I learned two new things from this Slate article: Stamp collectors are called “philatelists”, and China has one-third of the world’s population of philatelists (take that, rest of the world!). I’ll admit it: I used to collect stamps too when I was growing up in China. I’m not sure about the article’s assertion that stamp collecting is seen as a status symbol in China. When I was collecting stamps as a schoolkid in China, it was just something kids did. Kids in America collect baseball cards (or do they still?), and kids in China collect stamps. My elementary school organized a stamp collectors club, and we even went to a couple stamp tradeshows. In fact, I still have a couple filled-up stamp albums stashed away at my parents’ house. Yeah it’s nerdy, but hey, that 1950 Zhou Enlai rookie stamp is going to be worth a mint one day :-)