The fact that Chinese love stamps, forms and registration is, I think, known to everybody living in the West. Take for example the guy who comes by to swap out your water bottles. The average Chinese nowadays has one of those water coolers in his room with one of those 15 liter (4 gallon) bottles on top of it to supply him with the necessary drinking water. Only these devices have 2 taps, one for cold and one for hot water, because the Chinese, and especially people in the west of China, believe that the body temperature will drop to much when consuming cold water, which is unhealthy. So he will drink warm water. This custom originates from traditional Chinese medicine and is still being practiced today.
From this guy, who brings the bottles, I’ll buy a sheet of coupons that look even nicer and more complicated than the food stamps from the second world war. All have 4 beautiful red stamps because they love stamps. Twelve coupons on a sheet together with 48 stamps, good for 12 bottles of purified drinking water. Cost: 1 Euro (currently $1.30) per coupon including home delivery. Every time the guy comes by to deliver a bottle I hand him one of these coupons. Here comes the weird part.

When I get on the city bus I have to pay with exact change and usually there is nobody to hand it to. In the front of the bus there is some kind of collection box with a slit in the top where you can put your money in. Sometimes it can even be an empty soapbox, I think it depends on the drivers creativity. Next to it is an electronic card reader for when you have a bus pass, hold it in front of it and you’re done. One yuan per ride, about 10 eurocent ($0.13). Some are more expensive, 2 yuan. The driver will of course keep an eye on it but he basically drives the bus and opens and closes the door. Considering the traffic in China this will need his full attention to bring the trip to a happy end, more about this some other time. Here there are no receipts, hole punchers, stamps and who knows what. On some of the buses there is an extra woman but she usually finds it too much work to hand out receipts. She only calls out the name of every stop and she will also yell to the people waiting at the bus stop the destination of the bus so they can decide to get on or not. Not that they need this information since the bus-stops here are just as modern as our (Dutch) bus stops. But this way the woman proves she can’t be missed and this provides her job security. Also more about this some other time.

The other extreme is the post office. To send a letter you will have to go to the correct counter and show your open letter. Here it will be weighed and with an abacus it will be determined how many stamps are needed. Note, the computer stands next to it. Stamps are taken out of a grimy box and laid on the envelope. After that, the total amount of the stamps will be computed with help of the abacus. This total is compared with the previous amount. When it’s correct they’ll write out a very small receipt and everything is handed back to you. Now you’ll have to go to the glue table where you’ll close the envelope and stick on the stamps. There is no glue on the envelope or the stamps. For that you will use glue jars, some kind of dispenser with a wheel and a glue reservoir. After you’re done you’ll go back to the counter and try to hand the letter back. I said “try” because Chinese have never heard of standing in a neat line. The one with the longest arm wins, even if he stands behind you, he’ll try to reach over you to hand in his stuff. A good way to deal with this: kick backwards. If you’re lucky you’ll letter will be post-marked next. This is done very accurately and every stamp is being checked to make sure it has a readable postmark on it. You’ll understand that it takes some time to mail a letter. There are no high value stamps. So when mailing a letter internationally, the whole envelope will be covered in stamps.  When sending packages you will follow the same routine only at a different counter. Here the package will also be checked and then taped, tight or nailed shut. There is only one clerk so this also will take the necessary amount of time because every step is being done very seriously and with care. After this is done you will have to fill in a mailing label which needs to be stamped and then your package is ready to be send out. In China you go to the post office for the afternoon.

 back to first page

Print