What seems to be ignored here is that China Post itself has made it clear they are discouraging new mail while working on all the old mail they never delivered.
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Exactly.
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When was this card sent from Japan? I suspect your problem is that there are cards from April and May that have arrived in China, but not yet delivered by China Post. You may see the more recent foreign cards arrive soon if they are working on clearing the older ones slowly.
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Some of your cards arrived before this suspension took place, so you probably have some cards on the way to you and will receive them when China post deals with backlog.
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You already answered your own question; you have sent many cards but received nothing… That’s the answer, mail to China isn’t arriving or arriving very slowly. Read Paulo’s opening message, he’s explaining this issue well there.
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I think that is a good idea!
First of all, contributors to the the topic about mail suspension alerts are doing an excellent job of keeping the Postal Monitor updated, which applies to origin-desination pairs. However, due to lack ot information from respective postal services, the Postal Monitor may not, and is not intended to in the first place, reflect the actual situation of postal routes or travel times.
Now let’s divide destinations into 4 categories. Whether a destination is common or rare depends mainly on the numbers of users and postcards sent. Postal reliability depends on mainly the registration rate.
- D1: Common, postally reliable destinations
- D2: Common, postally unreliable destinations
- D3: Rare, postally reliable destinations
- D4: Rare, postally unreliable destinations
Also, divide one’s quota into two categories. There are multiple ways to allocate types of destination but now let’s consider one case.
- Q1: Normal quota for D1, D3 and D4
- Q2: Extra quota for D2
The number of slots Q2 will be set according to some rules, similar to the current quota increment rules. In addition, different and probably more lenient rules in relation to user deactivation (say, maximum number of allowed expired sent postcards Sx) may also apply. Once a common destination falls short of certain predefined threasholds, it will be moved to the second category.
In this case, the sender can choose whether to send to Q2 destinations and thus can afford greater peace of mind.
Further on the special case of “rare” origins, the address assignment mechanism itself does not differentiate between new and old users, so at least one incentive (to game the system) is removed. Lumping “rare” destinations into the first category is just based on the assumption that they are so rare that people wouldn’t care about their postal reliability.
Technical difficulties and priority issues aside, these revisions seem to be fair across the board and compatible with the Postal Monitor, and moreover, likely to enhance user experience.
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Now that the future of China user group rests entirely on the batch of postcards sent between mid-April and mid-June, let’s hope that Postcrossing is not cornering itself into a bailout or lifting the suspension prematurely which in turn will cast the necessity of the suspension in doubt. As long as postal services across the world are still accepting postcards to China, individual users are in good place to decide whether to send a card there. In this vein, a second category of slots for postally unreliable destinations seems to make sense and also enables continued monitoring of the delivery situation.
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Is the situation generally getting better? I had one of my expired cards to China arrive after 89 days of travel, and I see other people had their cards arrive too!
On what criteria will you consider that the temporary ban can be lifted?
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Actually I joined many forum games in June.This month I received lots of postcards sent in June.
Apparently the postal service is resuming, I think Paulo can see the background data.Let’s wait patiently.
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My expired postcards to China(on another website) have been delivered one by one. The travel time ranges from only 57 days(from Korea to Beijing) to more than 130 days(to some cities in Guangdong and Shanghai). Apparently the situation is improving slowly 
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I have finally taken the trouble to read through all that thread…Almost got a headache, but sorry to say that this whole “affair” sounds to me nothing more than a storm in a teacup ,and I was often reminded of the famous words of the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tze "
“He who knows does not speak
He who speaks does not know”
Mind you, quite a few participants and the administrators offered very sensible and, to my eyes, convincing explanations for the sorry situation. I live in Beijing, and all through May almost no mail from outside the country was delivered, and it was very obviously due to the upheavals caused by the fight against covid in various parts of the country. Since then, it has slowly trickled back, most of what arrives has taken between six weeks and six months.
But let me add an important point!!!Since the pandemic started in early 2020, there have been , all over the world, hindrances to the smooth flow of international mail, and I did notice some wide differences in the incoming and outbound mail, according to the country (and sometimes the part of the country) it came from or was sent to. Just to give a few examples, for most of 2020 and 2021, mail with Canada was taking at least six months each way, when it made it… Right now, I notice that the mail to/from some countries still takes at least three months (the Netherlands, sorry to say), or does not arrive at all. As for France, mail sent from some cities arrives here within three-four weeks, while when sent from other cities it takes up to three months or never arrives.
My point is that, if the Chinese postal service has undeniably been suffering from the fall-out of the covid restrictions (especially the stopping of many air links with the outside), part of the problem should also be recognized to be due to dysfunctions of the postal service in OTHER countries.
I was sorry to read many posts in this thread that were expressed in a very “entitled” way, hardly polite, and sorry to say considering my age! I will get the flak… childish and, even worse, self-centered. I am afraid we are nowadays, everywhere, a bit too ready to cry discrimination, racism and whatever “phobia” is currently fashionable in some communities or age group, without trying to read what is written and try to understand that other persons may have more knowledge and experience and do not take decisions lightly. Hence my Lao Tze quotation, and my agreement with everybody in this thread who mentioned the “vocal few” and the “silent majority”…
May I also add that for everybody who is interested, like I am, in postcard swapping and other forms of friendly correspondence (and I have done these for “only” 65 years (no kidding), our current world is very disappointing. Maybe hard to believe, but back in the 1960s and until the 1980s, even a bit later, not only was international mail travelling much faster but it was possible to have pen-friends and postcard-pen-friends in almost ALL countries of the world, including very remote and almost unknown ones…Things are no longer what they were…This being off-topic, I will only mention it in passing…
So I feel we are still rather privileged to be able to do some exchanges through such a platform as postcrossing, that, all in all, works rather smoothly and efficiently, but please do not expect Paulo to use a magic wand and solve the world problems that are causing some inconveniences (and are definitely none of his doing!!!). Thanks to you all and keep smiling!
Sorry I have been so long-winded, and if I have unwittingly given offense to anybody, it was NOT intended and I do apologize.
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Just yesterday they said on the news that there is outbreak of Covid in China and some major cities are going into full lockdown again.
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So sad to hear this…
I today received a card sent from China 22nd April 2022 !
Hopefully all will catch up soon.
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I think maybe someone can update the data, so we can see a hope. For I have received cards sent around the end of May, is that means we are back to normal.
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Some statistics - in the four weeks following June 30, 9600 cards were registered by postcrossers in China. In the same period 14652 cards sent from China were registered. The difference between cards sent and cards received as at June 30 was 134697. Four weeks later the difference was 140020.
I wonder how many cards going to China will have to be registered before things go back to normal? Some good news though, yesterday 577 cards made it to China, the most in one day since I have been recording their arrival.
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Chinese users will receive fewer and fewer postcards over time under the block of Postcrossing. And these postcards are sent before China was blocked. As a result, China’s statistics will get even worse. Less postcards, more travel time…so the Postcrossing team can block China for longer.
I can’t believe that this the purpose of the Postcrossing offical?
If the status quo of the Postcrossing does not change, helpless Chinese users will have no choice but to use other postcard platforms.
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The statistics will get better once all those sent cards arrive in China. Since many of those cards expired and addresses went back to the pool, it’s likely that users will receive even more cards than they were due based on their sent cards.
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This is true.
And many of us are very much looking forward to the time when we will be able to send postcards again to users in China. We just need to wait patiently for China Post to deliver those postcards already in the system. Once that happens, the block will be lifted. @Cinher
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Using another postcard platform wont get your postal employees to process and deliver mail any faster. The problem seems to be your postal system, not with Postcrossing’s computers.
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The postal system is normal — at least, in many areas. And this is beyond doubt judging from the feedback from other Chinese users. But, The scope of the Postcrossing suspension is almost the whole of China. And the time limit is unacceptable for us.
Yes, it won’t get it faster (because, as said, it is normal). But it gives us the right to receive cards normally.
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