Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

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Nov 14th, '10, 06:02
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Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by togei » Nov 14th, '10, 06:02

The Japan post office has a notice, only in Japnese, see http://www.post.japanpost.jp/whats_new/ ... 02_c01.pdf
It says that from 11/17/2010, for an unspecified amount of time, there will be a restriction on the weight of packages that will be sent to the U.S. from Japan. The limit on weight is 16 ounces or 453 grams. The notice says it is for 'terrorism' related reasons. This restriction affects all type of postage, i.e., EMS, SAL, seamail, etc.
Order before this period if you want delivery.
If you want to see the Japan post office site and click the link yourself go here, http://www.post.japanpost.jp/index.html scroll down a little to a "RSS" link and click the first link below that. It will take you to the URL I posted.
Dave

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by Chip » Nov 14th, '10, 11:28

Whoa, that is hugely significant!

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by exquisite » Nov 14th, '10, 11:36

I don´t want to start a flame-topic, but I really wonder if originally this was conceived as a rule of outgoing mail from Japan or incoming mail to US. Either way, it seems very sarcastic to me (in the light of behind-doors politics between the two nations for the last decades) that Japan is invoking "terrorism" for this package weight limitation.
Nano-tech tea-jokes start coming to my mind. Sorry for our US tea-chatters, hope they will deal with the "limitation". (not so bad after all, you can fit a decent kyusu and enough tea in one package to last for a month).

Cheers!

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by Chip » Nov 14th, '10, 11:43

I did a few quick google searches, so far the only thing to come up was this topic. 8)

With the restriction being 16 ounces, sounds like the directive is coming from the USA. If the directive was coming from Japan, it would more likely be a rounded metric weight, like 500 grams. IMHO.

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by Proinsias » Nov 14th, '10, 11:45

that sounds pretty extreme, and a little arbitrary.

I imagine US based Japanese tea vendors will be wearing big smiles.

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by Proinsias » Nov 14th, '10, 11:50

Chip wrote:I did a few quick google searches, so far the only thing to come up was this topic. 8)
There's a few mentions elsewhere:
http://community.livejournal.com/egl/16515774.html
http://modellbahn-japan.com/information ... omers.html

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by exquisite » Nov 14th, '10, 12:14

Arbitrary indeed, and mostly because it seems to completely ignore and underestimate the needs of green tea lovers. :) No flying testsubins over the ocean, at least for a period, that´s for sure. Ironically, if you can restrain yourself of putting an equality sign between economy and politics, you would still have serious problems in accepting the effects on tea-commerce. I wonder , what other type of mid-sized packages will look suspicious to the US customs dept next time? Or, to unleash the not-so-paranoid perspective about the "hidden" reasons behind everything, who and why was so disturbed by this unidirectional mailtraffic ? There must be some imbalance here I guess... :roll:

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by Chip » Nov 14th, '10, 12:41

Thanks Proinsias.

According to the first link, it appears that there are some promising loopholes! We can at least HOPE! :mrgreen:

It is odd that Japan was singled out, seems so unlikely a source of terror compared to other countries. The restriction seems really extreme.

I am sure there is some "intelligence" behind the directive and a reminder the world is not a safe place ... unfortunately, one bad apple can ruin it for many.

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by Chip » Nov 14th, '10, 12:47

Coincidentally, Hagi SO 13 is supposed to go live on ... you guessed it, November 17th! Already did some weighing of Hagi and wood boxes, I think we will be OK. Of course, perhaps Mago is one of the so called "known shippers" mentioned in Proinsias' first link?!?

I am already contacting him ...

More good news, 2 bags of sencha can easily be shipped in a lightweight package. Some vendors might have to "strip" their packaging down a bit, like Maiko who does some extra ornamental presentation. But this is not going to halt the flow of tea from Japan to the USA.

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by skilfautdire » Nov 14th, '10, 13:08

Even with Stephen Harper at the helm, which would confuse many other countries thinking Canada is part of the USA, does this affect Canada at all ?

edit: added edit comment about editing for fixing typo
Last edited by skilfautdire on Nov 14th, '10, 17:22, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by togei » Nov 14th, '10, 14:40

I also found it strange. I am going to ask at my local Japanese post office this morning, Monday. We mail a lot of overseas packages through here and they didn't say a word to me about this. It was only on the Japanese post office site in Japanese, nothing on the English version of the same site.
There isn't any information other than the link I posted. Only information about mail from Japan to the U.S.

Dave

P.S.
I just looked at the 2 links on this posted by someone else. I will ask about "known shippers" today at the post office.

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by Chip » Nov 14th, '10, 14:49

I have sent the question onto several vendors.

According to the livejournal posting, there appears to be several exceptions. Also the package seems to have to meet all the guidelines in order to be restricted?

What is the commercial shipment. Does this mean that a commercial seller is not affected?

Thanks Togei!

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by Chip » Nov 14th, '10, 18:15

As I think about this today, I am getting more optimistic (or is it hopeful) ... though baseless at this time.

If this was a virtual total shut down of packages from Japan to the USA, we would have heard more about this, although the release is only a day or so old.

But given the media and their need to create as much sensationalism regarding terror alerts, etc. in order to grab a bigger, sustained audience, just seems we would be hearing a lot more from Western media as well.

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by AdamMY » Nov 14th, '10, 19:00

Chip wrote:As I think about this today, I am getting more optimistic (or is it hopeful) ... though baseless at this time.

If this was a virtual total shut down of packages from Japan to the USA, we would have heard more about this, although the release is only a day or so old.

But given the media and their need to create as much sensationalism regarding terror alerts, etc. in order to grab a bigger, sustained audience, just seems we would be hearing a lot more from Western media as well.
Chip not to mention that I think Japan would have offered quite a bit of resistance to this ban on packages over a certain weight, especially with Japan having such a Thriving Technology and Ceramics industry, it would have the potential to really hurt quite a few of their export industries such as the ceramics or technology industries if vendors could not ship to an entire country, especially one as large as the US.

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Re: Restriction on weight of package from Japan to the U.S.

by TubbyCow » Nov 14th, '10, 21:35

I panicked a bit then read the title the whole way through.

Happy I live in Canada :lol: :lol:

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