中國

Here is a personal FDC from China sent from Shanghai on 03.07.2010.
The cover has the 2v set issued to showcase the ruins of the Loulan Ancient City (楼兰古城遗 址).

Loulan or Kroran is an ancient oasis town on the north-eastern edge of the Lop Desert. Loulan, known to Russian archaeologists as Krorayina, was an ancient kingdom along the Silk Road. In 108 BCE, the Han Dynasty defeated the armies of the Loulan kingdom and made it into a puppet/allied state. The kingdom became integrated into the Han Dynasty and was given the Chinese name of Shanshan, though the town at the northwestern corner of the brackish desert lake Lop Nur retained the name of Loulan. The ruins of the town of Loulan are on what were the western banks of Lop Nur, now dessicated, in the Bayin'gholin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang. The site is now completely submerged in the desert

The stamp on the left shows the 佛塔 or Pagoda, and the stamp to the right shows the 三间房 or the three walled sections.

China 中國

中国 - France Joint Issue

Here is a nice cover from Guangzhou in southern China with the 1998 2v France-China joint issue set.

The French design, on the left, shows the Louvre, and the Chinese design, on the right, shows the Palace museum, located at Tiananmen Square. At the moment, the Palace museum is still being renovated and this is also the reason why I was not able to visit the museum when I was in Beijing in October last year.

中國機場-再!

Here's another post about Chinese airports. I just can't enough of this issue! Hahaha. Maybe it's because I was in two of the three airports almost right after the stamps were issued! Anyway, here is another FDC (the same kind as my previous post), but sent by an exchange partner. And here are also some maxicards for this issue. I wonder if these maxicards were really postmarked at the respective airports.... The cancels seem so perfect and uniform! Nonetheless, these are undeniably cherished additions to my specialty collection of airplane stamps!

Malaysia, 中國, and 대한민국

The Korean Government declared 2007 as the Year of Biology in hopes of stimulating interest in the basic life science among the Korean people. It launched many events such as the "BioFestival" scheduled to be held nationwide, a "Special International Exhibition on Biotechnology and DNA/Mutation," "Biology Merges with Culture," conferences, symposiums, and lectures aimed at general public, and others. In this light, Korea Post also played its role by issuing an S/S seen in the cover below.

The S/S, issued 19 March 07, shows, in silhouette, chromosome and DNA, together with a sunflower, green frog, brown-banded butterflyfish and stag beetle. Appearing on the background of the small sheet to show animal lineage (origin and evolutionary process) are paramecium and euglena, hydra, squid, earthworm, butterfly, starfish, fish, salamander, turtle, crane, eagle, Jindo-dog, and the human being.

As we all should know, biotechnology such as medicine and, most recently, GMOs and cloning are all possible because of this discipline and, as such, it is just right that we devote more time and effort into developing it so that it can help us help each other.

This next cover sent from China actually took a very long time to get here! I noticed that the stamps were chopped on 13 April and the cover arrived 10 June! Perhaps the sender decided to send it via surface mail? But the postage on the cover amounts to RMB 3.5 and regular air mail costs only RMB 4.5. So I wonder if it was worth a wait of two months just to save RMB 1 (USD 0.15)?

Anyway, like I said in my previous post, I cannot understand Chinese so I really have no information regarding these stamps. The most striking of the three for me is the middle one, which I take celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China and the world's largest political party. Its paramount position as the supreme political authority in China, while not a governing body recognized by China's constitution, is realized as the supreme power through control of all state apparatus and of the legislative process. The CCP was founded in 1921, and came to rule all of mainland China after defeating its rival the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War. The party's 70 million members constitute 5.5% of the total population of mainland China.

The other stamps, the one to the left, most probably illustrates the ushering in and/or celebration of the coming of the year 2000. The children seem to be doing the new year dragon dance iconic of the Chinese new year. Perhaps this stamp shows a piece that won a contest for youth drawing?

The stamp to the right depicts something about Chinese culture - exactly what I do not know.

This last cover is an FDC of the St. John Ambulance in Malaysia Centenary. The St. John Ambulance, better known as "St. John," carries a name synonymous with First Aid and other humanitarian services in Malaysia as well as all over the world. As the leading First Aid organization in Malaysia since 1908, the St. John Ambulance of Malaysia (SJAM) has been rendering First Aid and Home Nursing services to the needy in almost all public and private events throughout the country.

To celebrate 100 years of this organization's presence in the Malay peninsula, Pos Malaysia issued a 3v set in 2007.

The set show picture of the ambulance in action. The 30-sen stamp shows the Emergency Ambulance Service vehicle; the 50-sen stamp shows a demonstration of First Aid; and the 1 Ringgit stamp shows an attempt at Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, or CPR (the stamps says, "Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation, which is wrong because Cardiopulmonary is one word).

Speaking of words, an interesting piece of trivia to know is that the word "Ambulance" finds its roots from the French "(hôpital) ambulant," which literally means "walking hospital."

I'm Back!

Hello again! Did you miss me? Hahaha

Well, I spent the last four weeks on a vacation; went to Beijing and Shanghai in China and also a few tourist areas in the Luzon area, namely Puerto Galera and Tagytay. I must say that I was very busy during this time, hopping from place to place - one day, I'd be in a plane, the next in a train, and then the next on a boat! Whew! But it was really fun and exciting and at least a change from the grueling everyday cycle that I had gotten used to before my little break.

Anyway, my favorite part about being gone for a while is coming home to find wonderful surprises waiting for me in my mailbox! Four weeks' worth of mail is quite a handful and I literally had to ask for a plastic bag lest I drop any letters on the way home. There were many interesting finds in the small pile that I found in the mailbox, and I will share them with you little by little in my upcoming posts. It's very exciting, don't you agree? Hehehe

Hope you enjoy!

Here is an FDC that I picked up during my China trip. I bought it at the Beijing Capital Airport, Terminal 2. China Post has a neat little branch there to cater to the tourist rushing to send out last-minute postcards from his trip as well as philatelist itching to get his hands on some nice philatelic souvenirs. I was a bit of both, I must admit.

Thankfully, they had the FDC shown above available (they didn't have it at the Shanghai Postal Museum when I visited - or did the postal clerk just not understand what I was asking for?). I of course jumped at the opportunity to get one of these airport FDCs that I've been wanting to have since they were released on 28 Sept! Unfortunately, they only had two left so I wasn't able to buy any for my exchange partners. The other issues were not very interesting or expensive to the point of exploitation, so I didn't feel like buying them for me or for anyone else.

One thing that bothered me was that the clerk at the post office seemed to have overpriced me because, to the best of my knowledge, a regular airmail letter to the Philippines from China costs only RMB 4.50 (roughly USD 0.65), but the clerk insisted I pay RMB 8.50 (almost twice what I should have) and said that the stamps already on the cover could no longer be used for postage. I don't know if it's only because I got used to the Philippine system where the postage on the FDC is still valid, but I was under the impression that I could still use these stamps already on the cover for postage! Unfortunately, the clerk said I couldn't. Is anyone familiar with the Chinese postal system's regulations on such things?

To add to the confusion, the clerk spoke very very limited English, which I find surprising since he was working at the international terminal of an airport! I didn't want to argue with the guy, especially since he didn't seem to understand me, and I really wanted a Beijing Capital Airport postmark to be chopped onto my cover, so I just gave in and paid up. As you can see from the scan, at least I got what I wanted!

At any rate, a little bit more about the cover and the stamps:

The stamps show the three busiest airports in China based on number of passengers handled: Beijing Capital International Airport (first), Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (second), and Shanghai Pudong International Airport (third).

Beijing Capital International Airport (北京首都国际机场) is the one on the left hand side. In 2007, it served 53,583,664 passengers, and became the 9th busiest airport in the world. There are three terminals. Terminal 1, the oldest (1980) handles domestic flights, except for HK and Macau and Taiwan; terminal 2 (1999) handles the international flights of China Eastern, China Southern, and Skyteam members; and terminal 3 (2008) handles all Air China, One World, and One Alliance international flights as well as other domestic and international departures. Terminal 3 is the second largest terminal building in the world, second only to the new terminal at Dubai International Airport, and is larger than London Heathrow's five terminal buildings combined. It was opened earlier this year, just in time for the Olympics.

Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (广州白云国际机场) is the one on the lower right. In 2007, it served 30,958,467 passengers. The current airport was opened in 2004 to replace the old, dilapidated airport with the same name. "Baiyun" (白雲) means "white clouds" in Chinese, and refers to Mt. Baiyun (Baiyunshan) near the location of the former airport. The airport is also referred to as "New Baiyun" to distinguish it from the previous version, but this is not a part of the official name.

Shanghai Pudong Inernational Airport (上海浦东国际机场) is the one on the upper right. As the third busiest in 2007 in terms of passenger traffic, it served 28,920,432 passengers last year. It opened in 1999 and a new terminal was added in March of this year. The name "Pudong" refers to the district in which the airport is located. The term Pudong is derived from "Pu" (from Huangpu river, which divides Shanghai into East and West) and "Dong" (which means East in Mandarin), so literally "Pudong" means "East of the Huangpu River."

As for the other stamps, the two RMB 0.80 stamps on the lower right hand corner along with the one RMB 1.50 stamp on the far left are probably part of the same set, which seems to celebrate earth (and/or the world or land - that would explain the green) and water. Unfortunately, I cannot read Chinese so all I can do is guess.

The RMB 1.20 stamp with birds is part of a definitive set and the larger, square RMB 1.20 stamp features Chinese traditional paintings.

Like I mentioned earlier, the cover was franked at the Beijing Capital Airport on 26 Oct 08, which was a Sunday, I might add!