When you are young and young, letters are the main way to contact classmates and friends. I will never forget one Christmas Eve in the early nineties, receiving a flood of Christmas greeting cards, joy makes me can't suppress my curiosity, can't help but in the classroom, quietly put my hand into the desk, unpack open the greeting card, the quiet classroom instantly sounded Christmas music, I panicked to avoid the teacher's eyes - received a music greeting card!
With the development of communication, letters and greeting cards have become a thing of the past.
Shanghai Postal Museum
Address: No. 395 Tiantong Road, Hongkou District, Shanghai
Transportation: Metro Line 4, Line 10, Line 12
Parking: Shanghai Post and Telecommunications Club parking lot
Opening hours: 9:00-17:00
Ticket Price: Free
Shanghai Postal Museum. Formerly known as Shanghai General Post Office. Shanghai, one of the birthplaces of modern China's postal service, has experienced several vicissitudes of customs postal and Qing postal services.
This building is a masterpiece of European eclectic architecture. It was listed as one of the top ten buildings in Shanghai at that time.
In 1922, it was designed by Xie Cheng Foreign Firm, and the xin feng ji construction factory was constructed, and completed in November 1924. It covers an area of more than 6,400 square meters (about 9 acres), with a total construction area of 25,294 square meters and a building height of 51.16 meters, with a total cost of 3.2 million yuan at that time.
The main building is four stories high, and the corner tower is eight stories high, the tower is in the 17th century Italian Baroque style, elegant and majestic. The façade adopts the English classicist approach, while the main façade is surrounded by an ancient Roman architectural style supported by three layers of Corinthian column columns, reflecting the justice and solemnity of the postal service.
From the two sides of the spiral staircase into the 1200 square meters of the second floor business hall, can accommodate 6 basketball teams at the same time to play basketball games. Therefore, at that time, it was also known as the "First Hall of the Far East".
In 1989, the building was included in the list of the first batch of outstanding modern buildings in Shanghai.
In 1996, it was included in the list of national key cultural relics protection units.
The tower of the building is Baroque. The walls are fine-grained water-brushed stone powder, and the lintiantong Road side is a red brick wall with bronze statues on the top. In the center of the south is the messenger of Greek mythology, Hermes, wearing a winged hat, holding a serpent with a staff of carrier pigeons, and wings on his feet. Hermes is the god of messengers and commerce. Hermes is a goddess to the left and right, writing and writing letters, with a earth on the side; In the north, the god of love, the airplane and the letter box, and the left statue holds the locomotive, which was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
In 2004, President Jiang Zemin inscribed the name of the museum "Shanghai Postal Museum".
On January 1, 2006, it was officially opened to the public. The first floor is the Postal Museum, while the second floor is restored to its original appearance from decades ago, recreating the majesty of the "First Hall of the Far East".
The Post and Telecommunications Museum building is art in itself and worth savoring.
In the spacious and bright atrium on the ground floor of the Postal Museum, a model of a horse-drawn carriage marked "Shanghai Post Office of the Great Qing Dynasty" stands quietly, and on the right is a physical model of the first postal transport car purchased in 1917. At the other end of the atrium, a dark green model of an airplane used for Shanghai's first regular air mail route hangs in the air.
On the second floor, you can see the march 20, 1896, when the Guangxu Emperor approved the opening of the National Post, which later became the anniversary of the opening of the China Post. The postbox not far from the folding display window has the four characters of the Great Qing Postal Service, and the mailbox is coiled with a dragon.
Here, you can see the first set of stamps issued by China in 1878, the Dalong stamps, which are empty when you touch it with your hand, because these two stamps are virtual images created using optical technology.
Here you can also see the first stamps (top 50) from all over the world. The exhibition board details the issuance time, country or region of issue, face value and other basic contents of the first 50 stamps.
Here you can see French heart-shaped stamps, Chinese triangular stamps, Polish silk stamps, Swiss wood stamps, Swiss chocolate-scented stamps... You can also see Qing Dynasty customs postal stamps, including Xiaolong stamps and longevity stamps issued to coincide with the 60th birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi. as well as Qing Postal Stamps, Zhonghua Postal Stamps, Liberated Areas Stamps and New China Stamps. Among them, the treasure of the town hall, "Green Dressed red lady", has only 10 pieces in existence so far.
You can also see the postmarks of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.
A mailbox from more than a hundred years ago
Take the elevator up to the fifth floor, where a roof garden is built on the roof of the post building. In the roof garden, you can admire the Baroque bell tower, which is flanked by sculptures cast in a group of three people holding models of locomotives, ships and telecommunication cables, symbolizing the development of transportation and communication; A group of greek gods of communication and eros, symbolizing that the postal service is a messenger of human emotions.
The Postal Museum, which carries the past of the postal service in a heavy way, records its history, presents us with many precious stamps, and also shows us its architectural beauty, is a place worth staying, and also reminds me of the fading green postman's back...