Offbeat | Bent in Taiwan storm, 2 mailboxes become celebrities

A pair of roadside mailboxes that were uniformly bent by a falling signboard during a typhoon earlier this month have become celebrities in Taiwan, drawing steady lines of people to snap photos and inspiring fan merchandise.
Many Taiwanese think that the public mailboxes resemble faces, and this side-by-side pair — one green and one red — now looks especially cute because their poles are bent in their mid-section at similar angles.
“They look like they’re smiling,” said Taiwan’s mail service Chunghwa Post publicity officer surnamed Huang. “That’s pretty special. So we see a lot of people out taking photos.”
The mailboxes, two of 10,986 around Taiwan, gained fame after Typhoon Soudelor ripped across the island Aug. 8, killing eight and injuring 420 before claiming another 21 lives in China. Strong winds tore a signboard from a building in central Taipei, bending the mailboxes to the right on their poles as it fell.
Security guards now protect the mailboxes while chuckling fans pose next to them, either bending themselves or pretending to push the boxes.