Malaysia, 中國, and 대한민국

The Korean Government declared 2007 as the Year of Biology in hopes of stimulating interest in the basic life science among the Korean people. It launched many events such as the "BioFestival" scheduled to be held nationwide, a "Special International Exhibition on Biotechnology and DNA/Mutation," "Biology Merges with Culture," conferences, symposiums, and lectures aimed at general public, and others. In this light, Korea Post also played its role by issuing an S/S seen in the cover below.

The S/S, issued 19 March 07, shows, in silhouette, chromosome and DNA, together with a sunflower, green frog, brown-banded butterflyfish and stag beetle. Appearing on the background of the small sheet to show animal lineage (origin and evolutionary process) are paramecium and euglena, hydra, squid, earthworm, butterfly, starfish, fish, salamander, turtle, crane, eagle, Jindo-dog, and the human being.

As we all should know, biotechnology such as medicine and, most recently, GMOs and cloning are all possible because of this discipline and, as such, it is just right that we devote more time and effort into developing it so that it can help us help each other.

This next cover sent from China actually took a very long time to get here! I noticed that the stamps were chopped on 13 April and the cover arrived 10 June! Perhaps the sender decided to send it via surface mail? But the postage on the cover amounts to RMB 3.5 and regular air mail costs only RMB 4.5. So I wonder if it was worth a wait of two months just to save RMB 1 (USD 0.15)?

Anyway, like I said in my previous post, I cannot understand Chinese so I really have no information regarding these stamps. The most striking of the three for me is the middle one, which I take celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China and the world's largest political party. Its paramount position as the supreme political authority in China, while not a governing body recognized by China's constitution, is realized as the supreme power through control of all state apparatus and of the legislative process. The CCP was founded in 1921, and came to rule all of mainland China after defeating its rival the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War. The party's 70 million members constitute 5.5% of the total population of mainland China.

The other stamps, the one to the left, most probably illustrates the ushering in and/or celebration of the coming of the year 2000. The children seem to be doing the new year dragon dance iconic of the Chinese new year. Perhaps this stamp shows a piece that won a contest for youth drawing?

The stamp to the right depicts something about Chinese culture - exactly what I do not know.

This last cover is an FDC of the St. John Ambulance in Malaysia Centenary. The St. John Ambulance, better known as "St. John," carries a name synonymous with First Aid and other humanitarian services in Malaysia as well as all over the world. As the leading First Aid organization in Malaysia since 1908, the St. John Ambulance of Malaysia (SJAM) has been rendering First Aid and Home Nursing services to the needy in almost all public and private events throughout the country.

To celebrate 100 years of this organization's presence in the Malay peninsula, Pos Malaysia issued a 3v set in 2007.

The set show picture of the ambulance in action. The 30-sen stamp shows the Emergency Ambulance Service vehicle; the 50-sen stamp shows a demonstration of First Aid; and the 1 Ringgit stamp shows an attempt at Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, or CPR (the stamps says, "Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation, which is wrong because Cardiopulmonary is one word).

Speaking of words, an interesting piece of trivia to know is that the word "Ambulance" finds its roots from the French "(hôpital) ambulant," which literally means "walking hospital."