There is something about the design of Chinese envelopes that rings back to old-fashioned ways of the past, despite my inability to write on them correctly. There are two postal code fields and I know they are respectively for the mailing and return addresses but I’m not sure which goes where so I just slink back into international protocol: writing the return address on the back.

Sending out Chinese New Year cards to the family is an annual ritual I’ve adopted since I started living overseas, which is a little ironic considering I resented doing it when I was younger. My mom used to make my sister and I send out cards and we would get into trouble (usually scoldings) for all sorts of reasons ranging from mailing them late, poor handwriting (by mom’s standards), too many cancellations and forgetting archaic Chinese letter-writing formalities.

From this year onwards, I’ll be writing twice as many cards each year though I’m not complaining. I hope my new family in France and Spain will like them too.