Shipping News

Simply put, you can't.
What on earth is Beau talking about? Allow me to elaborate.
Recently, as it is Christmas time, i had the experience of mailing a package back home to the fam. Now anyone who is anyone knows that if you are mailing something over seas you had best pack the shit out of it so ensure that its not complete junk by the time it arrives. What is the cheapest and easiest thing to use to insulate and ensure your goods? Newspaper of course. Oh but the plot thickens as witnessed by myself.
So I'm at the post office and who do i run into but my colleague Bree. It's a small town so no surprises there. Now luckily (for me not for her) she had arrived before me and thus i got to sit back and watch and learn from her mistakes. You should know that in China you can not simply just walk into a post office and have your package weighed and shipped off. You have to have it inspected and you and a post worker pack it together. Rather you hand them the items and they pack it for you. Now that might sound a little intrusive but then again they don't have any anthrax or letter bomb problems now do they? And in fact is really informal and for the most part you get your package packed for free. (another benefit to overpopulation.) Plus, they do a really good job stuffing it all together to assure its safe arrival. Good thing too because packages from my family have arrived seemingly trampled by elephants and if it weren't for my wonderful mothers diligence in packing ability then the complete seasons collection of Entourage would be forever destroyed having only to wait until next Christmas.
So, Bree had just finished the entire packing process and was ready to rush off to work when her day got very bad. She stood in utter bewilderment as they took a knife and undid the near vacuum sealed tape job of a half hour's worth of packing. Being that her Mandarin is what it is, I helped. In a few words exchanged with the employees they had just realized that she was of course going to send this package overseas. Now Bree packed everything inside with newspapers from mainland China. As it turns out this is a no no. You cant send Chinese news in any shape or form out of the country. This could be politically unsettling i guess? Everything inside her package was stuffed to the brim with the wonderful language that is Chinese. Even the boxes inside the boxes containing tea sets had extra reinforcement of PRC newspaper goodness. The entire box containing all of her gifts to her family simply had to be redone. Ouch indeed.
China is still painstakingly learning that it is okay to not have to micromanage every little thing. Very slowly but learning all the same. So, they day that i can walk into the post office and use PRC newspaper as my stuffing will be a very good day indeed.