I myself live in China now. Several cards sent by me were registered these days. But I didn’t receive any cards for a month. The Postal Monitor didn’t show any new information about the suspension of the mail delivery between China and other countries, and I can still mail card abroad. So my “sent” is 4 more than “received”.
How are your cards to China now? I believe that the mail could be delivered into China now if China Post didn’t put notice out. But if the mails couldn’t be delivered to receivers (maybe due to the “BLOCK DOWN”of someplace from time to time, or the post system just delayed the delivery of all the cards from abroad to every city), they will be expired too.
My city didn’t block down now. But if I know that the “couldn’t be delivered” thing is common to other users in China, I have to consider it to open the travel mode to avoid the expiration of the cards to me. It could be heartbreaking. Or what can I do?
10 posts were merged into an existing topic: Postcards to and from China
A post was merged into an existing topic: Postcards to and from China
hi!! In December 2021, I sent a postcard from Russia to Beijing. it arrived to the addressee in 32-35 days. In February, I sent 3 letters to China, while there are no news from them. but with Aliexpress, my untraceable parcels arrive in 10 days. I think that letters and postcards get stuck somewhere in sorting centers because of their workload (this often happens after the Chinese new year or after sales, my tiny parcel lay at the border for 2 months)
Dear @June060310 for myself I get rather quickly mail from China but from Germany to China… Puuuh, sometimes 55 days for a postcard… I think it is due to high anti-Covid security measures in China (one reason) and of course, due to partial lockdowns in China itself and some people falling out… Chinese postmen/women deal with very huge work (another reason) I am patient and hope all my cards and letters will arrive. I am already take pics of my mail so penpals SEE yes-she-sent… Of course I don’t mail pics of official postcrossing cards, there I only
Thank you!
I know the situation of the huge work our post carriers are facing. They usually delivered a bunch of my cards to me every 15-30 days before. But the pandemic becomes more serious in China these days and more cities than ever before are locked down. The policies to deal with the pandemic are changing every day in my school. (In 2021, even 2020, they didn’t.) Maybe the postal policies are also changing frequently these days? I don’t know.
People in China are nervous about international mails. I’ve searched for the situation of other receivers in China. Some of the cards are delivered, but treated by alcohol and stamped with a huge seal like “Disinfected” on the picture side. I am afraid that the local post office can even refuse to deliver my mails to my school due to the safety reason.
How sad all this and frustrating and shity shit… I understand all anti-covid measures but when I think that each card has been chosen very carefully, thought about words, stamps. Dito letters with mail-art envelopes and then delivered like having been in washing-machine perhaps… Yes… but OK, we have to go through. I am the type obstinate-marching-ant so I write steady on, without discouraging, thinking when only ONE of ten arrives it is much more than zero one. Even these bad times will be over one day.
Warm (vaccinated, boostered, desinfected ) hugs
Véronique
The last one I sent to China took a month and a half. but it did get there. I just sent one out to China today in the post.
Hope those stickers are easy to peel off
I think covid doesn’t spread through mails, and I’ve never heard about cluster of infection caused by mails. I think it has been debunked too. Unless the infection may come from the interaction with postie. But oh well, each country has their own policy and knows the best
A piece of quote from another post of mine is below.
“I can adapt to the situation that the cards with address of the Latin alphabet could be delivered slower, but I am nervous about the pandemic. Because the delivery of cards could be canceled, even destroyed without notice due to the safety reason.
In order to avoid the destruction of these lovely cards, I should consider it to open the travel mode, or take other action.”
So, if cards to me suffered this situation, I would be sad but I could accept. Maybe I will write a piece of text to the sender to apologize. Maybe I could even regard this as a special style of “travel scar”, though it is so…sad.
But if the cards were destroyed without notice, (or with notice…?), it could be worse.
According to the present policies, to keep the number of pneumonia patients zero is their most important thing. So everything that experienced a nucleic acid test and be seen like “positive”, can be destroyed easily, though I know those things are probably just inactive fragments of viruses. Many dogs and cats were killed before. I don’t know, what about cards?
I don’t know how to express my feelings. But I feel sad.
Yay, one of my postcards to China actually arrived:
Thank you for your information! But I still can’t receive any postcards though many people live in cities near mine received many cards these days.
My account is now auto-blocked (can’t send anywhere) because none of my cards to China have arrived since December 2021. In 2021, the only cards that arrived there were in January and December. It seems rather obvious this is due to pandemic measures as mail to China was always regular, if slow, before 2020, but since then it’s been nothing but issues.
I get that the concern is that users might discriminate and not send cards to certain countries, but if the mail always fails to real one country perhaps the problem is that country’s inbound mail and not users who dutifully mail postcards there?
The block message saying to wait until some of those expired cards get registered is the offensive part of all this. I sent the cards, the problem is not that they haven’t been sent off. Suggesting that I re-send (>$20 postage alone) cards that will obviously not arrive either is, again, just offensive.
I’m sure that if you contact the Postcrossing team, they can unblock your profile when you explain the situation. The block and the message are automatic so they can happen easily nowadays because the cards travel ages to China now… None of my cards to China this year haven’t reached their destinations either.
I hope so! Otherwise I will be waiting until the end of October for the first of these cards to time out at 365 days! Over this same six months, 301 cards have arrived at everywhere but China.
The algorithm prompting the blockages should be changed if eight cards can throw it off, particularly when those eight are to a country with a notorious postal system. I’m not even against sending new cards to these people one day (if a user is active, usually I will resend) but not if they’re as likely to arrive when I put them in a garbage can as into a mailbox.