Here’s a heck of an Official Postcrossing card from Taiwan! So what we have here, folks, is a look as some creepy remains of an unknown creature, thought by some to be the otherwise mythical Kappa! You might be familiar with this creature from Japanese pop culture (e.g. anime shows or video games) or just because you know a lot about Japanese mythology. If not, the Kappa is basically an amphibious duck/turtle-looking creature with green skin (no feathers), webbed hands, a large yellow beak, and a sort of flowery dish on its head which carries water. They’re often depicted as living in the water, and per Japanese folklore they come out to devour naughty, disobedient kids. So if any of you need to scare your children into doing their chores and eating all of their peas, here you go! Anyway, a number of claims have been made about mummified remains such as the ones you see here being those of a Kappa. There are some cases where they’re clearly a hoax and that the “artist” just assembled remains from other animals (strange, I know!)… but could something like this really have existed? Or even still exist to this day? I personally hope so – after all, it’d be so sad if Nessie had no playmates. Thank you so much for this super interesting postcard, Pei-Yu!
