Student resurrects 'dead' letters via website
February 25, 2012, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
HAVE you ever eagerly anticipated a letter from a friend that never arrived? Have you ever sent a letter but failed to get any reply because it never reached the recipient? Letters go astray! Let's help them find their 'owners'."
These are the words on a postcard designed by Xu Huanjun, a senior in the department of communications engineering at the Minhang campus of East China Normal University.
Since last October, Xu has dedicated himself to helping people find letters and postcards that never got delivered because of miswritten or incomplete addresses or a shortage of postage.
Xu uses Weibo, the Chinese-style Twitter, in his quest. He opened a Weibo account called "stray letter mailroom" in October. He takes photos of the envelopes of letters or postcards sitting in the "dead letter office" of the campus mail service and posts them on Weibo, hoping someone will provide clues about the intended recipients. When recipients are located, he delivers the letters to them.
He distributes free postcards to schoolmates to promote his campaign. Three students from his department have volunteered to help him.
To date, Xu has found the recipients up to 50 pieces of mail gone astray.
He got the idea for his crusade after a friend sent him a postcard last October, but it never arrived. He went to the mailroom of the Minhang campus of the university, where letters are sent if they have illegible or unclear addresses.
There he found his friend's postcard, along with about 80 other undelivered letters. (He then realized that he had given his friend his address incorrectly.)
"I was very happy to find it," he said. "But as I went to leave, I looked at the pile of mail suffering the same fate and decided to do something about it."
He learned that more than 10 letters, on average, end up in the "dead letter office" each week. Eventually, they are sent back to the main post office.
Failure of delivery can be as simple as a wrong number for a dormitory or room. Most of the mail can't be returned to senders because they don't have return addresses.
Many of the letters he found are sent from overseas, which causes even more address problems. Some involved job application letters that never arrived.
"Application letters are important for graduates, and it will turn out to be a loss for senders if they don't know that the companies never received them," Xu said.
He visits the university mailroom every week to pick up letters. He started with his classmates, inviting microbloggers to check the account. Then he distributed promotion postcards to let more people know the service. The campaign has gathered a lot of support.
Those who finally get letters that were doomed to non-delivery are obviously very surprised and grateful.
For example, there was the letter addressed to a student at the Minhang campus of Jiao Tong University, when the student was actually attending nearby East China Normal University. Xu tracked down the recipient.
Another time, three scenic postcards addressed to "mach-lie" ended up in the mailroom. Xu guessed that the sender and recipient were members of the postcard-exchange group of douban.com, a social networking site popular among Chinese art lovers. Xu knew it was common for members of the group to send postcards to one another during journeys. He searched the site and bingo! He found a netizen who went by the name "machlie."
Xu said he regrets that only 20 to 30 percent of letters he has picked up have been successfully delivered.
He is now searching for volunteers to carry on the campaign because he will be graduating soon.
"I hope the online mail room will continue in operation," he said.
These are the words on a postcard designed by Xu Huanjun, a senior in the department of communications engineering at the Minhang campus of East China Normal University.
Since last October, Xu has dedicated himself to helping people find letters and postcards that never got delivered because of miswritten or incomplete addresses or a shortage of postage.
Xu uses Weibo, the Chinese-style Twitter, in his quest. He opened a Weibo account called "stray letter mailroom" in October. He takes photos of the envelopes of letters or postcards sitting in the "dead letter office" of the campus mail service and posts them on Weibo, hoping someone will provide clues about the intended recipients. When recipients are located, he delivers the letters to them.
He distributes free postcards to schoolmates to promote his campaign. Three students from his department have volunteered to help him.
To date, Xu has found the recipients up to 50 pieces of mail gone astray.
He got the idea for his crusade after a friend sent him a postcard last October, but it never arrived. He went to the mailroom of the Minhang campus of the university, where letters are sent if they have illegible or unclear addresses.
There he found his friend's postcard, along with about 80 other undelivered letters. (He then realized that he had given his friend his address incorrectly.)
"I was very happy to find it," he said. "But as I went to leave, I looked at the pile of mail suffering the same fate and decided to do something about it."
He learned that more than 10 letters, on average, end up in the "dead letter office" each week. Eventually, they are sent back to the main post office.
Failure of delivery can be as simple as a wrong number for a dormitory or room. Most of the mail can't be returned to senders because they don't have return addresses.
Many of the letters he found are sent from overseas, which causes even more address problems. Some involved job application letters that never arrived.
"Application letters are important for graduates, and it will turn out to be a loss for senders if they don't know that the companies never received them," Xu said.
He visits the university mailroom every week to pick up letters. He started with his classmates, inviting microbloggers to check the account. Then he distributed promotion postcards to let more people know the service. The campaign has gathered a lot of support.
Those who finally get letters that were doomed to non-delivery are obviously very surprised and grateful.
For example, there was the letter addressed to a student at the Minhang campus of Jiao Tong University, when the student was actually attending nearby East China Normal University. Xu tracked down the recipient.
Another time, three scenic postcards addressed to "mach-lie" ended up in the mailroom. Xu guessed that the sender and recipient were members of the postcard-exchange group of douban.com, a social networking site popular among Chinese art lovers. Xu knew it was common for members of the group to send postcards to one another during journeys. He searched the site and bingo! He found a netizen who went by the name "machlie."
Xu said he regrets that only 20 to 30 percent of letters he has picked up have been successfully delivered.
He is now searching for volunteers to carry on the campaign because he will be graduating soon.
"I hope the online mail room will continue in operation," he said.
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