Passport I

As a romantic for all things Nineteen Sixties -- JFK, Vietnam, the foreign service, jet aeroplanes, civil rights -- I am naturally held by The Passport. Possessing one is like a storybook in every carrier's pocket.

We have a photocopy machine at work that is capable of scanning documents. I like it because the results are always a little grainy. And, they are black and white. I've taken the liberty of scanning pages in my passport with stamp of interest. In the posts that follow, I'll tell the story of pages and stamps and share a few memories.

To start, how did I come across this passport? Ages ago in California, before I traveled to Baha Mexico for a week with some roommates, I was going to apply for a passport. I must have retrieved and filled the application three times in my small room, but I never did mail it. I because discouraged when I realised they don't stamp it at the border anymore. Even more, all you need is a driver's license. So much for romance.

It wasn't until I decided to travel to Hongkong for my first big trip after getting my first job -- at Bear, Stearns, where I still work. It was Hongkong or Singapore, but I settled on Hongkong for romance of the British empire. Of course, not for all the terrible things they forced upon natives, but for what is left. Since living in San Jose in California, I always had a replica flag of what I termed "the old Hongkong flag". When I wanted to escape the misery of school, I would browse the Web and read books about its history and current state of affairs. Much later, the film 2046 only drove my obsession further.

I'm rambling. Back to the original point: my trip to Hongkong. I needed a passport to visit East Asia. I acquired the application at Grand Central branch of the United States Postal Service -- of all places. After much fretting, like the first few times, I finally got all my ducks in a row. When I went for my photograph, I planned in advance to give myself the most severe Wall Street kind of look possible. I wore a sharp suit and tie and slicked my hair back. My eyes were too wide open, but the effect is clear. I'll live with this photograph for the next ten years. (I used nearly the same pose for my New York driver's license.) The best part about my application: I used my baby passport from the Netherlands as proof of a former passport.

The lady behind the special passport desk in the Grand Central branch looked at my old passport with amusement, reviewing all my required documents, and said, "Hmm. Cute. It really looks like you." The application said it could take up to eight weeks to receive it. Within three is was on my desk in New York City. I'll tell the story of my Hongkong trip another time.

The top half of this image has my Foreigner's Card for Japan. Most foreigners in Tokyo refer to it as their Gaijin Card. Gaijin is a shorter version of gaikokujin.