臺北交換明信片網友聚會 / Postcrossing Meeting, Taipei, Taiwan, 2009

Postcrossing had started to be popular in Taiwan since last September. The web forum, however, was not a common disgussion place for Taiwanese internet users, so people here did not get to know each other as a club or a group. However, a diligent Dutch mother, who sent the most postcards from Taiwan, sent out a proposal through personal message one by one in March, 2009, and made people going to the forum to see what would happen.

12:00 noon, 18 April, 12 postcrossers met in Taipei Main Station without any detail plan but their favorite postcards. Although most people came from Taipei, there were a man from the northernmost city,Keelung, and a woman from the southernmost county,Pingtung, crossing over 400 km.

They went the food court to have lunch, but that was not important at all. Not untill everyone finished their lunch, someone already took out his/her postcards. Everything happened so naturally. They chatted about the experience of postcrossing, the interactivities with other postcrossers in foreign countries, the place to collect postcards, and so on. And the most important, writing postcards. A souvenir postcard was designed by a American designer who was asked by a Taipei postcrosser not showing up, to commemorate the first meeting in Taiwan.

Everyone wrote the postcards so hard and were very happy. At the end, they went to the post office to mail them out. Wait and see, maybe you will get one of the meeting postcards.

交換明信片自去年(2008)九月，被網友大量轉貼，使得這個活動一下子熱絡了起來。至今臺灣網友已成為第六大會員國家，寄出近五萬張明信片到世界各地。然而由於英語網站的論壇討論區使用與臺灣網友的習慣不同，所以並沒有一個很熱絡的討論社群形成。直到今年三月，台灣第一名的會員，一一向各個會員發送個人訊息，才把大家吸引到論壇去看看到底會有什麼活動。

經過近一個月慢慢的討論，12名會員終於在四月18日正午，在臺北車站聚首。與會者包含北中南的人士，包含基隆、彰化、屏東，跨越了整個臺灣達400多公里，實在是令人感到興奮。大家到二樓美食廣場吃吃喝喝，還沒全部結束，就已經有人自然而然地把明信片拿出來分享。話題也自動展開，包含大家蒐集明信片的經驗、旅遊中的明信片、如何逼迫朋友在旅遊中寄明信片，還有拿出同一套明信片來比較等等。

最重要的，這次有另一位會員為大家找了美國的設計師製作了聚會紀念明信片，可惜因故無法參加，不能詢問其設計過程。大家紛紛努力的寫明信片，興味盎然。最後在大廳的車站郵局，購買油桐花郵資票，投遞明信片，結束了這場充滿意義的網友聚會。

I got my souvenir postcard today. Joanna helped me to mail it. So I did not know what everyone wrote. The message was a surprise, like a three-day time capsule.
今天早上回家攔截了這個聚會明信片，收到了大家寫給我的小留言。雖然當時是當著我的面寫的，但是Joanna藏起來沒給我看到，幫我寄回來。好像一個三天效期的時間膠囊，真是驚喜。