I received CN-3385016 today. Even though the address was requested in July, the postmarks are clear and indicates it passed through the system on Oct 31. So, 30 days to the USA is not bad, after it was postmarked. What I can’t tell is if the card languished in the Chinese postal system for over 3 months before it was processed, or whether the sender delayed posting it for a while… Anyway, it was a nice card with great stamps.
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Does the system allow you to grant us an additional postcard slot for those already travelling to China 
or do we have to wait the full 60 days?
Oh, it seems all the mails, even if they are not for the students, are collected in University, not in post office and thought China is strange.
No! You have to wait
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Thank you for giving us a field report from Beijing!
Now we’ve seen three ways to deal with the postal route bound for China.
- Normal: Members are required to send a postcard to the drawn address no matter what.
- Suspension (mid-Jun through mid-September 2022): Members could not send to China.
- Throttle (mid-September to date): This is middle ground between a suspension and restoration to normal but alternatives exist.
So in relation to an earlier question and based on my understanding of how Postcrossing works and other observations, I still feel extra slots are a better alternative. Extra slots are separate from the normal slots, have a longer expiry period (say, 90 or 120 days) and are subject to more lenient penalties (in the case of expiry). Postcards sent using an extra slot, once registered, still count as one’s sent volume. A member won’t be worse off by opting out of extra slots. Here are my thoughts.
- Inasmuch as those who do not want to send to China (maybe due to budget constraints, etc.) got their way during the suspension, it is not completely out of the box to consider allowing those who do wish to do so.
- For the purpose of connecting people across the globe, it seems better to facilitate postcard exchanges than suppress them. Some people still want to send their regards to China through an official postcard (say, for serendipity) even though it is likely to take long, if not go missing. So why not give them the option to do so?
- The elephant in the room: How many of those postcards for China have actually been sent out? We never know and we shouldn’t bother either. However, under these unusual circumstances, it is prudent to assume providing senders with such flexibility will make everyone happier including senders and recipients.
- The system is able to adjust itself. Thresholds such as registration rates will continue to be used for monitoring and to determine whether China is put back to the normal pool or stays in the extra slot group.
- Extra slots complement the postal monitor which is based on official announcement by postal authorities. Time lags are inevitable, and in most cases they can be absorbed. However, we know it is not the case with China Post amidst so many other uncertainties.
- Extra slots have been trialed before. It did not go well last time mainly because it dropped on World Postcard Day and caused an upsurge in address requests, which does not apply here.
p.s. I’m aware that any deviation from exisiting or easy-to-implement practice would inevitably require a huge effort so I’m no longer requesting or expecting any change to be made. Just exploring how it will fare, and whether or not it is fair on the whole, if an alternative happens to be in place.
No, I think she means that mail sent to University students is kept at the University mailroom. But if people have graduated or left school they may not realize some cards are still being held there
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Living in Nanjing(capital of Jiangsu Province). I have just received my first official card travelling from Swistzerland in onlt 28 days.
CH-635771
I have also received several cards from other countries.
Those from Japan(Tokyo) and Singapore arrives in about a month.
The US(New York) one and Russian one take 44 days and the Malaysia one takes 46 days.
It seems the mail system of my city is performing better now since it took over 2 months for me to receive one from Russia.
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My only card to China sent since giving out addresses again was slowly resumed (aka throttling) expired a week ago - the recipient hasn’t logged in for three months … I wonder how often that’s happening for other postcrossers as well.
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I have one travelling to China for 71 days, so expired. At one point I checked this member, and they had not been online for 2 months, but few days ago I checked, and they had been online only few hours ago 
Normally I don’t much check like this, but it happens that members don’t come here anymore, but also they don’t come, if they don’t have anything to register, for example. You never know.
This helps to know. I have one traveling to China now from Hawaii and it’s been 25 days.
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I also found that postcard written with Chinese address arrives faster, so please write Chinese address if you could do so.
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A postcard I sent to China from the UK, just 27 days ago, was registered today. I know this isn’t most people’s experience, but I’m pleased. (And I wrote the address in English because I don’t have a printer. So top marks, in this instance, to the Chinese postal service.)
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It appears that mail inbound at Shanghai has been proceeded at high speed( I have some stucked at Beijing). According to my experience, mail from most European countries including UK sending to Shanghai and surrounding areas are transited to Frankfurt and sent to Shanghai. So it may be significantly faster to send to Shanghai region from Europe.
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I visited the post office today and the clerk told me that due to COVID in Beijing, a higher restriction has been acquired on mail coming in and out Beijing. Unfortunately, most of the mail travelling to China arrives at Beijing first. So there might be a significant delay.
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I haven’t been here updating latest situation for a few days. And here is the recent situation:
Weeks ago I received 9 cards at once, after receiving no card for a month. It was overwhelming though but still delightful.
Only one of them is an official card, but I have made some statistics. The card from Korea took 3 months, while another one from India took 80 days. Those from USA, Russia and Germany took about 60 days, which is normal and acceptable. Cards from Japan are the fastest, which took only one month (good for them!).
As for me I am satisfied enough with this pace (of course it would be better if the post office stop “postponing the deliver until there are postcards many enough”) and ready to receive more official cards.
However, we still need more statistics of more places to evaluate the situation. I am clear that the postal availability here is partial, while there is much more cities being locked down. I dare not to be too optimistic, but I still pray for the change and recovery of the whole country. 
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There’s two cards I sent to China, one in March and one in May, and I am starting to wonder if maybe they will never arrive, but I am still trying to be hopeful. I even sent them each a second card about two months ago too. One of them has not logged on in over five months so I don’t know.
I drew a new card to China last month, and was surprised. Maybe that card will arrive more quickly?
I cannot imagine how frustrating it is for those who live there and hope to receive cards when the mail is so slow or not delivering regularly.
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The situation to-day in Beijing! Banks, post offices and letter-boxes (!) still closed, as well as many shops. No mail was delivered for almost three weeks.
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Oh no. 
I heard from a friend there that they were planning to open things yesterday… I guess that didn’t happen after all?
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Some places are reopened, some offices that were open closed again… The situation is not the same in all cities. But I heard that public transportation is now accessible without a negative test result… I have not tried.Hopefully things will relax soon, especially so far as the mail is concerned…
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