THURSDAY 5 MARCH 2015 • [email protected] • www.thepeninsulaqatar.com • 4455 7741 inside The Battle CAMPUS • Park House celebrates of Waterloo multiculturalism and diversity P | 4 P | 10 FOOD • 10 fresh ideas for dressing up a basic bowl of oatmeal Sending postcards is more personal than a generalised P | 7 cyber-posting or e-blast, and at the same time less FILM narcissistic. Postcards widen • The blockbuster’s the conversation by adding a in decline... Here’s third element: the image itself, how to save it whether tacky or beautiful, generic or informative. P | 8-9 HEALTH • Long-term paracetamol use poses risk: Study P | 11 TECHNOLOGY • Facebook’s future is to reach billions of mobile users: Mark Zuckerberg P | 12 DISAPPEARING LEARN ARABIC • Learn commonly used Arabic words POSTCARDS and their meanings P | 13 2 PLUS | THURSDAY 5 MARCH 2015 COVER STORY Are postcards a thing of the past? By Mark Jenkins e no longer wish you were here. Or rather, these days, an individual I is much less Wlikely to scrawl such a mes- sage on a postcard to a particular You. The collective We and the aggregate You communicate incessantly, of course. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all that. But it’s just not the same. I started wondering about post- cards in September, while traveling in East Asia. I bought them at muse- ums in Tokyo and Gyeongju, South Korea; a bookstore in Kagoshima, Japan; and a monastery in Hong Kong that’s the site of the world’s largest seated outdoor bronze Buddha. (Yes, that’s a category.) The big Buddha had been prime postcard bait when I was in Hong Kong 15 years earlier. Yet this time I saw postcards of it for sale only at the monastery itself. Souvenir shops, convenience stores and street stalls no longer sold them, or any other views of the ambivalently Chinese city-state. It was far easier to find a “selfie stick” than a postcard. For me, sending postcards is not simply force of habit or a tiny revolt against the “like us on Facebook” inanity of social media. It’s more personal than a generalised cyber-posting or e-blast, and at the same time less narcissistic. Postcards widen the conversation by adding a third element: the image itself, whether tacky or beautiful, generic or informative. PLUS | THURSDAY 5 MARCH 2015 3 They’re also, in a way, more real. sions. “It’s a habit I picked photo if it’s not sent from a site asso- “It’s the actual physical feel of some- up from one of my best ciated with that image. thing,” says Nancy Pope, head cura- friends, who lives “You don’t choose a postcard because tor of the History Department at the in Mexico,” he of the space on the back,” says Pope, National Postal Museum, and “still one says. “He went to who organized a 1995 exhibition of of those” who sends postcards. “When college in the States vacation postcards titled “Are We you’re able to actually hold something and then moved There Yet?” (She actually had to bor- in your hand, that trumps reading back.” row the items, since the Postal Museum something electronically any day.” “I saw how it was a doesn’t collect postcards, only postcard But not for many people. That really easy way to make stamps.) “You choose it because of the sales and usage have been slipping in people feel good,” he says. image on the front. And the connection the United States — or across the globe, Gallery “If I go on a trip and send that has between you and the place, or for that matter — seems self-evident. postcard postcards, people are so you and the person you’re sending it to. When was the last time you received types. “We usually appreciative. It doesn’t take “It’s a personal or an emotional deci- a bona fide handwritten postcard? go to the cheapest outlet. a lot of effort, but it’s been sion you’re making, a connection that (It counts even if it comes from one Not the museums, obviously. a great way to keep in touch you’re making using this third piece, of those people who use pre-printed They’re very expensive,” Teviotdale with people.” this piece of cardboard — to emphasize, address labels.) But quantifying the says. “When we were in Memphis, we Postcards became more create or establish a memory.” decline is tricky. got all our postcards at the Walgreens.” important to Apatoff when he took a Teviotdale and Tinto think a card The US Postal Service processed They have noted a decline in card break from social media networks. He should be mailed from where it was 770 million stamped postcards in fis- variety and availability, but they have still doesn’t use Instagram, but he has bought, or nearby. “Even if it’s from the cal 2014, down from 1.2 billion in 2010, yet to be inconvenienced. “We do like returned to Facebook, which he uses airport, we try to do that,” Tinto says. according to figures provided by agency looking at tourist stuff,” Tinto says. mostly for political and community “You want the postmark to be spokesperson Sue Brennan. The USPS “We like the tacky souvenirs, and the organising. Even in this realm, he says, authentic,” Teviotdale adds. doesn’t count how many of those were postcards are usually right there.” he follows up via snail mail. “I always That doesn’t concern Apatoff. “I personal postcards, rather than pro- In France, Teviotdale recalls, they thank them with a postcard, so people don’t necessarily have to send them motional pieces of some kind. But most found many examples of the sort of know what they’re doing is important. from the place where I am,” he says. “I of the latter are classified as presorted free promotional postcards no longer People have a really positive reaction can take some postcards from Mexico bulk mail, a separate and larger cat- distributed in Washington. But, she to it. That’s really the reason I keep back to the States and mail them while egory that’s diminishing at a slower admits, in India, “the only ones we saw doing it.” I’m here.” pace (down to 2.3 billion pieces, from were postcards of the Taj Mahal we Although he picked up cards from a 3.1 billion in the same period). bought at the airport.” restaurant in Mexico, Apatoff generally An origin story Sales of postcard stamps have Teviotdale and Tinto are baby boom- doesn’t go for local colour. He prefers One allure of the medium is that also declined significantly, although ers who use postcards to communicate art or architecture, such as the images they convey not just an image and Brennan cautions that many people use with their peers and the members of of gargoyles at the National Cathedral message, but also a material bit of regular first-class stamps on postcards. the generation right above them. They he bought on a recent DC visit. “I like another place. The coolest Internet- At the current rates of 49 cents for let- recognise that postcards, and mail in the ones that I can get an education posted snapshot of Angkor Wat or the ters and 34 cents for postcards, that’s general, are less important to gens from, if it’s a famous painter or sculp- Patagonian Andes is not as concrete a 15-cent gift to the USPS. X and Y. “Some of these kids who go tor or someone like that. Or old histori- as a small rectangle of printed card- As for the printed postcard business, off to college never know where their cal ones, like Civil War photography.” board that actually traveled from there in 2013 it was “probably half what it mailbox is,” Teviotdale says. Purists probably wouldn’t object to to you. “It’s a warmth you cannot get used to be,” says Matthew Tobin, An exception to that e-oriented using postcards the way Apatoff often from electronics, no matter how nice then-president of the US Souvenir outlook is Ben Apatoff, a Washington- does, as a more personal and palpable the Instagram picture is,” Pope says. Wholesale Distributors Association, raised Brooklynite who’s just over alternative to email. But some might “It’s not the thing that you pull out of in an interview with the Providence 30. He sends postcards question a card featuring a your mailbox and pin to the wall.” Journal that year. (His successor could when he travels famous painting or In South Korea, I sent a postcard be not be reached for comment.) and on other vintage to friends whose elementary-school- Whatever the exact numbers, the occa- age son, Min, was adopted from that disappearance of postcards is apparent country as an infant. He claimed the just by visiting the places that used to printed-cardboard talisman and put sell them. it on his wall — both a picture of a meaningful place and an actual Not just for vacation piece of it. Ramsay Teviotdale and Bill Yes, Min could have prin- Tinto, a widely traveled ted out an Instagram Arlington, Virginia, cou- image and put it ple who still send on his wall. But it’s and receive just not theth same. postcards, are WP-BloombergWP-B not National 4 PLUS | THURSDAY 5 MARCH 2015 CAMPUS Stalls set up by the students selling various food items. akistan Education Centre of love, co-operation, and kindness held the ‘Annual Food PEC holds annual Food Fiesta to promote brotherhood among the Festival’ at its premises young students as part of the cur- Precently.