How do I correctly address correspondence to Nanning?

[Lucky °®ÈË]

My wife lives in Nanning, Guangxi. I have not sent her allot of mail. Accutally all I have sent so far is a card on one occasion and a Valentine's Day gift on another. Both times it took nearly 2 months for her to get it! Now that her I-130 has be received I know in the future I will need to correspond with her in a more timely manner.

 

Would someone clue me in on how to properly address a letter or package to Nanning?

[dnoblett]

I found this:

The Chinese postal service prefers the 6-digit postcode (postal code) before the province name.

(But it seems many Chinese don't write this format, at least not presently!)

 

MR. ZHIMIN LI [honorific + name of person]

63 RENMIN LU, QINGDAO SHI [number + street name, city]

266033 SHANDONG [postcode + province]

CHINA [country]

When mailing from the United States, CHINA is enough for the country name. Several other versions of the country name will also work.

 

A somewhat complicated address:

 

MAO MIAO [name of person]

DEPT OF PROMOTION OF SPICY FISH

CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & BUSINESS

ROOM 305 (The Center is located inside Room 305.)

ZODIAC EXTRAS COURT (This is the name of a building or portion of a building complex?)

36 BAOSHAN JIUCUN, BAOSHAN DISTRICT [street address, district within city] (Don't be confused by the street name including the district name in this case.)

201900 SHANGHAI [postal code + province] (Every PRC postal code is 6 digits. Shanghai is its own province.)

P.R. CHINA [country] (P.R. stands for "People's Republic")

 

A less modernized, less standardized form of the above address, so you can see some differences:

 

MAO MIAO [name of person]

DEPT OF PROMOTION OF SPICY FISH

CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE, BUSINESS, AND PRODUCT SOURCING

ROOM 305 (The Center is located inside Room 305.)

ZODIAC EXTRAS COURT (This is the name of a building or portion of a building complex?)

NO. 36 BAOSHAN JIUCUN (street address)

BAOSHAN DISTRICT SHANGHAI [district within city + city name (are on same line in this older-style example)]

SHANGHAI 201900 [province name + postal code] (Shanghai is its own province. Every PRC postal code is 6 digits.)

CHINA

 

Rural address (based on UPU documentation)

 

MRS. JIAYING WONG [honorific + name of person]

8 XUJIAZHAI, HUAQIAOCUN [number + locality name, village]

XINZHONG XIANG, TIANTAI XIAN [county's subdivision, 'county city']

266033 ZHEJIANG [postcode + province]

P.R. CHINA

http://www.bitboost....mats/prc-china/

 

Every time I sent things to my wife in Guilin also of Guangxi province, I always used USPS Priority Mail, it got it there in about 10 days.

[Randy W]

I sent a letter to myself in New York to test my mail forwarding service, The letter (which contained simply my Chinese address) somehow got separated from the envelope. The envelope was (correctly) delivered to my New York address. the letter inside was put in a plastic bag, and delivered to me in China without any postage whatsoever (too a couple of months, but it got here).

 

Lately, though, it's been taking closer to a week or so.

 

The most important thing is to put the name of the country in English (P.R. China or People's Republic of China to make sure it doesn't go to Taiwan), and the postal code. A telephone number will then ensure it gets to the right place, especially if they recognize the street address.

 

It's best to include the street name , city, and province in Chinese characters, depending on how well they know the pinyin representation. I was admonished once for not including my name on a "signature required" package - they simply didn't recognize my western name.

[danb]

Ah, I might be completely off base on this one but aren't addresses given in the reverse order. Especially if they are written in Chinese...not sure about the postal code.

 

 

My suggestion is whenever it is possible is to have Lao Po write the address in Chinese as it should be addressed. Have her email it to you, Cut and paste it to your mail.

 

I am going to look thru my books and see if I can get more infor and how to address a letter to China.

 

Danb

[Ryan H]

Ah, I might be completely off base on this one but aren't addresses given in the reverse order. Especially if they are written in Chinese...not sure about the postal code.

 

Addresses in Chinese characters are written in reverse order. In addition, I have never seen a postal code used.

[Randy W]

The postal code will ensure that it goes to the correct city - I had one package delivered with the province name misspelled so bad it wasn't recognizable

 

When you fill in an online address form, it can be difficult to get them to print it in the Chinese order - I haven't had a problem because of this.

Edited September 21, 2010 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Kyle]

Whatever you send, I'd recommend sending it registered letter. Sending it via Chinese snail mail on its own is completely unreliable. Several pieces of mail that we sent within China without first registering, were either delayed for a long period of time, or more common, never showed up to where we sent it. I would second Dan's advice above as we never lost a piece of registered mail.

Edited September 21, 2010 by Kyle (see edit history)

[Lucky °®ÈË]

Thank you very much dnoblett, danb, Ryan H, Randy W and Kyle!

 

One more quick question on this....Is it preferable to address it in Chinese....and never mix English and Chinese?

 

I used to correspond with someone in Shenzhen. I sent those letters all in English and never had a problem. For some reason I guess it works a little different in Nanning.

[Randy W]

Thank you very much dnoblett, danb, Ryan H, Randy W and Kyle!

 

One more quick question on this....Is it preferable to address it in Chinese....and never mix English and Chinese?

 

I used to correspond with someone in Shenzhen. I sent those letters all in English and never had a problem. For some reason I guess it works a little different in Nanning.

 

As long as everyone who handles it knows where it goes, there is no problem.

 

My point with the postal code is that EVERYONE reads numbers - that makes it virtually certain to go to the right city.

 

After that, the postal workers can USUALLY (not always) recognize the address from either the Chinese characters, OR the pinyin. The larger cities (even smaller ones like mine - 7000,000 people) will have people who recognize the pinyin lettering (they'll at least know the street names within their area of service).

 

If you include the phone number on the label, that makes it pretty much of a slam dunk, but it basically depends on the abilities of the postal workers along the way.

 

And, of course, P.R. CHINA in big, English letters to make sure it gets to the correct country.

 

Oh - to answer your question - ideally, I think you'd include two addresses - one in pinyin, and one in English. Just make SURE that EVERYTHING is legible.

Edited September 23, 2010 by Randy W (see edit history)

[dnoblett]

Thank you very much dnoblett, danb, Ryan H, Randy W and Kyle!

 

One more quick question on this....Is it preferable to address it in Chinese....and never mix English and Chinese?

 

I used to correspond with someone in Shenzhen. I sent those letters all in English and never had a problem. For some reason I guess it works a little different in Nanning.

They have no problems with address using Romanized Chinese AKA PinYin for example Shanghai is Pinyin for ÉϺ£ or Beijing is pinyin for ±±¾© Shanghai and Beijing are pinyin words, NOT English.

 

What we do when sending things to China, is to put both Pinyin and Chinese character address as sending address.

 

In my case I simply had my wife email me her address in the acceptable format and I simply copy and pasted to a mailing label whenever I sent her something.

[Dennis143]

Simply put the address both in English and then Chinese characters on your letter or packages...English for the American postal services and Chinese for the Chinese postal service.

 

When sending a package through one of those mailing services like MAILBOX.ETC, UPS or USPS, they'll have you fill out their form in English. Have an Chinese Character label ready to slap on to ensure that those on the receiving end understand where it's supposed to go.

[griz326]

Simply put the address both in English and then Chinese characters on your letter or packages...

 

 

I couldn't have said it better myself!

[rongnjohn]

Yes, I simply had my fiancee email me her address this way: The top few lines were the complete address in English, space, then the complete address in Chinese Characters with the postal code and PRC in English. I simply print it out / cut it out and tape over it with clear packing tape on the envelope. This method has worked everytime.

 

BTW, it takes about 7 or 8 days from the midwest USA to delivery in Shenzhen for a letter.

 

John

Edited September 23, 2010 by rongnjohn (see edit history)

[xiaofeizhu]

We have always used the above suggestion...both Chinese characters and pinyin. It has always worked, and we never had problems. Most of our packages are all flat rate envelope/box and it took an average of 8-10 days to get to a somewhat rural area of Inner Mongolia. When hubby and I lived in Beijing, most of the packages arrived in 4-6 days. We used this same method when we lived in Japan with Japanese characters and it took about 3 days to arrive. The way we formulate it is according to the "Chinese Way", that is, the way a Chinese person would address it if they were sending something domestically. We have the Chinese characters on the bottom with the pinyin on top, much like how you would see it if it was a pronounciation guide. We figure that the US just needs to know what country to get it to and once it is in country, the Chinese will take care of it. Never had a piece that did not show up and no pieces ever took an obscene amount of time to get to us. The only time we did something fancy was for visa documents, where we had like registered mail, like three tracking numbers, and a guaranteed delivery lol.

[Randy W]

Just got this today - it didn't have any trouble finding it's destination. The Chinese postmark was on Oct 10 - we got it today Oct 19

 

http://i56.tinypic.com/2hyw1hv.jpg

 

Someone wrote in the Chinese characters for Yulin and the street address - the characters inside the " "'s are her Chinese name (they chose the wrong character for "Jia") - don't know what the other two characters are

 

It seems like the mailing code (537000 in this case) is enough to get it to the right post office, but then you're at the mercy of the postal workers, unless you specify the Chinese address yourself.

 

In our case, they seem to come through pretty consistently.