Mu Dongnuan, of Guiyang, Guizhou province, says it is increasingly difficult to write letters as it gets more difficult to find necessary materials and to mail letters.

When he went back to his hometown in Bijie, Guizhou province, recently, he was disappointed that the local stationer no longer sold postage stamps.

"Will there come a day when I cannot mail a letter if even if I can write one?" Mu says.

"Some of my friends even thought that a postal service for ordinary letters had disappeared and that postage stamps are just collectors' items."

Yu Chengqian, who lives in Beijing, says the frequent changes of people's addresses, especially those in the cities, make it difficult to maintain correspondence, too.

Another possible reason for disappearing traditional letters is that people are often embarrassed by their handwriting skills, the decline of which is a result of the prevalence of typing.