The (Tiny) Great Qing Post Office

Postal Officer in full gear or as we call them now, the mail man.

On my visit to the Water Town of Zhujiajiao, I got lost walking through the cobbled lonely alleyways. I stumbled upon a little piece of history that caught my interest and inspired me to write a separate post on this. 

In the far, far corner of the alley, I saw a brick building that seemed a little out of place next to the more traditional buildings around it. With my curiosity peaked, I went inside and was greeted by a lowly lit miniature museum. 

This museum documented the history and evolution of China's postal system! This building I was in appeared, to be an old post office long ago retired.

This post office was founded in the late 1800s under the reign of Emperor Tongzhi during the Qing Dynasty and was one of the 13 official post offices of the Shanghai region! 

Fun fact: China is among the countries with earliest sort-of postal service (although it was not called post service since the majority of the people who used this were the Emperor, Military, and Government officials). 

Allow me to explain what I learned.

During the majority of China's postal system’s history, the mail was used for official government communication and military use. It wasn’t until the 15th century that private post offices appeared, and traders began to use the private post as a way to communicate and make payments.

"According to official records, China's postal delivery dates back to more than 3000 years ago. In the past several centuries, this postal delivery network played a key role in transferring military intelligence and government orders as well as kept the nation in communication with its neighboring countries."

Earliest military delivery found that the messages would be written engraved on the back of turtle shells (or other carapaces), or animal bones or bamboo reeds.

Fish Shaped message holders---acted sort-of like an envelope.
To the left of those fishes are the messages written on bamboo that would go inside the wooden fish.
The stamps above it are seals from the Qin Dynasty used as a sort of personal identification of who the sender is.

"From records of historical materials, during the end of the Song Dynasty, there were many urgent military documents needed to be delivered frequently because of the wars. 

It was required that a courier must deliver a document from beginning to end. 

During delivery,horses can be changed but the courier could not. 

Some couriers died in the midway through delivery due to fatige. However, the bodies were bound to horses and the horse was sent off on its way to deliver the military documents to its destination." 

I'm assuming the horse knew his way around.

The actual China Postal Service that is currently up and running officially started during the Qing Dynasty by a man called Robert Hart who was a British diplomat and an official in the Imperial Chinese government. Under this man's guidance, he transformed the Chinese Customs Post Office into a well regulated organization which boosted China's economy. Later it was renamed Great Qing Post.

Towards the end of the war 1949, the post was renamed Chunghwa Post Service which is the one of the postal services here in China today.

Mail boat that would deliver by using the canals.

Mailboxes

I'm sure it's not the same wood but the attendant (in Chinese) said its all original wooden floors.

This wall made me very excited to see its history with my own eyes.

Uniform clothes that the Postal Officer would wear. when delivering his letters

So what did you think? Let me know, I am always curious to know what people think of the places that I write about. 

Until next time.

Zai jian!