When Typhoon Soudelor swept through Taipei on the night of August 7th, 2015, it left behind an unexpected new tourist attraction. The leaning post boxes, damaged by the storm, are one of the city’s quirkiest and cutest attractions to discover!
The post boxes on Longjiang Road started life as ordinary post boxes. The green box is for local mail within Taiwan, and the red box for international mail and urgent post. But when the destructive and deadly cyclone battered Taipei that night in 2015, a huge street sign was torn off a nearby building, crushing the post boxes.
Luckily, they survived the impact, and were soon discovered as local attractions. Unsure whether they would be torn down and scrapped, locals lined up in their hundreds to snap a picture and strike a pose with the curious leaning post boxes. But they weren’t torn down – instead, they’ve been preserved with re-enforced bases, and with the installation of a plaque at their base to commemorate their survival story. They have even earned adorable new nicknames – “Xiao Hong” (little red) and “Xiao Lu” (little green).
People fell in love with the bent post boxes. The way they lean over playfully like two dogs cocking their heads gives these objects a cute demeanor, especially when the twin letter slots make it look like they have faces!
The post boxes are now a permanent feature, and still operate as normal post boxes that people can use. There is even a special stamp that is applied to all of the mail sent from these post boxes, so the recipient knows where they were posted from!
Location of the bent post boxes
If you’d like to try and find the leaning post boxes for yourself, they are located in the Nanjing Fixing area, on Longjiang Road, not far from the Nanjing East Road intersection. The closest train station is Nanjing Fuxing station. They are located just in front of a 7/11.
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