Situated at 1 Youju Lu (Post Office Road) on the lower slopes of Purple Mountain, a visit to the Lingyuan New Village Post Museum is to step back in time almost 100 years and into the daily lives of the richest, most powerful people in all of China.
For this was where Song Meiling, First Lady of the Republic of China, and wife of President Chang Kai-shek, came to do something as menial as mail a letter.
With free entry and easily walkable (about 1 kilometre) from Exit 2A of Zhongling Jie Metro Station on Line 2, via Linggusi Lu, you will likely first notice the pagoda-style roof with its pattered lintels that were typical features of Republican-era architecture.
Except that it’s a two-story roof, with its upper floor a kind of flattened spire. With the roof having a total of eight eaves and corners, Lingyuan New Village Post Office was also referred to as the “Octagonal Pavilion”.
The Post Office has its origins in 1930, with the gently undulating slopes of the surroundings providing a secluded area for the construction of villas and residences for senior officials in the National Government.
The area became known as Lingyuan New Village and thus the need for a post office arose, to not only send and receive letters, but also to provide those living in the vicinity and the Sun-yat Sen Mausoleum area as a whole with other ancillary services.
Thus, the rich and famous plus dignitaries of the National Government comprised much of the Post Office’s clientele.
But disaster visited in the winter of 1937, when the Post Office was burnt down by the Japanese army. Rebuilt in 1947 on an imitation white marble base, with the coming of 1949 it became what must have been a rather luxurious staff dormitory.
A 2013 restoration saw the building given a new lease of life as the Post Museum of the Republic of China, but retaining the characters, “Mausoleum Post Office” (局郵園陵), written by Chairman Lin Sen of the National Government, that still hang above the door to this day.
