Postcrossing Blog

Meet Iris from Hong Kong. Teacher and student who loves theater, books and much more!

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

A few years ago, I was looking to start new hobbies, which ended up being old hobbies revisited! I recalled my love of writing letters as a child and started seeking for penpals. While I was browsing the penpal site Interpals, I came across a profile that mentioned Postcrossing and naturally, I was intrigued. I visited the site and in a blink of an eye, I was hooked. I collected a few postcards as a child and used them to decorate my room, but I didn’t take collecting seriously until I came across Postcrossing. To this day, I don’t consider myself a collector. The person who’s sending it and the message on the back can sometimes mean more than the card alone. Blank, pristine, unwritten cards, even if they’re pretty or rare, are great, but what makes them truly unique are the words written on them and the sentiment they express, or the moment in time they capture.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

One of the greatest loves in my life, apart from my obsession with snail mail, is theatre. I have worked in a backstage capacity since I was 13 years old. Again, it was an instant passion; I loved it from the first moment I stepped on my secondary school stage. I really love the idea of helping craft a piece of art without being seen. In a way, a play or a musical is like a postcard. It has a time and a place. The character of a postcard comes from the inscription, and the setting is in the picture. Both tell a story.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

When I started postcrossing, I put my postcards in photo albums and stored them on the shelf.

But I realised I don’t like this, as I can’t touch or hold my postcards properly this way. I am just beginning to file and store them in a box.

I also have a CD stand by the side of my table which holds my most recently received postcards, which I haven’t filed away yet.

I am seriously considering investing in a proper rotating postcard rack, like the ones you find standing outside souvenir shops, so that I can browse through my cards at any time!

Here is my mailbox where I receive my mail and a photo of me posting some postcards.

Here is my local post office

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

This is the most difficult question to answer, since there are too many to choose from. I really love this Mona Lisa light switch cover card from Roelof in The Netherlands because it describes me to a T – classic with a touch of irreverence; serious and funny at the same time. I had such a good laugh when I received this card, and it still makes me smile.

Have you met any other members in real life?

We recently held the first ever Hong Kong Postcrossing meeting in August 2010, and eight of us met. It was really nice to meet other postcrossers in Hong Kong! Other postcrossers I have met are kasi0408 and Markus_from_Finland when I was in London in 2008. I was also very lucky to meet Ana and Paulo when they were visiting Hong Kong a few years ago!

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

I am passionate about education and literacy. I really believe that a formal education should not simply focus on forming the students’ ability to pass exams, but to equip them with life skills. I am a tertiary level teacher and I volunteer with the local chapter of Bring Me a Book, an international charity that focuses on making good books accessible to underprivileged children and encourages the strengthening of parent-child bonds through reading aloud. As a child, I read voraciously by myself and with my mother. I know this really helped form my character, as well as giving me a lifelong hobby and skill.

For someone that has ever participated in a Postcrossing meetup, he or she knows it’s always a very special event. From afar, no one would say that postcards could make such a strong connections between people. But as we know, they really do.

And that was very obvious this last weekend at the international Poscrossing meetup in the German city of Bielefeld. With an impressive participation of over 45 people – despite the very cold weather, it was a big success and everyone had a very special weekend meeting the faces behind postcards and the usernames they have become familiar with overtime. Smiles were plentiful and many are still claiming to have them, days after returning home.

There was something quite particular about this meetup – this time, everyone stayed at the same building for the whole weekend – some even called it a Postcrossing retreat. Whatever you call it, it was a fantastic time. With white landscapes everywhere, the popular Christmas markets and many many postcards and smiles – the hard part was actually to leave.

The participants came from many different countries: Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, UK, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and even from as far as Russia and Romania! And what’s more impressive, they all faced quite cold harsh weather to get there as large part of Europe has been covered in snow in the past weeks. Nonetheless, that was not a big problem for such a warming crowd which faced the below 0°C temperatures with a smile and headed to Bielefeld to be together and disprove the Bielefeld Conspiracy.

And because wherever there are Postcrossers, there are postcards, can you guess how many were written, signed and sent from this meetup? A grand total of 1250 postcards – can you believe that?! Bielefeld post must have had quite a surprise. And in our books that’s certainly a record!

But words don’t quite describe how great the spirit was on this meetup, so let’s try with some photos.

Haus Einschlingen, the place where everyone stayed during the 2 days.

Some serious postcard writing.

And some more…

The table with some of the postcards stacks to be signed.

The Christmas market visit and the popular glühwein.

And, of course, restocking on more postcards!

Who said you can’t play football when it’s snowing? (side note: the girls won)

The youngest, cutest and playful participant :).

Our postsnow-man.

And finally, a group photo.

We also want to use this opportunity to publicly thank nordbaer for organizing this meetup. It was fantastic and he did a great job putting it together.

Want to see more photos? You can find links for more at the forum thread of the meetup.

Karoly is an Hungarian living in Serbia and is admittedly addicted to collecting. He is 59 and during his life he started collections of a lot of different items, but he admits that postcards are his favorite.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I was just surfing the Internet and I found Postcrossing. It seemed to be very interesting and I gave it a try – I immediately got hooked!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Oh yes, a lot! I like nature walking, fishing, cycling, reading, visit museums, photography and, of course, collecting – and I collect everything! Some of the things I collect are: postcards, stamps, paper money, coins, beer/wine labels, books, pins, etc. My wife isn’t very happy about me collecting all this.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

On the photo below you can be see my mailbox in the background – that’s where I receive all my postcards. And in front is my daughter (she married last 10th of october!) and my granddaughter.

And below you can see part of my postcard collection – I have now about 10000 postcards.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

They are all so beautiful! I love that they don’t bring just everyday pictures but rather uncommon sights – special ways of seeing the world! Here are some of my favourites:

Our little mail carriers Paulo and Ana arrived in Taiwan after a little hiatus, and wow! They were delighted to discover the lovely city of Tainan by the hands of Shui, who filled their days with color and new experiences! Check out their beautifully documented journey below! :)

Hello from Taiwan!!! After a long break, we arrived at Tainan and prepare ourselves for the next adventure in this old town. It’s lucky that the weather becomes cool here recently and we don’t have to worry about our missing summer uniforms.

In the first few days, we took a walk around and found a small lane with beautiful old houses. The atmosphere there is so peaceful, and it’s hard to believe that there is a busy street just a few steps away. There are also some cute shops hosted by people who take these houses as a treasure from their grandparents’ time. On the other day, we joined the Holland Bike Day held around this time every year. People followed the footprints of the Dutch people here in the 17th century. Though most of the historical remains were destroyed, it is still fun to meet a city in this way.

We also got a chance to visit the fishing port in An-Ping, the origin of Tainan City. It is now a famous tourist spot for people to enjoy the afternoon seeing the sunset over the Taiwan Strait. On the train, we were on our way to Dungshan which is about 50 km far from the downtown.

Dungshan is famous for its coffee in recent years, and becomes a popular place to visit during the weekend. Most people drive there just to have a cup a coffee, feel the breeze and enjoy the view from the hill. Not only the coffee impressed us, but also the kind people there we met. An old lady even gave us a free ride to the bus station so that we didn’t have to walk downhill for over one hour. She also shared her interesting experience as an ice cream carrier!

One morning, the host’s mother brought us a bag of roselles. She happily showed us the fruitful result from her little garden on the top of the apartment. We helped removing the seed capsules from the fruits and waited excitedly beside the stove as they were boiled into delicious beverage. The host’s mother told us that this is the luxury that she enjoys in this concrete jungle everyday. How great it is to have a short break and taste the gifts from the nature.

Talking about the foods, we also have some fresh experiences here. Ba-wan is a common snack food in Taiwan, and is probably a nice choice when you feel hungry during the meals. See that stand with a lot of people sitting in front of ? As there are a lot of milkfish breeders and farms nearby, many people take milkfish porridge, mutton or beef soup as their breakfast and it already becomes kind of tradition here in Tainan.

Later on, we visited a spring roll stand to offer ourselves some vegetables, as you may notice that we didn’t eat any earlier! They made the spring roll right away as we ordered one. Therefore, we were able to see what they put in and how they make it into a beautiful roll. Another common way to fill your stomach in Taiwan is getting yourself a delicious Bento. Bento shops are easily found in the streets here, as most workers and students only have 1–2 hours break at noon and this is definitely a cheap and fast choice!

We also spent some time looking around in the city at night. The street art behind us is one of the most famous places in Tainan. The topic is about the memories of the wall. The artist uses the white lines to depict the rooms which might be in the past. As some of the old houses were pulled down during the extension of the road, the lateral of the houses inside were exposed on the street, and this gives artists a good reason to show their talents!

Night market is another good place to see and taste all kinds of local snack foods. In Tainan, the market place is empty in the daytime, but becomes crowded at night. Everybody there has their own secret maps in minds. Comparing with them, we totally didn’t know which stand to start! On our way back, we saw a crowd of people watching some kind of show in front of a temple. An audience there told us that this is the Taiwanese opera. When a temple has a festival, they usually invite one or more different groups to celebrate the event.

Some temples will also organize a parade in the street. Today we were so lucky to meet one here! See the wooden sedan chair? That’s where the main god sit. Every sedan chair was made by a skilled master. And maybe you are curious about those two big guys…we don’t really know which role they played, but that seems to be a tough work to wear a suit like that! They also told us that they have to walk in a special way to make sure that the long arms will swing naturally. That’s one of the most impressing events we saw for sure!

As mail carriers, one of the most important tasks we have is to visit all kinds of mailboxes in the world. Here you can see the mailboxes and the post office in Taiwan. Be careful! Not all of the post offices look green here. When we were pretending as local mail carriers, we also met a postwoman who is about to start her works today after the traffic light turns into green. She kindly shared some tips, and took a photo with us!

The last thing to do before we leave is to send a postcard home. Although we’re a little bit shy, we decided to make a postcard with a photo of ourselves on it this time. When we put the postcard into the mailbox, we were thinking about what it will feel like when reading the journey from us in the past. A postcard seems to be the best tool to connect the gap of space and time, while the ink stains on the seal recorded the tracks of every voyager passing by.

Desiree from The Netherlands. She read about Postrcrossing in a magazine and found it was exactly what she liked. She owns an entertainment called Alles Kids. Read more about her now!

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

A little bit more than a year ago I read an article in the dutch Magazine Flow. It described what I had done since I was 12 or so, writing cards, little tokens of friendship. But not only to friends now, this was worldwide! I loved how you can throw confetti of friendliness all over the globe!!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I collect – too much ! Almost everything … like: holy waterfonts, old Mother Mary statues (I’m not religious at all, but spiritual …yes!) fairy tale cards, vintage stuff, Medici Society cards, cards and cards … and CARDS! Also I am drawing Mandalas, and I’m always busy creating something out of nothing!

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

Dees mailing her cards.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

Yes very much so! At one point on the forum I had told that I was becoming Grandma. I was totally overwhelmed by the cards and even packages I received for my grandchild! I opened a thread then and it ended up in the “Welcome Baby Emma – album” In the end I had more then 100 babycards from all over the world! Emma’s parents were flabbergasted and overwhelmed by so much human warmth!

Have you met any other members in real life?

Yes!! The Dutch are very communicative … I have attended to 5 meetings last year. Real friendships have developped. I’m pretty active in the meet-ups myself! I organized the last meeting in Alkmaar. We went to the Dutch Headoffice of Art Unlimited. It was a super day, with almost 40 people attending the biggest meeting I think!!