postcard

But the movie stays in that postcard allure, never quite edging its earnest expressions of desire and anxiety into anything more stakes-driven or detailed, the way a love letter might rattle and console simultaneously.

For the final leg of my journey I went to the western Swedish city of Karlstad, a picture postcard place on the banks of the River Klarälven, the longest waterway in Scandinavia.

After sending me postcards and having late-night phone calls for over a year, she made it clear: She wasn’t returning, and our careers were “going in different directions.”

Tibetan and Uyghur flags had also been removed, as well as a novel about a Tibetan family in exile and a postcard about China, Israel and Xinjiang.

Would they still chuckle if they saw the century-old postcards circulated by people who “just didn’t know any better”? My cynical side says: Yeah, probably.