Troubles sending items/gifts to China?

[joshuawbb]

I sent a package to my friend a while ago from the UK - containing a letter and two gifts (a book and small jar of jam - a clear jar, of course), and I have a few questions regarding the postage time and customs.

It was sent by normal airmail, which may have been a mistake since I can't track it. It's so far been 11 days since it was posted, and although I understand this isn't particularly worrysome yet, normally it only takes 6-8 days to post my packages to South Korea or Japan. After searching this forum and hearing of both good and bad experiences with China Post, would you say delayed mail such as this is cause for concern?

I hear that Chinese customs can be troublesome to get through, especially with the pre+post-Olympic attention on imports (or so I hear, anyway). If this parcel takes much longer to arrive, should I start getting worried?

Secondly, it's being sent to her college address, so even though I was told at my post office that the format would be fine, I still feel slightly worried about it. This is the format as she wrote it to me:

[Name] - in both Chinese characters and English

[Class, subject and grade], [Department], [College], Fuzhou University

MaWei, Fuzhou, Fujian Province

P.R. CHINA

That's the exact way it appears on the package. Is this address format okay, and would it get there without any troubles? I hear that the package gets sent to students' individual 'post boxes' within the university, so I guess that's why the class, subject, grade and department are included in the address. I'm not sure about that though.

Lastly, does anyone have any experiences with China Post they could share? I can't really find much information or many people's experiences, so it would be very useful. Mostly this is because we'll be exchanging both letters and packages soon, so I prefer to know an average delivery time from the UK, including the possibility of delays.

Thank you very much!

[liuzhou]

Parcels / packages normally take two weeks plus from the UK.

Like you said, 11 days is not worrysome, so why are you worrying?

Re: customs. Just describe everything as "educational material". Seems to do the trick.

In 13 years, I've only had one package not arrive. That was a DVD.

[BrandeX]

Of note though, you are missing the zip code.

[Lu]

Mileage seems to vary. In 8 months at Beiyu (5 years ago, but still) I had one package not arrive at all, one arrived tattered and half open, a classmate had one not arrive, and another classmate's package arrived but a bottle of perfume was stolen from it (which she knew because they took the bottle, but left the carton).

Personally I wouldn't send anything breakable (jam jar) to China, unless really, really well packed. But as you said, it's too soon to worry now, start worrying after about a month.

Address looks fine, it should get to her with that, even with the zip code missing.

[joshuawbb]

Thank you all very much for your replies. Sometimes I'm just a little paranoid about my mail, so I guess I get worried a little too much. I'll ask her for the zip code, although from your replies it doesn't seem to be a problem anyway.

I'm not saying I don't trust China Post - very much the opposite - after all, I'd never used them before and I'm not one to judge. I suppose their reliability is similar if not simply the same as Royal Mail here in the UK.

Thanks for your advice - and I'm sorry to hear about those bad experiences; it's nothing short of nasty to have your items stolen from you, especially since it's harder to do anything about it (from my experience, anyway). I remember an American friend of mine was heartbroken to open up a package, only to find that highly expensive jewellry from a friend had been stolen from the package as it passed through US customs.

I packed the stuff very well though, so I'm sure it's well protected. The jam jar was an expensive one so the store had already wrapped it in tissue paper, before I gift wrapped it and placed it in bubblewrap along with the other items. Sometimes I can be slightly excessive with cushioning the stuff I send - however I re-use all my bubblewrap that's still decent.

[trevelyan]

The only time I seem to run into trouble is when I'm descriptive about what is actually in the packages. I second the recommendation on "documents" or "educational materials".

[Lu]

Sometimes I can be slightly excessive with cushioning the stuff I send

I don't think there's such a thing as 'excessive cushioning' when sending stuff to China. Anyway I do the same. Pack it so that they can play soccer with it, that's about the kind of cushioning you need.