A recent (pre-move) conversation between editor Laura Ming-Wong and someone in the US sending her samples for consideration in the fashion section of Lucire went something like this.
   ‘Have you received the samples yet?’
   ‘No, where did you send them?’
   ‘Laura Ming-Wong, Editor, Lucire, 2/20 Egmont Street, Wellington 6011, China.’
   China?
   Let me repeat that: China?
   Just because the editor is Chinese doesn’t mean she lives in China. Lesson no. 1: contrary to what must be commonly held opinion at the sender’s office, not all Chinese people live in China. Lesson no. 2: Wellington does not sound remotely Chinese. Lesson no. 3: Egmont does not sound remotely Chinese. Lesson no. 4: companies should not allow people who flunked geography to be in charge of dispatch.
   I do remember one package to Lucire being sent to ‘Kilbirnie, WA 6041’, with no country noted. Thankfully, someone at Canada Post recognized that Washington-state Zip codes had more than four digits. Canada Post sent it to Western Australia (good guess), and then, someone at Australia Post figured out that Kilbirnie—a suburb—was in New Zealand. That one got here through sheer luck. Who knows Kilbirnie? (That was the second attempt, incidentally: the first got lost in the post. I wonder why.)
   I received a package today from New York for the country of ‘Zew Zealand’, which brought this post on. To be extra careful, it had stamps marked ‘Foreign’ all over it, just in case it stayed within the continental United States.
   At least it didn’t go to China.

Related posts

• No related posts