Chinese New Year Covers

2008 Olympics

So, it's already 2010 and I still have some scans from 2008 that I haven't posted. Not a good sign. Well, anyway, I thought I might share these scans of some covers I received with the 2008 Beijing Olympics as the theme. Some are FDCs while others are just regular covers.

The Beijing Olympics was one of the reasons why I finally decided on visiting Beijing in 2008. On top of the fact that everything would be in tip-top shape and that the city would be manicured to perfection (you can always count on the Chinese government when it comes to making a presentation), I thought it was high time that I visited the famed Great Wall. I also visited Shanghai on this trip and took the 12-hour overnight train from there to Beijing.

I must say that I liked both cities and hope to one day return. I also plan to maybe hike portions of the Great Wall. Want to join? :-)

This cover uses the official FDC, but it was not sent on issue date. My friend just used the FDC envelope but sent the cover much later, which I think is okay. At least I have the FDC envelope.

This cover has the complete set of Russian Olympics stamps, but my friend Alexander decided to use a commemorative cover instead of a regular envelope. The cancels have a special design, but not the Olympics FDC cancellation.

Because I like covers sent directly to my address, I asked my friend Andrzej to sent me the FDC even after the day of issue. Thankfully, Poczsta Polska allows for the sending of FDCs even after day of issue, like in the Philippines. So, strictly speaking, this is not an FDC, but it does use the official envelope and it h asthe official cancellation, which is good enough for me.

Unfortunately, the only real FDC I have does not have an official FDC envelope because Korea Post does not issue them.

While there is no indication on the cover, this was actually sent to me after the day of issue with the special cancellation. There are just no other postmarks or markings to indicate this. There is a boxed chop on the upper right hand side because this cover was "received in bad order" at the Central Mail Exchange Center in the Philippines. In fact, the cover was covers in strips of tape that attempted to "seal" the small tears found themselve on the low quality paper of the envelope as it was handled.

This cover does not have the complete set and was actually not sent through the mail system although it looks like it was. My friend Alberto initially planned on sending the FDC direct to my address, but he seemed to have a problem. I think it was that the stamps did not fit on the cover and the postal clerk wouldn't let him attach extra postage onto the reverse, or something like that.

Korea 한국

대한민국 - Pilipinas Joint Issue

Just wanted to share this Korea-Philippines joint issue on festivals that was meant to mark the 60th years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

I find it quite odd that there would be a celebration of the 60th year of relations as I am used to seeing 50th, 75th, and 100th. Why the Philippine Postal Service is so fond of the 60th anniversary of things is beyond me. I recall that there was also an issue in 2007 celebrating 60 years of France-Philippines relations, which according to a French stamp exchange partner went unnoticed in France. (Well, actually, I'm pretty sure it also went unnoticed here save for the few collectors and postal workers and French embassy affiliates in the country.) I also remember a 4v set and S/S celebrating the 60th year of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Strange, really.

Well, anyway, here are the issues from the Philippines-Korea issue, which I unexpectedly and coincidentally received on the same day (today).

More on the the featured festivals:

The Panagbenga Festival is held yearly during the month of February. The celebrations are held for over a month and peak periods are the weekends. The Panagbenga Festival showcases the many floral floats and native dances. At this time of year, the City of Pines is almost surely in flower fury over Panagbenga festival, the city's biggest festival.

Panagbenga is a Kankanaey term for "a season of blooming." It is also known as the Baguio Flower Festival, a homage to the beautiful flowers the city is famous for as well as a celebration of Baguio's re-establishment. Since February 1995, it has been held to help Baguio forget the 1990 earthquake that distressed much of the city.

Sonori (Cow Play) in Hangawi. Hangawi (Chuseok), which falls on the 15th of August by the lunar calendar is one of the biggest national holidays in Korea, when people celebrate the year's good harvest and observe worship service to family ancestors. At this time, when newly harvested grains and fruits are abundant, as indicated in the saying "May every day be neither more nor less than Hangawi!", the Sonori is performed. To the tune of cheerful musical instruments of the farmer's band, two people put on straw mats shaped like a cow and visit door to door, wishing for a year of good harvest and peace and tranquility.

대한민국, Россия, and Filipinas

Here is what some may consider a heavily WW2-themed cover as all the stamps, save for the two bird definitives at the left edge, celebrate an event that took place in the Philippines during WW2.

One of the stamps shows the liberation of Los Banos. The raid at Los Baños in the Philippines on 23 February 1945, by a combined U.S. Army Airborne and Filipino guerrilla task force, which resulted in the liberation of 2,147 Allied civilian and military internees from an agricultural school campus turned Japanese internment camp, was celebrated as one of the most successful rescue operations in modern military history. It was the second precisely-executed raid by combined U.S.-Filipino forces within a month, following on the heels of the Raid at Cabanatuan at Luzon on January 30, in which 513 Allied military POWs had been rescued.

The Liberation of Cabanatuan is also shown on one of the stamps. The Raid at Cabanatuan in the Philippines on 30 January 1945 by US Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas resulted in the liberation of 511 prisoners of war (POWs) from a Japanese POW camp near Cabanatuan and was a celebrated historic achievement involving Allied special forces during World War II.

Edward Dmytryk's 1945 film Back to Bataan starring John Wayne opens by retelling the story of the raid on the Cabanatuan POW camp. The raid was recreated, with great attention to historical accuracy, in the 2005 John Dahl film The Great Raid.

The other stamps celebrate the liberation of other places in the Philippines, such as UST, which I discussed in an earlier post.

Below are two other covers.

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."

대한민국

A pleasant cover from South Korea here with two triangular stamps and a definitive bird stamp.

The two triangular stamps actually make up a souvenir sheet that was released 01 Aug 2007 and entitled "Philately Week Special." The S/S shows Korea's first stamps (5-Mun, 10-Mun). More info on the issue from the Korea Post website:

This year's special stamp issued to commemorate the "Philately Week" will take the form of "stamps in a stamp." The inner stamps are composed of a "5-Mun" unit stamp and a "10-Mun" unit stamp (Mun used to be a Korean currency unit), two stamps that were actually issued and used among the "Mun unit" series stamps, Korea's first stamps. In addition, this special stamp will be a photochromic stamp: a light-sensitive pigment which changes color when exposed to ultraviolet light is capsulated and applied to the stamp printing: The letter '???þ' on the two sides of the "5-Mun" unit stamp and the letter '???þ' on the two sides of the "10-Mun" unit stamp were printed with light-sensitive ink. As a result, the letters, which normally have no color, turn red when exposed to ultraviolet-containing sunlight. This special stamp will provide fun and delight to stamp collectors.

I really wish that the whole S/S was affixed onto the cover, but I guess that would take up too much space! But I am nonetheless very thankful to get such nice stamps on this cover, especially since the theme of the stamps is one of my favorites!

The smaller definitive on the left was issued on 17 Jan 2000 and is aptly entitled Definitive Postage Stamp (20 won). It depicts a black-crowned night heron, which is further described as follows:

The black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) is a summer migrant bird of the family Ardeidae. The bird spends the summer in Korea and flies to Southeast Asia in early autumn. About 57 cm long, both male and female birds look alike, with greenish-blue lustrous black heads and backs. It is white on the cheeks, under the chin, and on the breast and belly, while black on the beak and yellow on the legs. It builds nests on the branches of Japan cedars, pine trees or thickets of assorted shrubs, where it lays three to six eggs. This nocturnal bird roosts on rice paddies, ponds, and fields of reeds during the day and begins to hunt for food at night. The black-crowned night heron eats primarily fish, shrimps, frogs, snakes, and insects. This species breeds from central regions of Korea, Japan, Sakhalin, Eurasia, and Africa and spends the winter in Taiwan, the Philippines, the Malay peninsula, and Indochina.

Interesting how there is a mention of these birds in the Philippines, but I have never seen them here. Or maybe that's because I spend most of my time in the city.....

The cover as a whole is very neatly arranged with a very clear postmark and "AIRMAIL" franking and this is something to appreciate as most mails these days have unintelligible postmarks....

The cover was sent from Gang-nam-gu, a district in the Korean capital of Seoul, on the fourth of April 2008.