Dongguan City in Guangdong Province harbors rich historical and cultural heritage, with over 1,260 years of urban development history, serving as an important birthplace of Lingnan culture. Located in the core area of Dongguan's Guancheng arcade building cluster, the Dongguan Memory Theme Post Office has quietly become a new landmark of the Dongguan Memory district through its unique fusion of traditional Chinese aesthetic trends and modern architectural design. Since its official inauguration on April 30th this year, the post office has been receiving over a thousand visitors daily.

Adhering to the core philosophy of "promoting culture through postal services, boosting tourism through postal services, and benefiting people through postal services," the Dongguan Memory Theme Post Office is writing a new chapter of coexistence between century-old postal services and the city, allowing people to deeply experience that Dongguan is not only an industrial hub but also a historic cultural city.

**Century-Old Postal Route: A Cross-Century Dialogue from Qing Dynasty Post Office to Cultural Corridor**

The birth of Dongguan Memory Theme Post Office stems from a historical connection spanning centuries. In 1901, Dongguan's first Qing Dynasty Post Office opened at Kengyongwei in Guancheng (now the core area of the Dongguan Memory project), marking the beginning of the modern postal system in Dongguan. Today, this reopened theme post office carries the mission of "letting the city preserve memories and helping people remember nostalgia" through multiple functional zones including historical and cultural exhibition areas, postal universal service areas, stamping areas, "letters to the future" areas, and cultural creative product exhibition areas, allowing people to deeply experience the century-old postal culture.

In the postal historical and cultural exhibition area, a copper relief wall embedded with old photographs of the 1901 Qing Dynasty Post Office is particularly striking. The exhibition area displays precious artifacts including reproductions of China's first stamp set "Da Long stamps" issued in 1878, postal date stamps from the 1950s, and exchange tickets from the 1990s, connecting the transformation of Dongguan's postal services from traditional courier stations to modern logistics.

In the cultural creative product exhibition area, items such as "Dongguan Memory Stamp Books," "Arcade Building Block Fridge Magnets," and "Aqi Ice Cream Cultural Creatives" are abundant. "This set of 'Beautiful Dongguan' illustrated postcards sells the best, hand-drawn and printed by local artist Liang Yongming, attracting many visitors specifically for them," explains Wen Yang, a guide from Dongguan Postal Branch's Postal Business Department. Over 200 cultural creative products incorporating elements like metal bookmarks with Humen Fort features, silk postcards with Keyuan garden patterns, and LED stamp lights, along with Dongguan Memory special commemorative stamps and collaborative cultural creative products, are popular among visitors, transforming Dongguan's cultural heritage into portable city symbols.

The post office has launched 12 "Dongguan Memory" special commemorative stamps incorporating urban elements such as Humen Fort, Keyuan gardens, and arcade buildings, attracting numerous stamp collecting enthusiasts to visit specifically for these stamps. "Each stamp tells a story," says stamp collecting enthusiast Mr. Li, showing his book filled with stamps. "Collecting all the stamps is like walking through Dongguan's entire historical and cultural corridor."

**Immersive Experience: From Stamp Collecting to Emotional Transmission's Cultural Resonance**

In the historical corridor on the second floor, a series of old photographs silently narrate Dongguan's industrialization process: in front of the postal and telecommunications building in the 1990s, workers lined up in long queues; staff behind counters used abacuses to verify money order amounts; yellowed price lists on walls showing "remittances from 2.5 yuan"...

"Dongguan was once the 'world's factory,' where migrant workers sent wages home and transmitted family letters through postal remittances," introduces Chen Youlin, manager of the theme post office at Dongguan Postal Branch. Here, each yellowed receipt with remittance amounts ranging from 50 to 2,000 yuan carries countless memories of migrant workers.

On the second floor of the theme post office, the "Letters to the Future" section is a popular check-in spot for visitors. Here, visitors can not only rest while enjoying the view outside but also deposit letters filled with hopes into vintage mailboxes.

Xu Yanmei, a staff member at Dongguan Postal City Branch, shared a deeply moving story with reporters about an elderly tourist visiting Dongguan. While touring the postal history exhibition area, the elderly man saw a 1990 remittance receipt and his eyes immediately welled up with tears. "Back then, with a monthly salary of 400 yuan, I had to send 300 yuan home. When I couldn't return for holidays, family would send local specialties," the elderly man recalled his years working in Dongguan. He then wrote a letter to his grandson back home, detailing his work and life experiences in Dongguan, using pen and paper to record memories retrieved during this journey.

When Xu Yanmei helped him mail the letter, the elderly man was filled with gratitude. "That moment made me deeply understand that a post office is not just a place, but a bridge for emotional transmission. Every day I hear visitors sharing their stories about Dongguan," Xu Yanmei says. Here, she witnesses countless emotional connections between visitors and Dongguan memories, not only spreading Dongguan culture but also creating beautiful memories for visitors.

"This isn't simply mailing letters, but a cross-temporal dialogue," Xu Yanmei explains. Here are love letters from couples agreeing to read together in ten years, growth messages from parents to newborns, and "city love letters" from visiting tourists recording their impressions of Dongguan. All of this represents memories of time, transmission of emotions, and inheritance of beauty.

As the slogan on the post office wall states: "Mailboxes contain stories of the past and hopes for the future."

From the 1901 Qing Dynasty Post Office to the 2025 Dongguan Memory Theme Post Office, what remains unchanged is the warmth connecting the city with people's hearts. "We combine postal culture with Dongguan's local culture, developing many series of cultural creative products. Meanwhile, the post office will regularly host salons and activities related to Dongguan's intangible cultural heritage, providing young people with great places for check-ins, leisure, and entertainment," Chen Youlin states. Moving forward, Dongguan Postal Branch will capitalize on Dongguan's positioning as China's trendy toy capital and regional advantages in the trendy toy industry to build a "China Trendy Toy Theme Post Office," spreading the profound heritage of century-old postal services in young, fashionable, and trendy ways, contributing postal strength to local cultural economy.