In Shandong province, students studying information and control engineering at Yantai Automobile Engineering Professional College sent letters to their mothers on International Women's Day in March.

At the Chinese Parents' Conference in Beijing in December, Fu Guoqing, the Fu Lei Middle School head, launched an initiative for parents to write letters to their children attending primary and secondary schools.

The move was aimed at widening the influence of letter writing in family education.

Competitions to select the most impressive family letters collected from residents have been held in Fan county, Henan province; Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province; and Zigong, Sichuan province.

The education bureau in Fan county is editing a book of 25,000 shortlisted family letters selected from more than 100,000 collected up to April, and will stage an exhibition showcasing them across the nation.

Cui, the psychologist, said the revival of letter writing has seen it take precedence over postcards and greetings cards.

Li Siming, who works in Zhejiang, far from her home in Liaoning, said, "I exchange postcards with my best friends and family members at home on important occasions, such as graduation day anniversaries or birthdays, although we don't write long letters to each other.

"When you read the postcards and see their handwriting - either beautiful or just a scrawl - it touches your emotions," she added.

He Yiqing, 28, from Shanghai, said her parents have always sent her a card, along with illustrations or colorful stickers, on important occasions, such as her 18th birthday, the day she started work and on her wedding day, although regular communication between them is not done by letter.

"It's hard to find old digital messages on phones, as they may be accidentally deleted, whereas you can keep a card and look at it whenever you want," He said.