Mail to China (2022 temporary suspension)

When sending to China I’m interested to know how many users write (or computer print) in Chinese characters instead of English. Is it a best practice to do both if possible?

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I tend to use both when available. USPS claims addresses need to be written in English, and I figure adding the Chinese characters makes life easier on the delivery end.

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There’s not enough room for both on any card I’ve ever sent, so I print out the Chinese only. In practice, I assume USPS ships the card out based on the English word CHINA and then China Post can sort it out on arrival?

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Usually I print them both out in rather small font haha. But your way seems logical to me. I assume it’s one of those things USPS says is necessary, but isn’t really. Like Air Mail labels :joy:

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USPS only needs the country name written in English and China post needs the complete address - so it is better written in Chinese, because the address don’t need to be translated in China.

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While that’s technically true, their (USPS) rules imply otherwise.


Source

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Interesting…I just print out the address in Chinese and have not experienced any problems

Had repeated countries off until card 8 today, then I turned it on:

29 of 57 cards are now travelling to China. It will be interesting to see, when the first card arrives.

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I always check the stats for countries I’m sending to. If the average days is around 30 or more, i mail in an envelope. It seems to help quite a bit. … Bob

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Ok, but be sure to check profiles as some members specify they prefer without envelopes.

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Just drew my second address for China for today, would do more of I wasn’t trying to conserve stamps :sweat_smile:

Yes, I understood to send mail in the US, the address needs to be in English, and then additional language can be added.
Heres what I do to include the address in both languages: When I print out an address in Chinese, the address in English prints out too, I choose a smaller font size before printing, usually 11 or sometimes 10 (it defaults to 12 when I print). I carefully trim with scissors to remove any excess paper, including removal of one of the country names China, so that China is only on the card 1x. I also trim the word Postcard off the ID portion, so it says only US-00000, and I affix the ID on the written note side of the card. If I feel like there is not enough space for both addresses, then I may also trim off the extra postal code too so it is only on the card once, since the numbers are the same.
I have not had any problems with overcrowding, and always have enough room for my note too.
On my next card to China with address in both languages, I can edit a photo with blocked out name and address and ID, to show how this works for me, and share photo here. Maybe this will help new members, since more experienced members and forum contributors sound like they already have a method that works for them.

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There’s no need to put the address in both languages on the card.
In whatever country you can only put the Chinese address on the card.
The only information your postal office needs is the country China and then the mail is forwarded to China.

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In addition to section “122 Addressing”, there’s also another clause in USPS’ International Mail Manual that addresses the case of “insufficient addressing”, which confirms the observation above.

431 Insufficient Address

If an item is improperly addressed, but the country of destination is legibly written, dispatch it to the exchange office. The exchange office will determine whether the address is sufficient.

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I just got my address in China, too - I think I shall practice my (admittedly, almost non-existent - HSK 1 completed only) Chinese :smiley:

I should be able to manage a sentence or two, although my characters will be huge, haven’t yet learned how to write them correctly and small :laughing:

Going to print the address, though - it would just take up too much space if I were to handwrite it.

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The statistics in 90 and 120 days will be really interesting to see! I wonder if we will see great regional variation or other variation in the cards received (either China or the sending countries). Very interesting!

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It used to be true that USPS required only the country name in English. Several years ago both USPS and the UPU changed the rules. Addresses must be at a minimum in Western alphabet and numbers (ABC, 123) in their entirety. If the destination country uses a different script (Chinese, Russian, Arabic) then that should also be included if it will help facilitate delivery.

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As with registration rates, similar statistics were provided in the update as of end of June 2022.

A year has passed, and now we’re able to have the final tallies.

Even though culumative curves like the example above may not be readily available, some simple numbers would still be helpful for us to look back at the suspension and throttling.

  • How many were sent to China in April 2022 and how many of those postcards were registered?
  • For the same period, how does the registration rate perform compared with postcards sent to other major destinations, such as Germany, the US, and Russia?

This may allow us to better gauge

  • Had the suspension been implemented earlier in April 2022, how many postcards would have been saved from non-registration within one year (hence cost savings, etc.)?

On the other hand, as we heard from field reports from China, the backlog is likely to have low priority for processing even after mail delivery is restored.

Also, I’m still curious to know more about the extra slot trial because I’ve been proposing the same thing for postally unreliable destinations.

Then this begs the questions:

  • Do we need another suspension if another massive delay happens?
  • Instead of throttling, are there any viable alternatives that keep a certain level of data flowing in as well as letting people choose not to send to that unreliable destination?

:exploding_head: Let’s just hope she has a good system to differ which card is to which account, or at least now keep only one account active. This is not hinting they couldn’t do it.

Some members have thought, when they come back to active, the addresses will be given normally/slowly, which isn’t true. Some are then annoyed getting tens of cards and finding the registering is a lot of work. To one account. I would talk about persistence, edit. even jokingly, only when they manage to register all the cards too :grin:,

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Full legal name?
I only provide my first name. Could this be the reason some of my swaps from US never arrive? :speak_no_evil: