Snail mail from Canada (or anywhere) to China

Thank you for the quick and helpful reply.

The address was written entirely in Chinese except for the bottom line which said "China". I figured that way, it would get out of Canada and then be entirely readable in China. However, I may have made a mistake. Canada would want to know which entry port to send it to, so adding the province and country in English may have helped.

All letters are supposed to come to our baoans or management office. This is my first letter here, so I have no experience in how well they handle that.

I don't know about pre- and post-pandemic patterns.

So, did you have snail mails that simply never arrived?

I will indeed get a resend, this time via DHL.

Thank you kindly!!

Hello,

As you figured out yourself, the address should be written in an international way, that is, receiving country and city in Latin letters (not in English, but in the official transliteration, which is not necessarily Pinyin for Chinese cities!). “China” as the receiving country is also misleading! Yep, I am pointing to that island in the sun which is officially called “China”, too!

For me, receiving letters in mainland China from Europe, the best way was:

• Use standard (national) post. Do not use express companies, as you may have to deal with additional fees in China.
• Ask the sender to use the international address code (see Wikipedia) to print out the address in the correct formatting.
• Add Chinese mobile phone number of the receiver.
• Letters can only contain paper, (flat) USB data sticks, credit cards and similar small things. All “goods” (CDs, DVDs, books, ...) should be sent as a parcel with a tax declaration attached to the outside!
• Letters to schools / big companies are slightly faster delivered than to a (personal) home address.

I never lost a letter in China. No need for registered mail in my opinion.

Oh, and one more: My first parcel with the address written in Pinyin only (no Chinese characters) took 3 1/2 months to arrive. It was written over and over with different addresses in Chinese characters, crossed out, notes like “Not here”... The Chinese postmen was trying hard to find me

Greetings from Europe,

Liese

@Liese Wang Thank you so much! Very informative.

"...Ask the sender to use the international address code (see Wikipedia) to print out the address in the correct formatting..." I went to the website sedamo.info to get my international address code, and it basically asks to know your location. I clicked ok in my browser. Then sedamo said my address was about 100km east of me in another city. Why? Because my location is my IP location, right? That's the location of the Internet provider, not my home. So, this sedamo system didn't help, and I'm not sure how anyone can get their address that way.

Anyhow, I will wait longer or see what the bank in Canada says. Maybe DHL is the way to go. If you say 3+ months is possible, I won't give up hope.

As for China being the bottom line of the address, I'm sure Canada will send that to China, not Taiwan, China.

I still think the snag may have been that Canada didn't know which port to send it to. I should have said Hainan, China.

Many thanks again!

@Jupiter

Hello Jupiter!

You wrote:

So, this sedamo system didn't help, and I'm not sure how anyone can get their address that way.

Sorry that my answer was somehow misleading.

After opening the sedamo website, you can simply overwrite the pre-filled address if it isn't correct, or if you wish to use a different address!

For example, though I am in Graz, Austria, (Austria = Europe, not Australia ), I can easily enter the address of the embassy of Canada to China, in Beijing, and I get:

YA-LY-CR-WG

Using that code, you can print the address from your browser. Use the "Print envelope" button!

Have I made myself clearer now?

And as for the three months: That was the worst mail delivery time. Later, when I had my own office at Tongji University in Shanghai, the mail from Europe arrived about five days. Using my address in Chinese from sedamo.

Good luck with your mailings!

Liesl