at the moment. I believe that regular letters and postcards can still arrive to most cities (except those under strict lockdowns).
I recently had a parcel returned to me as undeliverable after I sent it to a friend in China; I feel so sad to see my little box waiting to leave again…
But as far as I know, US-China mail is still functional for cards! (I hope!)
1 Like
Oh, I found this a day too late Yesterday I got an adress in Taiwan and was a little confused, that the five rows of adress were going down to three in the native signs. I printed out this quite big, because it looked so small that I am feared, its not enough for the postworker there
Next time I try handwriting it, cyrillic adresses are not such a big problem, one by one and not getting bigger
1 Like
I’m guessing that they were traditional characters, too, which can be very complex!
I think that in general, recipients in any country are grateful for whatever method you use to address their postcard, whether you write it yourself, print it, trace it, lithograph it, etc. As long as the card arrives, you’ve made a happy connection with another Postcrosser. 
1 Like