Mon, Oct 02, 2023 page3

• Post office delivers less mail every year

  • By Ting Yi, Tsai Shu-yuan and William Hetherington / Staff reporters, with staff writer
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  Chunghwa Post over the past year delivered 850 million fewer letters than a decade earlier, the postal service’s most recent annual report revealed.

  The post office delivered 2.7 billion letters in the country in 2013, and has delivered fewer letters annually since then, the report showed.

  In 2021, the number of delivered letters dropped to 1.84 billion, and last year there were 35 fewer letters delivered per person than in 2013, it showed.

  

  Warren Wang, a violin and bow maker who is also known for his calligraphy, writes The Fall by French writer Albert Camus in cursive writing in Taichung on Sept. 22.

  Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times

  Digital communications and online billing have drastically reduced the number of items that need to be physically delivered, Chunghwa Post’s deputy chief of mail business and operations Lin Li-fu (林立富) said on Friday.

  “Most of what we deliver now are those few remaining bills that are still in paper form, as well as advertisements,” he said. “Few people still send handwritten letters, as they take time to write and receive. Digital messages can be sent anywhere in the world instantly.”

  Postal Museum deputy director Chen Shu-fen (陳淑芬) lamented the decline of handwritten letters, saying that such letters can show more emotion than digital communications do.

  Chen said that the museum promotes handwriting among children.

  The experience also helps them learn about postal codes, she said.

  “It just feels different when you receive something in the mail that was written by hand. That is why many older people tend to keep letters and postcards, and occasionally reread them,” she said. “That is something you cannot get with e-mails. So, I really encourage young people to write more letters and create those memories.”

  Warren Wang (王聖哲), a violin and bow maker who is also well-known for his calligraphy, said that handwriting can convey a person’s feelings.

  “There’s an emotional aspect to handwriting that can never be replaced. That is why I fell in love with writing letters as a child,” he said.

  A graduate of the mechanical engineering department at National Cheng Kung University, studied English and calligraphy in the US to pursue his passion, Wang said.

  Today he teaches Chinese and English calligraphy to more than 200 students.

  Researcher and writer Chang Liang-tse (張良澤), 85, has resisted the transition to digital platforms for writing and communicating by writing everything by hand.

  Chang last year finished a handwritten manuscript for his latest novel, titled Love in White (白衣戀).

  “The manual works of musicians, painters and other creators are all attached with so much value, so why have writers switched to computers to type out their works?” he said.

  Chang said he hopes that in addition to emphasizing the development of new technologies, Taiwan’s schools could also continue to teach human-focused studies, like calligraphy.

  Additional reporting by Liu Wan-chun
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