Of the cards I’ve sent to China this year, 6 have arrived and 12 are still travelling. Out of these 12, 6 already are expired, and the others are travelling over 30 days already. My last card that reached China (of the ones I sent this year) was sent on Feb 27th and needed 31 days to get registered.
I received 58 cards from China that were posted this year. Most were sent at the end of January and in February. (I had a huge backlog of more than 500 cards since my account was inactive for three months because I moved to another city. Only very few cards arrived at my old address after that period and they were forwarded to me.)
On the profile of one of the recipients of the already expired cards (travelling 79 days) I found this message today:
“NOTICE: there’s currently an indefinite halt on international mail to and from China for pandemic reasons. If you sent me a postcard that expired, message me the ID and I will register it.”
She lives in Hangzhou.
Like @June060310 posted last month, there seem to be many local restrictions and delays. It is difficult to get a clear picture what’s going on where and for how long…
Chinese addresses are sooo long and literally all of my postcards to China are expired…maybe like 1 or 2 made it there…I read somewhere that posts arrive faster to its recipient if the address is in Chinese but ain’t no waaaaayyy I could write in Chinese, I’ve tried doing it on blank piece of paper but it was a total fail
I’m not suggesting you should own a printer. I’m just explaining what people mean when they say to write in Chinese characters. I don’t think anyone’s expecting you to physically write in a different alphabet with a pen.
If more than a billion humans can do it, I am sure you can do it too. It’s no rocket science, it’s drawing by numbers (in no way I wanna sound disrespectful, that’s just the way I do it, stroke by stroke by stroke).
Yes, the adresses can be long, that’s a challenge - still, the script itself can be copied with some time and patience.
Actually, I have handwritten Chinese addresses for couple of official cards. I confirmed with Chinese PC friend, if my writing was ok. She said it seems decent for a non-native. Let’s see, any of those cards reach
I wasn’t suggesting there is anything wrong with handwriting Chinese addresses. It’s great if you want to do it. I was responding to the person who felt like they could/did not want to do that. I was saying it is not an expectation that people do this and that, if you want to use Chinese characters but are uncomfortable writing them, you can always print them.
I like to do the same: confirm before sending anything (usually for a direct swap) that my script is legible for delivery. The responses are always so gracious, even if I think my writing is garbage.
I want to give credit to the mail carriers in countries with non-Latin alphabets for going above and beyond the scope of their normal work to act as forensic detectives when I mail things. Not once have I been charged with crimes against the Chinese language, although I should be.
I have some cards from English speakers with the most terrible writing. I couldn’t even make put the zip code. Thankfully, people at Indian Post have developed 6th sense for reading the addresses.
@littlesthobo I think we are on the same page. No one is supposed to write an address in a foreign language, unless they are comfortable writing that script or have a printing system. But, for once, I wish people tried to write, at least with Russian it isn’t that hard.
I agree it’s not so easy to do if you are not a native speaker.
This is an example of an address in Hindi, more than half a billion can write it, but doesn’t make it easier for a non-native to write. It also makes me realize that while I call Chinese complex, my language isnt’ any simple either.
मनीष कपागते,
छात्रावास 15, कमरा 12,
पुराना परिसर, ’
अहमदाबाद बिजनेस स्कूल,
वस्त्रपुर 380015,
गुजरात, भारत
I sent an official to China on 7th November and it arrived and was registered 27 days later. A few of us have received Chinese addresses through the autumn.
We have been giving addresses in China since September, but at a slower pace while we gather data on how things are progressing.
Mail from China has been relatively unaffected — the issue we have been following this year is regarding mail to China. We all the updates about this are on this topic.
Not once have I been charged with crimes against the Chinese language, although I should be.