Changing China
Giant on the move
Souvenir problem licked for Beijing athletes
Athletes at this year’s Olympics are being offered the ultimate souvenir — personalised Beijing 2008 postage stamps with their own faces on them.
The stamps are guaranteed to bring a smile to relatives’ faces back home, although you’ll need six of them for a foreign-bound postcard. Post office employees in the athletes’ village say coaches and officials are snapping them up as fast as a 100m sprinter.
“They are very popular. Some are buying 10 or 11 sheets,” said post office worker Li Qiang, who for 45 yuan ($6.6) for a sheet of 12 will take your photo and superimpose it on the rectangular Olympic stamps on show on the wall.
Li says well over a hundred sets of stamps have been printed so far, featuring Germans, Czech athletes and half the Chinese baseball team for a start.
