A Post on the Post

Only recently I realized that my joy in mailing things is probably at a level that it would be appropriate to call it a “hobby”.

 

Some years ago, I started on a personal project to try to send at least one postcard to a friend every week. My motivation was simply that I have been lucky to cross paths with many people that I find interesting and am glad to have had the pleasure of spending time with. Yet my life has been relatively mobile in the past few years, and just as I have gotten to meet lots of people, I have also parted ways with them. Wonders of modern technology can lessen physical boundaries, but my ability to talk with people is easily saturated; it’s not reasonable to keep in touch with everyone.  Handwritten postcards are my compromise of “quality over quantity” for maintaining some interaction with friends far away.

 

This habit served to further my fandom of mail systems.  For the amount of times that the post office has mangled, misplaced, or taken forever with a package – there are so many other bills, advertisements, and all of those things that you don’t want but show up anyway, along with the things that you do want to get that arrive safely without any fuss. Each time I mail a postcard, I am amazed. I can pay someone a trivial amount of money to physically move an object from where I drop it off to be delivered to an address elsewhere, taking it on a journey that I can’t take myself due to money or time or simply being lazy. It’s pretty magical, and I’ve found it sort of addictive at times.

The Chungwha post office on the Cheng Da campus, and the usual line of folks using the postal ATM outside the door.
The Chungwha post office on the Cheng Da campus, and the usual line of folks using the postal ATM outside the door.

Little did I realize that I was coming to a country that truly utilizes its post office by living in Taiwan. And I’ll say this directly: I have a crush on the Taiwanese post office. The Taiwanese post office is a multi-functional organization, it is a reliable brand, and also a force to be reckoned with. Okay, maybe I am getting a little hyperbolic in my excitement, but the bottom line is that I rank the Chunghwa Post (中華郵政) as one of the most important institutions of daily life in Taiwan.

According to their website, the first incarnation of a Taiwanese postal service was back in 1888 – but big changes occurred when the Japanese took control in 1895. During the Japanese period, the post office expanded to include services that are usually associated with banks, such as saving money and handling pensions, but apparently they also even sold insurance policies. The logic behind this, as explained by my dad, is that as the government expanded its reaches to distant corners of the island, there would always be need for a post office. Thus it made sense to use the post office as an all-in-one provider of government services.

Here you can see the post office side of the office on the Cheng Da campus. Note the counter in the foreground which supplies forms as well  as red ink pads for stamping your seal as it may be required.
Here you can see the post services side of the office on the Cheng Da campus. Note the counter in the foreground which supplies forms as well as red ink pads for stamping your seal as it may be required.

I think the Taiwanese post office has cut back on some of the variety of services that it offers nowadays, but it’s still extremely important for both providing banking services as well as handling mail. I highly doubt that any fewer than 99% of Taiwanese citizens have postal accounts. Instructions for receiving my payment in Taiwan usually include something like “after getting your residency card, open a post office account so we can transfer money to you” – there is no mention that you might go to a bank when you could go to the post office (well there are plenty of banks, too, but everyone just starts with an account at the post office first).

This half of the Cheng Da postal office is devoted to banking services. Like any bank in Taiwan, the first step is to take a number, as distributed by the machine in the foreground.
This half of the Cheng Da postal office is devoted to banking services. Like any bank in Taiwan, the first step is to take a number, as distributed by the machine in the foreground.

Most post offices have a section devoted solely to banking services, which may be entirely separate from the area to deal with postal services. Part of the inspiration for this entry was when I recently walked into a post office, looked around, and realized that not a single counter would have helped me mail the box that I wanted to send or let me buy stamps. I was not alarmed or confused. I walked back out and looked around for the mail section of the post office – which turned out to be around the corner of the building only accessible by a different door altogether. And that’s just how the Taiwanese post office works sometimes.

This woman helped process my application for a post office account. Perhaps my infatuation with the Chungwha Post is that, like any institution in Taiwan, there is a lot of stamping of paperwork involved in any transaction (and I freely admit that I think stamps are awesome). I swear she had to stamp at each paper at least 3 times with all variety of things.
This woman helped process my application for a post office account. Perhaps my infatuation with the Chungwha Post is that, like any institution in Taiwan, there is a lot of stamping of paperwork involved in any transaction (and I freely admit that I think stamps are awesome). I swear she had to stamp at each paper at least 3 times with all variety of things.

As I mentioned before, Chungwha Post is also a comfortably ubiquitous brand. The colors of red, green and white are easily recognizable, and consistent country-wide. And while I can’t say that Taiwanese post office workers are necessarily friendlier than US post office workers, the variety of services that they provide, the cheaper rates to send mail, and of course their adorable friendly graphics make me feel like they care about me more. I’m infatuated, and I’ll be sad to leave this aspect of Taiwan behind.

Maybe I'm actually just a fan of the Chunghwa Post's graphic design, which I find adorable. For example, the boxes that they sell.
Maybe I’m actually just a fan of the Chunghwa Post’s graphic design, which I find adorable. For example, the boxes that they sell.
The post office is also always running various marketing campaigns, special deals for items that may but most likely are not at all related to the post office, and fundraising campaigns for various non-profit organizations. Here's a display case full of such items. Also, I have no idea how the English translation ended up that way - as far as I can tell none of the characters have anything to do with force - it really just says display case.
The post office is always running various marketing campaigns: special deals for items that may but most likely are not at all related to the post office, and fundraising campaigns for various non-profit organizations. Here’s a display case full of such items. Also, I have no idea how the English translation on the top ended up that way – as far as I can tell none of the characters have anything to do with force – it really just says display case.
This lovely billboard outside the post office is advertising how they can provide currency exchange services. In the corner is a mailbox. Green for local mail, red for air mail. As I was taking this picture, an old man walking by asked me if I understood what the sign said. Of course, when I replied that I did, it turned into one  of the exchanges of "wow, you foreigners are so incredible that you can Chinese characters..." and me saying something along the lines of "只要學就會了 (all you have to do is study)..."
This lovely billboard outside the post office is advertising how they can provide currency exchange services. In front, in the left corner, is a characteristic Taiwanese mailbox. (Green for local mail, red for air mail.) As I was taking this picture, an old man walking by asked me if I understood what the billboard said. Of course, when I replied that I did, it turned into one of the exchanges of “wow, you foreigners are so incredible that you can Chinese characters…” and me saying something along the lines of “只要學就會了 (all you have to do is study)…”

4 thoughts on “A Post on the Post”

  1. Did the lady who helped process your account application find it odd that you were photographing her while she was processing your account application?

    1. No, she actually didn’t notice because she really didn’t look at me very much. I did say that the workers themselves aren’t really much friendlier than American postal workers – just the institution as a whole seems to be more ready and willing to help.

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