Brunei's Local News - Brudirect.com

Kuala Belait - The sale of Hari Raya Aidil Fitri greeting cards has seen a decline with more well-wishers opting to use text messages and emails to convey their holiday greetings to family and friends.

As shoppers bustled across the Belait town to gear up for the upcoming Hari Raya celebration, the sale of the hari Raya cards remained stagnant for the past few days.

In postal offices across Brunei, fewer cards are also being mailed.

According to an officer at the Belait District's main post office, nowadays people prefer using SMS (short message service or text messages) and email to convey their Hari Raya greetings.

"This year, the usage of postal services for Hari Raya cards mailing is dissatisfying. People choose to use the instant SMS and email services.

However, there are people who still use the postal services, but the number is very few," she said.

The Brunei Times also learned from interviews with shop owners and shoppers that fewer people are buying Hari Raya greeting cards.

"Usually at this time when the Hari Raya celebration is fast approaching, many would flock into shops to find and buy Hari Raya cards to convey their Hari Raya messages to family and friends. However, over the years, Hari Raya cards are no longer an item (used) for the celebration," a 34-year-old customer said.

The owner of a well-known stationery shop in Kuala Belait said that the demand for Hari Raya greeting cards this year has softened compared with the previous year.

"I'm not saying it is the demise of the trend of sending Hari Raya cards. People still do come to our shop to buy the Hari Raya cards. We even do our own printing for the greeting cards that we sell here and we still receive orders from different companies for the Hari Raya cards," she said.

"A company usually ordered up to 300 Hari Raya cards at a time and we usually received orders from more than 10 companies," she added.

A cashier at stationery shop Pustaka Remaja told The Brunei Times that this year, the number of customers who buy Raya cards has fallen compared with the previous years. Because of this, the shop only opens a small section for the cards.

"We only have very few customers who buy the Hari Raya cards. The purchasing of the Hari Raya cards is becoming less popular," she said.

Brunei's postal service has also seen less traffic for the cards. The once-popular trend and tradition of sending Hari Raya greeting cards through the post is now the "less favourite thing" for well-wishers, according to interviews with postal workers.

When The Brunei Times interviewed representatives from the four districts' post office, the general response was almost similar - over the years, there has been a decline in using the post for delivering Hari Raya cards locally as well as overseas.

"There is a very wide difference. During the 1990s, the post office received thousands of Hari Raya cards for mailing. Between 2001 and 2003, the rate of (delivery of) Hari Raya cards mail declined sharply to 30 to 40 greetings per month," a source from the Temburong District main post office said.

In Tutong and Brunei-Muara Districts, however, the postal offices saw a slight increase in the number of people who still use the post to send their Hari Raya cards.

"The last two to three days, we received many mails for the Hari Raya cards. In a day, people came and mailed more than 10 greeting cards," a source from the Tutong District main post office said.

A worker at the BruneiMuara District's main post office also noticed a similar ,uptick in mailings.

"This year, there's a slight improvement in the number of people using the mail service. There's no sign of a very sharp decrease for the postal service in our (Brunei-Muara) main post office. However, if compared with the rate over the previous years, obviously there are differences in the rate which can be found," he said. -- Courtesy of The Brunei Times