Celebrating the Lunar New Year

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Jan 30, 2013, 05:51 ET

U.S. Postal Service brings cultural art to life through postage stamps at 'The Museum of Chinese in America' this Saturday

NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following event is being announced by the U.S. Postal Service:

http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130130/DC51545

What:	The United States Postal Service will be joining the Museum of Chinese in America during their festivities of the Lunar New Year starting on Saturday.

	The U.S. Postal Service brings cultural art to life with its newest stamp in their Celebrating Lunar New Year Stamp Series. The postage stamp enlargement will be on display on Saturday. Illustrator and artist Kam Mak will be present for interviews and autographs beginning at 1:00pm.

	The Museum gift shop will have a supply of the limited edition Lunar New Year Forever stamps for sale. Visitors and philatelist wishing to have the stamps autographed by the artist may do so at the event.

Who:	United States Postal Service
	Illustrator and Artist Kam Mak
	Museum of Chinese in America

When:	Saturday, February 2, 2013
	Meet the Artist, 1:00 p.m.
	Festivities 11 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

Where:	Museum of Chinese in America
	215 Centre St
	New York, NY 10013
	(Located between Howard and Grand St one block north of Canal St)

Background:	The Postal Service introduced the Celebrating Lunar New Year series in 2008. This is the sixth stamp in that series, which will continue through 2019 with the Years of the Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Boar.

	Illustrator Kam Mak, an artist who was born in Hong Kong, grew up New York City's Chinatown and now lives in Brooklyn, has designed each stamp in the series and will continue through the remaining six in the 12-year series.

	This year's stamp features one of the primary ways the Lunar New Year holiday is celebrated. For the Year of the Snake, which begins on Feb. 10, the illustration depicts firecrackers commonly used to greet the new year with a bang.

	The current series builds upon the Postal Service's original Lunar New Year stamp series, which was issued from 1992 through 2003.

Customers may view the Lunar New Year Forever stamps, as well as many of this year's commemorative stamps, on Facebook at facebook.com/USPSStamps, on Twitter@USPSstamps or on the website Beyond the Perf at www.beyondtheperf.com/2013-preview. Beyond the Perf is the Postal Service's online site for information on upcoming stamp subjects, first-day-of-issue events and other philatelic news.

Mak was commissioned by the U.S. Postal Service to design the 12-year stamp series Celebrating Lunar New Year that began in 2008 and will continue through 2019.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation — 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office™ Boxes. The Postal Service™ receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com®, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world's mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, Oxford Strategic Consulting ranked the U.S. Postal Service number one in overall service performance of the posts in the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

Follow the Postal Service on www.twitter.com/USPS and at www.facebook.com/USPS.

SOURCE U.S. Postal Service