Letters that heal the heart

As technology makes communication easier and quicker, handwritten letters are nearly a thing of the past.

But it is making a comeback on Feng Shengjing's desk. The 34-year-old from Chengdu, Sichuan province, started an online nostalgic letter-writing business in February last year, writing and mailing hundreds of letters on behalf of others.

"Behind every letter, there is a touching story. And listening to their stories makes me reflect on my own," Feng says. She has written letters of appreciation, apologies for wrongdoings, love letters and breakup letters.

Her story has gone viral on social media, triggering wide discussion on the lost art of letter writing. It has been viewed more than 14 million times on the micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo.

The idea of writing letters for others came when Feng tried to draw and write on her iPad to beat boredom during quarantine. Then, she opened an online store for letter writing. Up till last month, she worked for a local illustration and design company in the day, and worked on her online business as a scribe at night.

In mid-March last year, a doctor from Sichuan became her first client. He was assigned to help fight COVID-19 in Wuhan, Hubei province, during the 76-day lockdown.

The doctor contacted Feng to help him write thank-you letters to the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital and the hotel he stayed in for their care and support during his time in Wuhan. As mailing services were suspended during the lockdown, Feng wrote the letters on her iPad and emailed the letters.

"I told him that I wanted to write the letters free of charge, but he insisted on paying," Feng recounts.

Since then, her business took off. As of January, she has written more than 700 letters, with each letter ranging from dozens of words to thousands. Depending on the length of the letters, each letter can cost from dozens of yuan to less than 100 yuan ($15.6).

"Letter writing is a meaningful thing, and I want to make it into a lifetime career," says Feng, smiling. She resigned from her design job and became a full-time letter writer from June.

Between the lines

When Feng was a girl, her grandmother taught her calligraphy and poetry. She remembers on weekends during her primary school days, she used ink and brushes to practice calligraphy on old newspapers with her cousins.

Letter writing has been Feng's family practice before the keyboard era. Letters discussing problems and challenges of her youth became a special bond linking her to home.

"You should spend more time on penmanship, and it will do you good in the future," reads a line from a letter sent to her by her cousin from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, in April 1999.

"These memories about calligraphy and letter correspondence have inspired my letter-writing business," Feng says. She wants to write letters for people, especially those who cannot express their feelings into words and those who are physically challenged.

"My services can be divided into two modes: to transcribe content that clients provide, and to compose content based on clients' requirements," Feng says.

After writing hundreds of letters for strangers, she has been deeply moved by their stories.

Once, a mother contacted Feng to write a letter to her child's kindergarten teacher. In the letter, the mother tries to give the teacher a full picture of her child by detailing her child's likes and dislikes. The mother also hopes that the teacher can give a hug when her child cries. Feng felt the worries and concerns of a mother whose child leaves home for the first time.

One man had asked her to write a thank-you letter to a hospital. When his wife was experiencing a critical situation during childbirth, he could not hold back his tears and the nurses came to console him. After the delivery process and receiving treatment, his wife and twin babies, a boy and a girl, recovered.

"He wrote about the whole delivery process in more than 1,000 words for me to compose a thank-you letter," Feng says.

One of the letters that greatly impressed her is from a man who described himself as a thief. He wanted to write an apology letter to the family that he stole money from at their wedding party. In the letter, he admitted his wrongdoing and returned the money back.

"There are so many letters that deeply touch me, telling stories about love and care. Some clients, especially those with love letters, will report to me on the latest progress or response from their recipients," says Feng, smiling. Positive feedback from her clients and the letters' recipients has motivated her to keep writing.

Letters that Feng refuses to write are threatening letters or complaints.

Some clients say Feng's online letter-writing store brings The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Japanese author Keigo Higashino to life. The novel tells how general store owner Namiya communicates with neighbors through handwritten letters and offers sincere advice.

Many people have also approached Feng in the hope that letters can help them solve various problems.

"Their high expectations increase my stress because letter writing is only one way of communication, which cannot solve all the problems," Feng says.

Power of the pen

Professional letter writers used to be common on the streets of China because of the low literacy rates before the 1980s. Usually well-educated, the letter writers were good at writing and helped people compose letters for business or to family or friends. Apart from writing letters, they also helped read letters to their clients. The number of professional letter writers has sharply decreased since the nationwide introduction of nine-year compulsory education in 1986.

Data from the State Post Bureau shows that the number of stamped letters decreased from 7.4 billion in 2010 to about 1.4 billion last year in China. With the popularity of smartphones and computers, letters have been replaced by modern communication mediums such as emails and social media apps.

Most people cannot remember the last time they took up a pen and paper to write a letter. To keep letter handwriting alive in the digital age, the Museum of Family Letters was established at the Renmin University of China in Beijing in 2016. It has collected more than 60,000 handwritten letters donated by people worldwide. These include letters written last year during the coronavirus outbreak.

Zhang Ding, the museum's deputy curator, told Beijing Daily that challenging times during the COVID-19 pandemic have placed pens in the hands of people again.

"Most of the letters collected reached their recipients through the internet due to temporary suspension of mail services caused by the pandemic－the internet provides a new way for sending traditional letters," Zhang says.

He says the value of handwritten letters is irreplaceable, as a lot of time is taken to craft each character, sentence and paragraph, and to properly organize the writer's thoughts.

As for Feng, even helping others to write letters makes her understand the emotions and care in letter writing.

She says she hopes that people can slow down and take time to write a letter in this fast-paced society.

"Imagine one of your friends walking into a letter-writing store, carefully selecting the paper and envelope, and asking the letter writer to put thoughts into words," Feng says. "When you get such a nicely packed letter with your nickname on the envelope, I believe you will smile seeing it."