Mark's Pages

May 29, 2005:

At the border crossing the women guards disbelieve my passport photo.

In part I feel a certain gratitude. It's an awful picture. Bloated-looking, sallow, puffy.

In part I feel sadness. That after postponing middle age successfully for a fair long while, the last years have not been good to me.

In part I feel some small disquiet. This is not a country which prioritizes individual civil liberties. At the moment there are two women and three men in uniform all comparing my passport photo, my California driver's license photo, my face, and, in officious Mandarin, each others' opinions.

"Have you lost weight? When did you enter the country? What is your business here?"

At last I lose the ability to maintain a dignified posture of distance and burst out laughing. "I'm very happy," I tell them truthfully, "if indeed I no longer resemble that photo."

That does it. The men laugh with me. The women seem mollified. "You don't look the same," one tells me. I shrug. She stamps my visa and allows me to leave her country a free man.

Several days later in part I still feel sadness.