Passport Photos

I’ve always thought to go unkempt and unshaven.

This is so that I would be recognized from my passport if I was detained for several months in a sketchy country.

It’s odd, last time I went to the US they barely glanced at my photo

I believe the photo is encoded in the digital passport contents and the computer will check your face in the camera to see it matches. No human involved. Many countries have automatic passport gates now using this method.

If they already have your picture the agent will usually know who you are before you have even handed over your passport. The tech has gotten eerily good.

A decade ago, I was sent for a two-month business trip to China. I didn't have a valid passport (didn't need it within EU/Schengen Area) and had to make one in a hurry. I went to take my photo unkempt but freshly shaved. While in China, I didn't bother shaving, but I did get myself a haircut, that left me almost bald (communication mishap). One month in, I had to spend a weekend in Hong Kong to renew the work visa. On my way back, I happily handed my passport to the border control officer, and then spent terrifying 15 minutes trying to convince him, his colleague and then his superior, that the clean-shaved unkempt person in the photo and the near-bald, bearded person in front of them, are in fact the same person.

As Erma Bombeck said, "when you look like your passport photo, it's time to go home".

That's hillarious. Any chance you remember what you said to the Chinese hairdresser versus what you should have said to protect fellow HNers from such a mishap?

像往常一樣短 請把鬍子刮乾淨 我想要比較短的 禿得像個嬰兒的屁股 ?

I just gesticulated wildly towards my head while making the "scissors" hand sign and loudly and slowly saying "HAIRCUT". I have no idea how that was misconstrued.

Could you have turned your face upside down?