The Post Office

Another four-some adventure spawned from my first outing with Bob, Lorraine and Shaw. On our cab ride back that evening I remarked I hadn't seen any post cards in Wuhan. "They're all at the Post Office," was the reply. Interesting. Bob offered to introduce me to the China Post, or the Chinese Post Office, and from that our Weds event of lunch and the Post Office adventure spawned.

Compelled to deliver on my promise to send my mother a post card from China, I have to go on record as saying, there is absolutely zero possibility that I would have accomplished this task by myself...it took all four of us: Bob, Lorraine, Shaw and me. Clearly, we've acclimated to the collectivist culture and realized one can't accomplish anything as an individual...it takes a group.

In our pre-Christmas visit, we were told--as had several of our colleagues--that the US Postal Service wasn't accepting any mail from overseas until after the Christmas rush. It's a good thing I'm not in a hurry! Arriving at the China Post building I wandered over to where a woman stood with a variety of post cards...they had New Year's greetings and featured a handful of Wuhan sites. After pushing my way to the counter, I learned I needed to grab and count what I wanted, never mind who is standing there. I did so and gave the postal worker the proper amount of RMB for the financial exchange.

Then, on to the stamp windows. After popping into all five of the open windows, with Shaw's help--and some time--we were able to figure out the proper window and how many stamps I needed--5 if you don't count the one already printed on the post card. Much discussion followed between the three of us--Shaw, the postal worker (them in Chinese) and me since I couldn't understand how much to shell out of my wallet. We finally figured it out and there's no way I would have had a successful China Post visit without Shaw's assistance.

Over lunch we--the 4 of us--examined the logistics of where to place the stamps. In China the options are more open vs. the US where they are more limited. We finally arrived--after trial and error--at a good place where Shaw felt the Chinese post office would accept my stamp design and where the the three of us Americans thought the US Post Office would too.

Of course, now I have to find a post box...which, I'm sure, will be another adventure!