The mail does get through.

I’m a member of Massey University Alumni.  About twice a year the Alumni send out a magazine with the developments at Massey, news of fellow scholars etc etc.  At the start of this year I had inquired

 about continuing with post Masters research, as an extramural student. The process involved changing my address from Blenheim to Vietnam, so they could send enrollment packs and further information should I have continued with that particular line of study. 

Now the postal service here in Vietnam is not totally reliable, either sending or receiving. This is after all a communist socialist republic.  Some times the mail just doesn’t get through. Parcels for example are opened, and you have to go to a collection outlet to pick them up, and pay of course. The contents are scrutinized. Literature rarely makes it through the scrutiny process unscathed. Getting places like Book Repository in the UK to send books is not  a good idea. IF they make it through the process than you have to pay import duty on each book, and sometimes that far exceeds the value of the book in the original state. Frequently literature doesn’t see the light of day. Clothes are another example with very steep import tax. A lot of my British friends here in Vietnam who buy clothes on line in the UK have them sent to a friend or family with an UK address. That lucky person then removes the tags, packaging, scrunches them up a bit to give the lived in effect and on-sends them. This way they don’t attract so much tax.

Imagine my surprise to receive my magazine at my apartment  almost unscathed, still in its wrapper. No tax, not opened, and no collection fee. The mail does get through.

Now the next question to ponder is................ How much did it cost Massey University to send this magazine to me? And how long did it take to get here?