Stamp Festival, 2012

Lunar Year of the Dragon

Lunar New Year is the most important traditional Chinese festival, being a time for family gathering, burning firecrackers and presenting greetings.

The Chinese zodiac cycle is composed of five Elements (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire & Earth) combined with ten Heavenly Stems and twelve Zodiac Animals (Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog & Pig) that correspond to twelve Earthly Branches to designate the nature of a particular year. At the late January of 2012, it starts the Lunar Year "Ren-Chen" - Year of the Dragon of Water.

Giant Pandas

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the establishment of Macao SAR, the Central Government sent a couple of giant pandas to Macao SAR as tokens of goodwill from the motherland, in complement of Macao's fortune and joy. The male giant panda "Kai Kai" has a round face, big-pointed-flanking ears and a nose ridge darker colored than normal. He is active and likes to mingle with others. The female giant panda "Xin Xin" has a broad nose ridge and water-drop-shaped black eye patches. She is docile, cuddly and adorable.

Love and Blessings

No emotion is stronger than love between parents and children. "Selfless love" and "everlasting love" from parents is human's nature as in the saying "Parents never stop worrying about their children, even when they are adults". Children's love towards their parents is also human's nature, as shown in the "24 Filial Love" well known in old China but also now accepted by many modern families.

Idiom - Watching over a Stump, Waiting for a Rabbit

In the ancient Chinese literature "Han Feizi - Wu Du", there is a short story about a Song (dynasty) farmer who saw a rabbit running into a stump and killing itself, and the farmer took it home. He thought be had found a small bargain. For then on, he did not work in the fields. He watched and waited at the stump every day hoping another rabbit would hit itself against it to allow him to pick it up. Therefore, the farmer always went home empty Handed.

It is uncommon for a rabbit to kill itself by running into a stump, but the farmer thought it would often happen. Finally, he had suffered. Hence, people use this idiom as a metaphor to mean trusting to luck in gaining success without going through hard work, and mocking conservative people that do not know when changes are necessary.

Scenes of Daily Life in the Past - Mr. Postman

Suffering from yearning miles away under the bright moon, is there any country which has never received mercy from postmen? They make nothing of hardships and walk through all main and side streets under the wind and rain so as to build a yearning bridge for millions upon millions of people. Across all the ages, famous invitations and letters went down in the annals of history. However, were there any postmen's names stamped in the history?

Macao World Heritage - Ruins of St. Paul's

The Ruins of St. Paul's refer to the magnificent granite facade of what was originally the Church of Mater Dei, built in 1602-1640, which formed part of a Jesuit complex including St. Paul's College, considered to have been the first western-style university of the Far east. In 1835, a fire destroyed the entire complex, leaving only the impressive granite facade of the church with its sculptures of the main elements of western Catholic tradition, together with Chinese characters and other distinctly oriental decorations that reflect the interchange of cultures through the Jesuits.