Taiwan’s Leaning Postboxes: How a Typhoon Turned Two Mailboxes Into Taipei’s Quirkiest Landmark

Walk down Longjiang Road in Taipei’s Zhongshan District and you’ll spot a small queue of tourists waiting their turn to take a photo with two mailboxes. Not lined up at the slots — posing next to them. Because these particular postboxes lean at a drunken thirty-degree tilt, like two cartoon characters caught mid-stumble. They have nicknames. They have a fan club. They have their own line of merchandise. And they got that way entirely by accident.

The Day a Typhoon Tilted Two Mailboxes

On August 8, 2015, Typhoon Soudelor slammed into Taiwan with sustained winds of 125 mph. It was the strongest storm of the year — knocking out power to four million homes, snapping trees across Taipei, and ripping signage from buildings citywide. Somewhere near the corner of Longjiang and Nanjing East Road, a massive aluminum signboard tore loose from an overhead facade and crashed onto a row of postboxes below.

The boxes survived. But two of them — one red (for express and registered mail), one green (for standard domestic post) — were pushed permanently sideways. They didn’t topple. They didn’t break. They just leaned, side-by-side, at the exact same impossible angle. Like a pair of buddies who’d just shared a few too many at the night market.

Going Viral Before Cleanup Could Happen

Within hours, photos of the tilted postboxes were everywhere on Taiwanese social media. People started showing up to pose with them. The boxes got nicknames almost immediately: 歪腰郵筒 (wāiyāo yóutǒng) — literally “crooked-waist postboxes” — entered everyday vocabulary overnight. News outlets ran features. Chunghwa Post, the national postal service, faced a choice: straighten them out and move on, or lean into the moment.

They leaned into it. Hard.

Chunghwa Post officially announced the boxes would stay tilted. They became Taipei’s first and only “official” postal monument. The post office released commemorative stamps, sold limited-edition postcards with the leaning boxes printed on them, and set up a special postmark you could request when mailing letters from these specific boxes. The line to drop a letter sometimes stretched down the block.

Why Taiwan Kept Them Tilted

There’s something deeply Taiwanese about the decision. Soudelor was a brutal storm — it killed eight people in Taiwan and caused billions in damage. The leaning postboxes became a small, accidental symbol of getting back up sideways and laughing anyway. The official Chunghwa Post slogan for them: “歪腰也要正能量” — roughly, “even when you’re crooked, stay positive.”

Locals have other theories. Some say the boxes represent Taiwan itself — a small island that keeps getting knocked around by typhoons, earthquakes, and geopolitics, and keeps standing (or, fine, leaning) anyway. Others just think they’re cute. Both are correct.

Visiting the Crooked Twins Today

The leaning postboxes are still in their original spot — outside the Longjiang Road Post Office at No. 131 Longjiang Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei. The nearest MRT station is Songjiang Nanjing (Green/Orange line interchange), about a four-minute walk. They’re free to visit, accessible 24/7, and yes, they still work. Drop a postcard in and it’ll be canceled with the special “crooked postbox” postmark — a little angled cartoon of the boxes themselves.

Go early or late if you want a photo without a crowd; midday and weekends draw lines of tourists, school groups, and the occasional wedding party using them as a backdrop. They’re a stop on most Zhongshan walking tours, and they pair nicely with a coffee at one of the indie cafés tucked into the surrounding lanes.

The Takeaway

Most cities would have replaced damaged mailboxes within a week. Taipei turned theirs into folk heroes. It’s one of those small, quietly brilliant moments that captures how Taiwan handles things — practical, playful, and never too proud to laugh at itself. Add the leaning postboxes to your Taipei to-do list. They take five minutes to visit, cost nothing, and tell you more about the city’s personality than any landmark twice their size.

Want more island-shaped quirks like this? Browse our Taiwan-themed merch collection for designs that celebrate the same playful, resilient spirit — or check out the 7-Eleven culture guide for another only-in-Taiwan story.