Postal Penance

When I was twelve and spent most of my free time falling out of trees, I never thought a time would come when I would long for the simplistic chores of doing dishes and racking leaves…

Then I became an adult. Suddenly, I had to deal with flat tires and health insurance benefits...

Then I came to China…

If you can image Alice stepping into Wonderland to find the Mad Hatter is her financial advisor organizing her 401k and the Queen of Hearts is the medical expert offering the same cure for every malady, you would have a decent understanding of the lack of rationality that accompanies even the most mundane task in China.

One chore in particular will be the source of nightmares for years after I leave the Middle Kingdom: the Chinese post office.

After lugging twenty pounds of silk scarves and wooden chopsticks down the uneven and mo-ped-infested sidewalks, I step into the Chinese Post Office. For a country that does not support organized religion, the dark, stone-floored alcove of the Post Office could almost be considered hallowed ground. And I am the mischievous alter boy approaching the disapproving priest after slipping AC/DC lyrics in the hymnbooks. I receive that warm of reception.

I drag (or shove across the slippery floor) the over-stuffed IKEA bag, and the effort puts me in the submissive position of practically bowing to the scolding and sweating post office worker glowering from behind his barred window.

Even in the States I’m completely oblivious to how the ratio of bulk weight to plane fuel costs affects delivery rates and the current state of transportation routes in Nebraska. Whether my package ends at the proper location in a fanfare of logistical efficiency or whether the withering remains of cookies I was trying to send to the next town is left jostling in the back of a donkey cart somewhere in the Balkan region, I leave to the whims of the post office worker. My policy is to answer “yes” until the security questions are reached, and then I answer “no”. I don’t ask questions. I don’t try to think for myself.

When I step to the Chinese Post Office counter, the self-determined underappreciated worker rattles off a series of questions in Chinese. Even in English I would still have to translate the comments into carrier-service-ignorance English. “Yes” and “No” answers no longer mask my incompetence because I suddenly have options like “Air” or “Land and Sea”.

The customs declaration comes next. China doesn’t ask whether anything dangerous or illegal is in my package; they look. The pre-packed, taped, and wrapped boxes of the US postal service is not possible in China. Besides the postal worker going through my keepsakes, all the Chinese citizens fortunate or unfortunate enough to be in the post office that day get to inspect exactly how many cashmere coats and corny Chinese t-shirts I’m sending home as I transfer from the IKEA bag to the provided teal box. Folding is definitely not practiced at the Chinese Post Office.

After my box is wrapped in enough tape that it would survive a nuclear apocalypse, the alter boy scolding comes with the price. Eighty percent of Wal-Mart comes from China, and Achaean battleships and Spanish Armada combined could not possibly rival the commercial Sino-American network, yet many silk purchases at the fabric market dissolve as I hand over a large stack of pinkish bills.

I practically skip out of the Post Office like I’ve just been released from a falsely accused prison sentence, yet in my back of my mind I know that yet another dreaded chore is waiting: the Chinese bank.