Long time ago when I was still in my elementary school, my aunt introduced me about things related to philately. Everybody surely knows about that term and so do you, my reader. My nephew started this hobby when her father regularly had correspondences with his colleagues through postmails. She used to take and collects the stamps on the envelope. Since then, I asked my mother to buy me a stamp album which I am keeping till now. I got pen pals in Bobo and when the internet easening my access to other pen pals around the world, I started to have foreign pen pals. I accidentally found Postcrossing when initiatedly typed postcards crossing on internet. It was at the end of 2011. I later found out that this website helped me to meet people who love correspondences. The mail here is not what we call today as E-mail. Some of you might have wonder whether the traditional correspondence through poastal services still exists, especially in Indonesia. We know Japanese people still regularly sending new year greetings by postmail. Still, are there any people in Indonesia who corresponded with each other through the poastal service?
Today I was fortunate enough to attend a gathering of postcrossing community :p which is namely postcrossers, in Kantor Filateli Jakarta (KFJ). Old faces once I recognized now replaced by new faces which I totally did not know. what’s more, uhm.. I rarely active in facebook, a media where this community usually become acquinted with each other. They are exchanging postcards and letters, offering postcards giveaways, sharing their ideas about postcard designs, updating info related to Indonesia poastal services, and more. There were times when I could not involve with the activity due to my works.
When I got to KFJ, the only people I recognize were mbak Yanita, mbak Dini, Mbak Indah, dan Mbak Ayu of about 40 postcrossers. Though I know them, I am sure they wouldn’t know me only by a glimpse. I met Yanita and mbak Dini when there were postcorosser meet up last year. Oh it has been a year, even I just noticed now! Mbak Ayu actually was a friend of mine at university, even though we are in different faculty. The last is mbak Indah, one of my favorite bloggers which is also postcrossing and an author. I love her writings, her arts in decorating the postcards she sent, and her cheerfulness. She is also making very cute illustrated postcards which also already become my most favorite! I was one of her costumers till a couple of months ago.
I met new friends whom I suddenly forgot their names. Two of them I still remember are mbak Fitri and mbak Sasri only, I was sitting between them. I met Denissa, yet I couldn’t easilydeepen the friendship. I got another new friend when going home since she was also using a train, same as me. Her name’s Athiya and she is actualy 17 years old, far younger than me which is twenty-something now. If she was in my age, there would be so many postcards she has.
In today’s meet up, there were also discussion sessions. I met a middle-age man who is a philatelist. He sold some of his collections before going to Mecca to do umrah together with his family. A funny thing is when he said most of philatelists are men, while postrossers are mostly dominated by women. It is about the correspondences. Women tend to appreciate corespondences than men, I think. Maybe it is because women could express and sharing their feeling about certain things. The second discussion was with mas Uned, a postcrosser with the highest number of received and sent postcards! He is also a philatelist, he stated postcrossing supporting his real hobby as a philatelist. I can not really imagine how it would be If I had about 3000 postcards!! That is him, mas Uned must be thinking really hard how to manage his collections while me wondering how I can swim among thousands of the postcards lol. Yet I am sure, I am not going to do that since it could damage the cards. I am soooo happy for I got many free postcards. I bought map postcards and stamps as my stocks for the incoming months. I got a door prize. It is a photo book of a traveler (?), yet I am still happy everytime I see the book.
Postcards fans are now increasing, including in Indonesia. Somehow, I think sending postcards to whoever around this world could be one of the strategic ways to introduce this country, more specifically, to introduce your arts. Who knows that we can actually record the contemporary culture through the only piece of card. We write and send the cards to they who are so careful to keep the cards we sent. Sometimes I wonder why talented photographer and artist did not try to print the photos or paintings as postcards and sell it to the postcrosser. I am sure it will be a huge benefit. There are not many variative postcards here compared to the other countries, especially the developed ones. Moreover, not all postcrossers are good in photography and paintings. If you can promote your arts through the postcards, people in the world will know and someday it is really possible if one of them will bring you to they who are interested to buy your real arts.
So, are anyone among you interested to print your arts to a postcard?
ps: I did not upload the photo since I did not take any. If you are that curious, feel free to visit the Facebook group and tumblr 🙂
Aforme 
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