HONG KONG
(Reuters) - Hong Kong Post has enlisted Chinese movie star Chow
Yun-fat, star of the kung-fu epic ``Crouching Tiger,'' to battle
declining stamp sales.
Kicking
off a local stamp show, government officials on Thursday named
the dashing star, sometimes described as Hong Kong's Harrison
Ford, as the territory's first philatelic ambassador in a
bid to lick slumping stamp sales.
Chow,
who once worked in a post office and is now a stamp enthusiast,
is probably best known internationally for his role as a Qing
Dynasty warrior in the Chinese martial arts romance ''Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon,'' which some tip to bag an Oscar nomination.
Huge
crowds of collectors flocked to the show to bag first day
covers and sets for HK$150 (US$19.20), featuring stamps showing
the star posing as various characters from his films.
``They
are selling very well,'' said Anissa Tong of
emaimai.com, a private auction site responsible for the
worldwide distribution of the stamps, which were issued by
the South American nation of Guyana.
Hong
Kong saw a philatelic frenzy around the time when the former
British colony was returned to Chinese rule in 1997, when
revenues from stamp sales reached HK$100 million (US$12.8
million).
But the
fever didn't stick and in the past few years annual stamp
sales were only around HK$30 million (US$3.84 million).
