Typical Postcard in Chinese

Joachim
July 01, 2007, 05:05 PM posted in General Discussion

What are typical phrases when writing a Chinese postcard? Do people write about the weather, the location of stay, missing your family or more about food, customs, hardships (nausea, health problems), cultural observations?

Do Chinese usually write postcards at all?? Or do they like a letter? Does a Chinese friend expect a postcard, a letter from your trip elsewhere or a gift on your return?

 

 

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bazza
July 02, 2007, 05:50 AM

Here you go. ;) http://www.ccuart.org/tragicomedy/archives/bjbaybc.jpg

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ivyzhang
July 16, 2007, 06:46 AM

Just write whatever u want to say on the left is ok. It depends, some people like postcards, some people don't like. I like the feeling of sending postcards from the place i visited to the people i love. if u wanna write the address without mistakes,u 'd better type it. like Bazza said, don't put China in english and write the post code.

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excuter
July 02, 2007, 09:09 AM

how about sending a postcard let´s say from germany to china. What would you have to do that it ever reaches the person that it is for (without giving it personally)? Is it enough to write the adress romanized (/romanised?) or do I have to write it all again in Pinyin (I don´t know any trad. signs)?

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bazza
July 02, 2007, 12:34 PM

I think if you write the address in characters and put "China" in English as well it should get there.

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italiana
July 02, 2007, 10:34 PM

Would this format work if I wanted to address an envelope: kun lun lü yuan Road Name Country, Province 000000 PRC Or should I put it all in hanzi? My penpal email his address to me but if I write it in hanzi, I am afraid it will not be acuarate enough. Pinyin or hanzi? ~Italiana

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sunmun
July 02, 2007, 08:26 AM

cool. what a graceful word there. hey, man, all the reason you want write a postcard were that you want to show your care and greeting to someone right? so all that just up to you. you can write whatever you want to write and whatever you think. those who recieved your postcard would know your heart for sure.

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Joachim
July 15, 2007, 07:40 PM

How about sending postcards to Chinesepod from wherever you stay on vacation? Their address in English reads as follows: Praxis Language 3/F, Bldg 4, 751 Huangpi Nan Rd Shanghai, China, 200025 In Chinese this should be: Praxis Language 黄陂南路751号4号楼3楼 上海市,中国,200025

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tvan
July 16, 2007, 12:43 AM

Joachim or Bazza, I've seen a couple of posts (one here to Bazza, the other involving Azerdoc) mentioning (in a vaguely critical manner) that the characters in their posts were traditional. No big deal, but is this a faux pas on this website?

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KennyK
July 16, 2007, 03:27 AM

I'm always afraid to send mail using pinyin... i just don't think it's reliable. i think most places have an "official" pinyin version, but it's difficult to know which one is correct... for one example, there is a city named 淡水 that is sometimes written "Danshui" and sometimes "Tamsuei"... i have even seen both versions on city street signs and maps... so confusing!!!

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KennyK
July 16, 2007, 03:32 AM

As another example of my previous post... my street name in chinese is 中山路... which according to "pinyin" i believe should be "Zhong Shan" road, right? However, the people at the post office told me it's officially "Jung Shan" road... fortunately my mail always gets to me and that's all that matters i guess... but i really wish there was a universal standard to use.

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Joachim
July 15, 2007, 07:23 PM

excuter & italiana: Writing the address with transliterations (Pinyin) works quite fine. You have to use a postcode which makes live easier for anyone involved, too. Nevertheless, you should not forget things like block#, appartement#. When living in China everything was delivered to me quite perfectly. You only have to pick up parcels at a post office near your - and for that have to figure out where it's at. AND: You need ID to have parcels handed out to you, but you need a passport in China anyway. Characters might help, but I'd personally fear that I'd muddle something up. italiana: Your penpal could email you his/her address in the correct format to later print it out and either copy it manually or glue it to whichever postcard you want to send. Bazza: This postcard is in tradtional characters! And the postcode is missing. :-)