It also depends on the postman. Although the address has been translated when they arrive in China, the postman don’t understand it will not deliver.
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Thank you @Juli_Smirnova, for the great tip!
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I try to always write the address in Chinese. It’s silly, but I want people to know they’re worth the effort.
I take the original address and put it into Google translate to see what the address translates to in my language. Then I write the address on the card in pencil to insure spacing. I use google translate again to insure the pencil address translates correctly then go over it with a fine tip sharpie. People seem appreciative that I hand write their address and the cards have always arrived.
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I’ve learned Chinese for a long long time so I always write addresses in Chinese when the option is given. My handwriting is clearly not that of a native speaker, but people often tell me it’s “cute” 
. For anyone worried they’ll make a line too long or something and dramatically change the meaning, I’d say you don’t need to worry that much: if you write Chinese without knowing it, it’s usually really obvious that you don’t understand the correct stroke order etc. and looks like you drew a picture rather than wrote but if you copied, the characters are probably even clearer than normal handwriting. Sometimes I see addresses written by native speakers for various swap groups and think “there’s no way that’s understandable”, but they always get there! So I can only think that the postal staff in China and Taiwan are experts in deciphering different styles of handwriting! (To be fair, I often think that of AusPost too!)
For what it’s worth, I’ve noticed no difference in travel times for addresses written in Chinese characters and Pinyin Romanisation — I think it’s largely luck.
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If I’ve requested a lot of addresses, I’ll print them all out and use the address in Chinese, except that “CHINA” has to be written in English. USPS reads addresses from the bottom line up and requires the country be written in English so they can route it correctly.
Otherwise, if I have enough time and space, and the characters don’t look too complicated, I’ll try to write in Chinese. Some addresses with lots of characters with lots of strokes take a long time to write. I think one took me close to an hour once because I was so nervous.
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@AspergerSadie when I have space on the card, I also put a small copy of their address in English. If I don’t have space to do that, I write it in Chinese (however poorly) and then add “CHINA” in English at the bottom, so the US sorter will know which way to point the card.
Btw, since I initially started this thread, I’ve sent about 8 to China writing it myself and most have arrived no problem. I had one that arrived there after a little more than a year. And two that were never registered, so I assume they got lost. One of them I replaced and it made it.
So overall - a success!!!
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Some examples
- 已 己
- 雎 睢
- 戍 戌 戊
- 亳 毫
- 千 干
- 申 电 甲 由
- 日 曰
- 人 入
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@difeifeifeifei Are these the same characters written in different ways? Like simplified version etc.
This reminds me of the postcards I’ve had in my cart for a while
Chinese characters that drive foreigners mad
@Kogotok7 they are similar looking characters, but mean very different things
For example, 千 means thousand, 干 means dry
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All the characters in each group are different characters.
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Is there a similar situation to a native English speaker with poor spelling, where some native Chinese speakers often don’t manage similar characters quite right?
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In my case I sometimes write the wrong character
The 候 in 时候 is supposed to have a stroke, but I sometimes end up writing it as 侯, which is without the stroke
候 (with the stroke) means waiting, and is the fourth sound (hòu)
侯 (without the stroke) is a surname, or generally means dignitaries. It can also mean marquis (侯爷)
It is the second sound (hóu)
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This reminds me I gotta be more careful in writing Chinese address from now…
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I know with numbers I sometimes have to work out if something is a “1” or a “7” because some countries hitch the one and some don’t. Also 4 and 7 if you get someone who (like me) crosses their sevens (old military habit in my case - I also slash my zeros).
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Programming habit too.
Personally, 1s are three strokes, 7s are four & 0 are slashed.
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I recently sent a postcard fully written in Chinese (address included), and it arrived without any issues. Sure, I first wrote it all in a paper to make sure I’d do each symbol properly and only then I wrote it on the card, and it has only been one time, but it arrived without problems
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I’ve hand-written all the Chinese addresses that I’ve drawn since last summer and had all three arrive although my handwriting is really bad. I write the address on a separate piece of paper and then stick that paper onto the postcard. My characters are still really huge. 
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I always write the destination country in French at the bottom of the address (and in parenthesis) no matter the country where I send the postcard.
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Hand-written sometimes have arrived but mostly get lost. It’s a hit and a miss kind of a thing. I have printed out Chinese addresses too and those still expired. I really would like to find a way to make sure our Chinese members get their due cards. I have a dozen traveling to China while about 2 dozens have expired. 
Some members add their phone numbers to the addresses but I’m not sure how helpful is that?
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I’m sure, when people from outside of China write addresses in Chinese, China Post staff give us a little grace when we make mistakes with the characters, like we do when reading English written by people from other countries, and I’m grateful.
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