A great Year of the Snake first day cover. The Year of the Snake  蛇  is the sixth of the twelve-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac. Snakes have a long and complicated place in Chinese mythology and culture.  In Chinese symbology, snakes are regarded as intelligent, with a tendency to lack scruples. 

Remember the Mr. Men books by Roger Hargreaves? My sisters had most of them and they loved reading them. Mr. Bump was the sixth book of the series. He is a blue man who can't help having accidents. Anytime he tried to do a job, he would fall, get stuck, break things, or hurt himself. On vacation he would fall into holes, fall in the water while boating. At the end of the book he found his perfect job: bumping into trees in Mr. Barley's apple orchard, making the apples fall off the trees. 

This card is a promo for a Japanese animated basketball movie called The First Slam Dunk . It's based on a manga series called Slam Dunk . It grossed $258 million worldwide becoming the fifth highest grossing anime film every. The protagonist is Ryota Miyagi of the Shohuku High School basketball team. They challenge for the inter-high school basketball champions, Sannoh Kogyo High School. 

Hsinchu is the seventh largest city in Taiwan with almost 450 000 residents. Yi-Ling's card is from a Postcrossing meetup. There are many personal signatures and ink stamps on the back. The Chenghuang Temple of Hsinchu was built by the Kingdom of Tungning. Tungning was a maritime state that ruled south-west Taiwan and the Penghu Islands between 1661-1683. The Temple is a common prayer destination, with people mostly praying for better lives and the avoid floods and drought. The temple itself is dedicated to Chenghuang, or City God, who is believed by some to record bad deeds.

Apple lives in Hsinchu  新竹  and has sent me a Postcrossing Meetup Card. Meetups are just what it sounds like - a meetups. Postcrossers in the same region or city schedule a day and time to meet, trade postcards, and send specially designed meet up cards.  Apple's meetup was specifically for Superhero Fans Meetup, which took place on 29 May 2021. The Postcrossers in this case are all superhero fans. The neat things about meetups is all the people attending sign their name or leave their stamp. Some Postcrosser have rubber stamps designed to use for these occasions. Looks like at this meetup there were 10 participants. During COVID, many Postcrossers had virtual meetups over Zoom.