The Evolution of Kad Raya
Unknown
During primary school, raya cards were sent by hand. And cartoon decorated cards were the favorite then. Each card tak sah kalau tak de ending macam ni:

Pecah kaca pecah gelas,
Sudah baca harap balas.

Well, sort of tak balik modal kalau orang tu tak balas balik kad raya yang kita beli and bagi.

And for the more keInggerisan style, the poem goes like this:

I have a pen,
My pen is blue,
I have a friend,
My friend is you.

Then as I grew up and entered secondary school, I started to have pen pals from other schools. Each day, waiting for the mails was the highlight of the day day dreaming. And the thrill of receiving mails and raya cards (by post) was beyond speech. But of course, raya cards were still exchanged by hand. Tapi apa la sangat thrillnya, exchanging cards between girls...hee hee

Upon entering pre-U and U era, I still kept in touch with some of the girls from school and occasionally did send cards to them. I used to make a list of the recipients' names and calculated on how many cards I have to buy. At that time, I preferred buying the 5 in 1 raya cards packet. Cost-effective. But the downside of buying these kind of cards was sometimes the cards were not appropriate for a friend and the words were a bit to the romantic side. Sangat tidak sesuai sigh. So sometimes I cheated and opened the package just to ensure the wordings were right. And yess... need to calculate the amount of stamps I need to buy too.

Going into the postgrad studies and he beginning of the working world, I started to have email account. And started to gain access to PCs with internet line. And with that, I was exposed to websites which offer e-cards and greeting cards with very simple instruction on how to send it virtually, as long as you know the recipient's email address. Besides the simplicity, the e-cards have pretty images, some with animation and with background song too. So, why buy? And my raya cards buying impulse dwindled ever since.

And sometimes I used the creative side of me (yang tak berapa kreatif) to create a personalized raya card using Power point with its animations features. But sometimes the laziness got over me and I resort to the existing e-cards again.
This year, the only raya card that I bought was this. And it's not even for me. It's for my kids, to be sent to their grandparents kat kampung.

And since it was ages ago that I sent any mail by post, I have no idea what stamp to buy and I had to ask the staff at the counter. She said, 50 cents stamp. Whoa!!surprise It used to be 15 cents I think. But yes, that was ages ago. And I remembered 20 cents was still enough to deliver your letter. And yes, I recalled when they increased it to 30 cents. Now it's 50 cents huh? Well, I don't blame them for increasing the price. I'm sure they have incurred a great loss in that area of service. No wonder Pos Malaysia did the TV advertisement below. Nice ad but once I have landed into the cozy, easy peasy comfort of IT and email and information at your fingertips, it's really hard to turn back peace sign.

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2 Responses
  1. Atuque Says:
    September 6, 2010 at 9:42 AM

    Hehe.. even if the internet world has dominated the e-cards sent through out the world, I still keep up with sending with real Raya Cards... More Feels of Raya..


  2. Unknown Says:
    September 6, 2010 at 12:44 PM

    ha ha.. elok la tu Tuk. Aku dah malas dah mengepos-ngepos ni...


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