Mel's Mailing a Letter
Ms. Mel Garcia is going postal. She wrote:
So you think having a letter mailed is easy? Not if you’re in China and you don’t speak Chinese. I’ve been on assignment in Shenzhen for almost two years but I still don’t dare go to the post office. Whenever I need to mail something to Hong Kong, my home base, I ask the front desk clerk at Fraser Place (the serviced apartment where I live), to do it for me. I quickly discovered that this is not exactly a worry-free solution. Check this out:
‘Mail order’ # 1: Express mail to Hong Kong Immigration. I left ¥20 for postage (USD1:¥8). When I came back from work, I was told I needed to pay ¥5 more because my letter was sent by courier.
#2: Express mail to HSBC Hong Kong. This time I left ¥25 for postage. When I came back from work, the front desk clerk gave me back ¥16 because they sent my letter by express mail which cost only ¥9.
#3: Express mail again to HSBC Hong Kong. I left ¥20 for postage. When I came back from work, I was told my letter had not been mailed because a decision needed to be made. According to the courier (which was not the same as the one in #1), if I give the phone number of the addressee, I’ll pay only ¥30; if not, I’ll pay ¥50. The letter was addressed to a P.O. Box so I took the letter back to my apartment, searched for the number of the HSBC customer hotline, and wrote it down on the envelope.
#4: The next morning, I gave back the HSBC letter to the clerk and I also gave her another document to mail - my Income Tax Return addressed to the Inland Revenue Dept of HK. I also wrote down the phone number of the revenue officer in charge of my account on the envelope so that the courier will charge me less. Because this letter was quite heavy, I left ¥100 for both letters. When I came back from work, I was told that the courier picked up my letter to HSBC but in order to save me money, they sent my ITR by ordinary mail…hu-hu-hu
#5: Another letter to HSBC HK. I told the front desk clerk to send it via 1-day express mail. She asked me to leave ¥20. When I came back in the afternoon, she gave me back 18.50 and said ordinary postage cost only 1.50. The letter took a week to reach HSBC but since it wasn’t that urgent, I didn’t make an issue of this latest mix-up.
#6: Another letter to HSBC HK. I’ve had it with Fraser so I asked our project Girl Friday, a local, to mail it for me via one-day express. I gave her ¥10 and the next day she gave me back ¥4 change.
#7: Another letter to HSBC. This time I took it with me to HK and mailed it there. No hassle. All I needed to do was get HK$1.20 worth of stamps from a dispensing machine beside the mailbox.
So you think having a letter mailed is easy? Not if you’re in China and you don’t speak Chinese. I’ve been on assignment in Shenzhen for almost two years but I still don’t dare go to the post office. Whenever I need to mail something to Hong Kong, my home base, I ask the front desk clerk at Fraser Place (the serviced apartment where I live), to do it for me. I quickly discovered that this is not exactly a worry-free solution. Check this out:
‘Mail order’ # 1: Express mail to Hong Kong Immigration. I left ¥20 for postage (USD1:¥8). When I came back from work, I was told I needed to pay ¥5 more because my letter was sent by courier.
#2: Express mail to HSBC Hong Kong. This time I left ¥25 for postage. When I came back from work, the front desk clerk gave me back ¥16 because they sent my letter by express mail which cost only ¥9.
#3: Express mail again to HSBC Hong Kong. I left ¥20 for postage. When I came back from work, I was told my letter had not been mailed because a decision needed to be made. According to the courier (which was not the same as the one in #1), if I give the phone number of the addressee, I’ll pay only ¥30; if not, I’ll pay ¥50. The letter was addressed to a P.O. Box so I took the letter back to my apartment, searched for the number of the HSBC customer hotline, and wrote it down on the envelope.
#4: The next morning, I gave back the HSBC letter to the clerk and I also gave her another document to mail - my Income Tax Return addressed to the Inland Revenue Dept of HK. I also wrote down the phone number of the revenue officer in charge of my account on the envelope so that the courier will charge me less. Because this letter was quite heavy, I left ¥100 for both letters. When I came back from work, I was told that the courier picked up my letter to HSBC but in order to save me money, they sent my ITR by ordinary mail…hu-hu-hu
#5: Another letter to HSBC HK. I told the front desk clerk to send it via 1-day express mail. She asked me to leave ¥20. When I came back in the afternoon, she gave me back 18.50 and said ordinary postage cost only 1.50. The letter took a week to reach HSBC but since it wasn’t that urgent, I didn’t make an issue of this latest mix-up.
#6: Another letter to HSBC HK. I’ve had it with Fraser so I asked our project Girl Friday, a local, to mail it for me via one-day express. I gave her ¥10 and the next day she gave me back ¥4 change.
#7: Another letter to HSBC. This time I took it with me to HK and mailed it there. No hassle. All I needed to do was get HK$1.20 worth of stamps from a dispensing machine beside the mailbox.
Labels: china, writing life
posted by Unknown at 6:34 PM
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