No, the picture you see isn’t a mistake.  Let us explain, but first:  what’s a cautionary tale anyway?

 

We can condense Wikipedia’s definition:  there are three essential parts to a cautionary tale.   First, a prohibition;  then,  someone disregarded the warning and performed the forbidden act; and finally, the violator comes to an unpleasant fate.  With that for your background, here’s the story.  Since mid-2019, nearly everyone knows that Hong Kong (where we are based) has been beset by political and civil disturbance, well before coronavirus came along to make things worse.    It’s been clear what our much larger parent north of the border thinks of all this.  Any print or broadcast representation of these activities is banned or heavily restricted … and censored.  Likewise, media bringing the messages may be prohibited.

 

Along the way, we collected some astonishing postcards issued by those supporting either side of this free-for-all.  Some come from photographs, and others from artwork.  Some are cartoons, some are calligraphy, and others just statements.   Collectively they represent an important period in Hong Kong’s history.  But we can’t show them to you in the site.  We know a cautionary tale when we see one.  If we put uncensored photos online,  Global Postcard Sales could lose access to something like 20% of the world’s population — and many of our customers.  We don’t want that.

 

If you browse through our “Hong Kong” category, you’ll see quite a few examples like the photo that illustrates this Blog entry, and how we finesse the descriptions.  We think it’s safe to say that if you want to see any of those cards full-frontal (so to speak), you can ask us and we can e-mail photos to you.  Yes, these cards are relatively expensive, for good reasons:

*  They were really hard to get.

*  They will not be available again.

*  Those we had to buy came with surcharges imposed by various vendors to support the causes.

 

So our cautionary tale hopefully comes to a peaceful end, and GPS will live to fight another day.

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And in this period of virus, quarantines, “social distancing” (who came up with that?), cancellations, bans, and lockdowns, we want all of you to stay healthy and safe.  You need never leave your home to enjoy the wide world of postcards!

 

Until later …