A card from China which arrived in an envelope shows part of the Story of the Western Wing. also known as the Romance of the West Chamber. This is a very well known and ancient Chinese tale based on a version dating from the 7th century. The scene shown is called "Lovesickness".
The reason the card was in an envelope because inside was this wonderful stamp book:
I couldn't show it all in once because it's longer than my scanner. It appears to be the story of travelling tadpoles, searching for their mother. After visiting a shrimp, a goldfish, a crab and a tortoise, they find their mother in the final step.
In my search for information about the stamps, I found a site that may be useful for identifying Chinese stamps because you can search for them by category (architecture, flowers etc.) as well as by date of issue.
This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"
a story in stamp form - wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI was just watching a pool full of tadpoles last week, what a delightful series of images on the stamps, Hope my little English tadpoles have as interesting a journey.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right in say that it's a wonderful stamp booklet! How do you know so much about Chinese culture?
ReplyDeleteWikipedia is a wonderful thing. :)
Delete:)
DeleteThe card is good but the stamps are superb.
ReplyDeleteLovely set of stamps. It reminds me of a Dr. Suess-like book we have, called "are you my mother?"
ReplyDeleteI hope you are feeling better this week.
That is an interesting stamp booklet--better for saving than using.
ReplyDeleteA nice stamp story, and beautiful illustrations!
ReplyDeletewonderful, pre-finding-nemo story :) very cute
ReplyDeleteLovely stamps... are you going to share the information about this site? ;)
ReplyDeleteThat was clever of me.. Now updated
DeleteBeautiful
ReplyDeleteHow lovely!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great stamp with a nice story to tell.so cute!!!
ReplyDeleteWilla @ Postage Journal