Going Postal

I've been putting off going to the post office for months, but the build-up of guilt and unsent gifts finally culminated in me spending a significant part of this weekend putting together four parcels to send to various patient friends and family members.

One of the reasons there's been such a delay is that I'm not the usual customer for a Chinese post office, and my transactions take much longer than they probably should.  The staff are used to people bringing their postables [ok, not a word], and putting them into a government-sanctioned green China Post box, and sending them away.  I like to spend some time on my packages, including careful addressing, gift-wrapping, and copious amounts of novelty tape (as you can see above).  I also have to go through a certain amount of stilted Chinese and miming to explain the contents of each box.  I usually get there in the end, and have yet to give in to the post office workers' demands to open the packages to see what's inside.

This time, knowing that there were a LOT of small and difficult-to-describe items contained in the boxes, I took the precaution of photographing the contents of each parcel.  [Each of these boxes contains somewhere between three and nine individually-wrapped presents, as well as at least one letter or card.]

Already running late this morning, I decided that since I'd spent so much time on packing these things, and that it would be way busier at lunch time, I went to the post office before work.  At the sight of my already-taped-up boxes, the staff there immediately started stressing out and asking me what was inside.  I explained to the best of my poor ability, and showed them the photos on my trusty mobile phone.  After a long discussion, including determining that, yes, they were going to four different places in the UK, apparently they still needed to see inside.  This raised a slight panic in me, as I had forgotten to bring any back-up novelty tape, and I had no idea what they would do when they opened the boxes only to find dozens of smaller packages inside.  They called an English-speaking co-worker over, and I explained the situation to her ("No! You can't see inside! You'll only get frustrated, and I might cry!" - paraphrased).  I assured them there were no liquids in any of the boxes (or at least I think that's what I was assuring them of).  They finally let it slide, probably because it was easier to just let me have my way. 

Thankfully, there were no issues with any of the million forms I had to fill in, and after the nice man had mimed 飞机 (fēijī, or aeroplane, a word I actually know) and I had handed over what seemed like a lot of money for air mail, I finally got out of there, just in time to be even later for work.  Success.