Shipping from USA to Taiwan

[Nica_In_Love 98]

I have a sister who is currently studying in Taiwan and I want to send her a few books and stuff that she may need. I was thinking of just using USPS Priority Mail (small or medium box - not much) and I wanted to print the label online. I have the address both in English and Chinese Mandarin but not sure which one should I use. The label doesn't really allow me to include both. Does anyone have any experience sending anything via USPS to Taiwan? How did you include the address? Did the item arrive safely? Thank you in advance.

[Casprd 167]

For sending to mainland China what I do is print or write out the USPS labels in English, but I also put a generic label with the Chinese address. Basically to get out of the US you will need the english label since they won't know what country it is going to if not in english, but having the address in Mandarin will allow the postman to know the address to deliver to in Taiwan.

[Nica_In_Love 98]

For sending to mainland China what I do is print or write out the USPS labels in English, but I also put a generic label with the Chinese address. Basically to get out of the US you will need the english label since they won't know what country it is going to if not in english, but having the address in Mandarin will allow the postman to know the address to deliver to in Taiwan.

Thank you! I will do the same then.

[Nica_In_Love 98]

I finally sent out a package to my sister. I sent only a book to test it out and it was shipped on 10/31/11. The USPS website says delivery time is estimated to be between 6 and 10 business days but to this day, she has not received the package. I put 2 different labels on the package and used USPS Priority Mail. Could it be that it got lost or does it usually take longer? The tracking info shows up until November 1 Processed through USPS Sort Facility Chicago IL 60666 International Letter. Thank you.

[confusedasheck 21]

Why not write the local address in Chinese and Taiwan in English with Taiwan in Chinese also written in Parenthesis?

[Nica_In_Love 98]

I put 2 labels, one in Mandarin and the other in English. I filled out the label online and you can't include other characters.

[Will and Mike 0]

I always write the address in English and have no issues. Also if you send a lot of books the usps has an "m" bag with a special discount rate. It guess by boat which takes some time but is much cheaper.

[Jason32 5]

I know this is an old post, but FYI, I just put the English address and it works fine...

[Nica_In_Love 98]

Thanks guys, the book never made it to Taipei. My sister moved to a new address, I want to try again, not sure if this time I should only include the address in English (?). If it has worked for you guys, I might give it a try.

[squirrelisan 23]

From what I understand, after it leaves the US, the package is handled by foreign postal workers. Not sure exactly how it works in Taiwan, but in Korea, and they are trained to read English, and it will get there. The only thing the USPS specifies particularly, when sending international mail, is to write the destination country in English on the package. The rest can be the native language or English (or both). I've sent every type of combo (Korean only, English and Korean, Korean only) Being paranoid though, I think using the native writing makes for less error. Take a look at the address format below for reference.

Taiwan address format

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_(geography)#Taiwan