You’ve got mail… from Wuhan!
WUHAN (CHN) - From Colorado in the USA to Telc in Czech Republic, from the Russian capital of Moscow to Yaoundé in Cameroon, the mailboxes – in the real world – are buzzing. At the CISM 7th Military World Summer Games (CWG), the lost art of letter-writing is being revived, one postcard at a time, thanks to China Post’s endeavor to encourage residents and guests at the Athletes Village to send letters within and without China.
A state-owned enterprise operating the official postal service of the most populous country in the world, China Post have designed special postcards and postcard albums to celebrate the staging of the first CISM Games in the country. These postcards and albums feature various emblematic Chinese elements such as the national flag, the Yellow Crane Tower, Guqin Terrace, the East Lake, the Yangtze River Bridge, and are available for purchase at the China Post booth, located at the Business Centre in the Athletes Village.
Other depictions on these postcards range from the venues of the 7th CWG – most famous of them being the Wuhan Sports Centre where the Opening Ceremony took place – to ancient Chinese art, including historical narratives in prose and drama centering on the Yuan era. One such celebrated play illustrated on a postcard album is The Orphan of Zhao, usually attributed to the 13th-century dramatist Ji Junxiang, and is known to be the first Chinese play to have been translated to any European Language.
According to China Post, within mainland China alone, over 1,500 postcards have been mailed from the Athletes Village between October 18-22, since the start of the postal service in the Village. More than 600 postcards, meanwhile, have been made their way out of the country during the same period, to places such as Colorado, Prague, Stockholm, and Budapest among other cities. Most postcards cost anywhere between 10 to 40 Chinese Yuan each.
“A bulk of postcards from our booth have been sent to the Netherlands and France,” said Wei Zhangchen, a China Post staff who works as a translator in the organisation’s booth at the Athletes Village. “As a rule, we never read the contents of any mail from our senders or receivers. However, from my interactions with some of the athletes who’ve sent mails from our office here, I can tell you that their messages mostly include, “Hi from Wuhan,” or some Chinese words the foreigners may have picked up here, such as “Ni Hao” (“Hello”, in Chinese) and “Xiexie” (“Thank you”). As a staff, it’s been an interesting experience working here, because it’s an honour for Wuhan to be hosting the Games, and I’m getting to interact with people from so many countries only into my third month as a China Post employee.”
In July this year, China Post had released four commemorative stamps for the 7th CWG. The stamps highlight four sports and disciplines included on the Wuhan 2019 Games programme – javelin, military pentathlon obstacle run, naval pentathlon seaman race, and formation skydiving – with the emblem of the 7th CISM CWG also featuring on them.
Spanish lifesaving athlete Sheyla Garcia Salvador, who is making her CISM CWG debut at the Wuhan 2019 edition, bought a set of postcards and a stamp from the China Post booth on Tuesday, and said she would mail them only when she returns to Spain.
"These postcards and stamps are great way of telling your friends and colleagues back home how cool Wuhan is,” Salvador said. “The diversity on view here at the Military World Games is very nice, and to witness it all in a country as big as China and carry these postcards encapsulating the essence of the Chinese people, back home is even more amazing. I will return to Spain and show these to my family and friends first and then mail out to some of my close friends and relatives.”
(Source: CISM Media and Communication Department - Journalist and Pictures: Ms. Annesha Gosh)
