Initiating Five-Rank Mail: Exploring the Hot Village of Felik in Northern Cyprus
May 11th: 'Civilian Aircraft'
I gradually became friends with the blue minibuses of North Cyprus, freely roaming various regions of the island's north. Lefke, a small town situated on a hillside overlooking the sea, is about 30 kilometers from the Middle East University Cyprus campus where I am located, lush between mountains and sea, exquisitely beautiful, nearby the Eastern Mediterranean Crossroad there is a sculpture of 'Orange', fruit orchards everywhere, flowers everywhere, local farmers are busy harvesting yellow and golden fruits, red fruit boxes stacked as walls, what a strange mountain and sea orchard!
Within the orchard are dragons and tigers, the town actually houses a sizeable 'Lefke European University', employing professors from Europe and America, attracting students from Turkey, Cyprus, and various Middle Eastern ethnicities. I once asked a golden-haired elderly woman wearing sunglasses for directions and was miraculously greeted with 'Hello' in Chinese… UN peacekeeping troops from Argentina are stationed here, UN-marked jeeps zoom by, and this July marks the 25th anniversary of the Turkish army occupying 'North Cyprus'. The international community has never given up efforts for reconciliation between Turkish and Greek Cypriots on the island.
Lefke town center is tiny, a three-way street with two office buildings and eight or nine shops, plus dozens of elderly men playing tea and chess in a dilapidated club. The central office building has 'a post office', and when I went in, there were countless colorful new postal announcements plastered on the walls. I bought a 1 lira airmail stamp just for this. The stamp features a high-flying 'North Cyprus Turkish Airlines' Boeing aircraft, with a deep blue Mediterranean Sea and a panoramic view of Cyprus underneath. I was accidentally inspired by a friend's comment, 'flying man', who once wrote 'Zizhi Tihantian', and I have flown back and forth between Ankara, Turkey, and North Cyprus 12 times on this mysterious route. My passport is stamped with numerous entries and exits for 'North Cyprus'... This small stamp encapsulates countless journeys of overseas wanderers – its significance is far beyond that of a mere stamp.
