November 14 2008: I’m Not Really Amanda Chan
Filed under Life
I’m having trouble renewing my passport. The first problem involved the fact that I was moving from a child passport (I was one month shy of being of age when I received my last passport) to an adult passport, which requires me to complete an entirely new application, rather than a simple online renewal.
The second problem involves the fact that I’m not really Amanda Chan. Sure, my driver’s license, child passport, and all current identity documentation recognises me as Amanda Chan, but when my Hong Kong birth certificate and Australian citizenship certificate recognises me as Ching Man Chan, Amanda Chan doesn’t officially exist as a person and is ineligible for a passport.
Essentially, I have to shell out about $100AUD for an official change-of-name certificate to change my legal name to a name that I’ve been known as for the past fifteen years, a name that I’ve been in sixteen years of education as, a name that I drive on, and a name that I’ve flown overseas before on. The process of changing my name legally takes twenty working days, which means then that I’ll be pressed for time in my passport application and will have to pay extra for priority processing so that I actually receive my adult passport before I fly to Europe.
I blame my parents for failing to have me legally recognised as Amanda Chan when we first moved to Australia. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
On the bright side, when I went to the police station today to get some documents certified for my name change application, I got to drool over a hot male in uniform, which is always nice.
16 Responses to “I’m Not Really Amanda Chan”
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How did you get a child passport thats not under your legal name? Ching Man Chan is a rather unfortunate name though, I don’t blame you for changing it.
Reply: The lady that I spoke to at the passport office said that since I got my child passport five years ago, the law has changed so that a simply “common name” isn’t good enough, and you now need official documentation. >.<
iago on November 14 2008 #
I had the same problem with my passport. I had to get a visa, and the name in my passport didn’t match the name in the registers, so I had to change back to the name in the passport (actually last name) so I could get the visa.
So boring and unnecessary.
Regine on November 14 2008 #
Oh, I forgot…weren’t you called something that sounds like Jing Wen? I thought that was your Chinese name.
Reply: Jing Wen is the Mandarin pronunciation, but because I was born in Hong Kong, my legal name is anglicised in the Cantonese pronunciation, so Ching Man.
Regine on November 14 2008 #
This is one of those situations where Mandarin is ultimately better. Ching Man’s english pronunciation is rather unfortunate… XD
My Chinese name has a lot of X’s and Y’s and no one can pronounce it, so I’m hoping to avoid the legal document problem by tagging on my english name whenever possible. It’s a mess though, sometimes people think Crystal is my middle name, or that my chinese name is my middle name, or why on earth (Crystal) is in brackets >.<
Crystal on November 14 2008 #
Why not just get a passport under Ching Man Chan and cry everytime you see/use it, rather than pay $100AUD and wait just so you could be Amanda Chan legally?
Reply: You need other points of identification (e.g. bank statements, drivers license) under the same name as your legal name in order to get a passport. All of mine are under the name Amanda Chan, so my options are either to change my name legally, or change my name on every single account that I own…the former is the easier option.
Enzo on November 14 2008 #
Oooh that’s a great excuse to visit police stations! Those uniforms are worth changing your name 100 times :P
Alexandra on November 14 2008 #
I guess I’m lucky in that my birth certificate has both Chinese and English names, even though they’re not in the same order (so ppl think my middle name is Kathleen) but at least it’s recognisable.
My mum’s situation however, is a mess. On some documents she has her maiden name only, on some it’s the hypen with both maiden and married surnames…. on top of that she also has similar issues like yours with the Chinese/English first names….
Did you keep your Chinese name at all?
Reply: Yeah, my Chinese name is now my middle name, and always has been on all my other documentation.
kat on November 15 2008 #
Thanks for the reply Amanda!
It seems rather complicated. I’m gonna wiki Chinese dialects and written languages because it’s giving me a headache not to know.
Regine on November 15 2008 #
dude, Ching Man… that’s unfortunate… although I can now make a few curse word puns in Spanish :P Jing wen is wayyyyyy better :)
And I hope that everything goes smoothly with your name change. :)
My mom has that problem too though that in like half of her accounts her first name is her middle, or her middle is her first and of course she really doesn’t remember which is where so when I call credit card companies or phone companies, etc, on her behalf I always have to specify that there are two possible name combos etc which leads to an extra hour of identity certification lol :P
Noemi on November 15 2008 #
Weiiiird. I was going to ask how you got your license and things to say Amanda if your passport says Ching Man- it doesn’t really make sense to me, since I had a child’s passport five years ago and I needed to provide a birth certificate photocopy to get it. Theoretically, yours would have required something like that, and so your original name would have been put on the passport.
Anyway. That sounds like a bitch indeedy! Hopefully it doesn’t take as long as it says it will!
Carmen on November 15 2008 #
My parents never changed my name officially to Victoria when we moved to the US. But we’ve always used my real name for school, drivers license, passport, etc… Which is good for keeping things official and having a standard… but unfortunate for me!
Victoria on November 15 2008 #
Fortunately I’ve never had to worry about that. My name has always been the same… nothing’s changed. I’ve never even traveled out of the country, so I don’t have a passport.
Veronica on November 15 2008 #
Wow that is so completely ridiculous!! I would be so upset if I were you. :( I hope it doesn’t take that long, either. They told me it would take a month to get my passport and I got it in less than 2 weeks.
Caity on November 15 2008 #
Wow… that’s just very complicated. Actually I remember that my cousin’s wife said something about that. Her name was changed slightly for easier pronunciation and now it’s on all her legal documents…
Dunno, but to me that seems weird. Here you can’t just put a different name on your passport because you don’t like your legal name… :-\
Vera on November 15 2008 #
That really sucks! I know that when people of Chinese descent move to an English speaking country, they often change their names (This is true for many of my friends who were born in China). The government knows that this is the common practice so the government should be a lot more understanding about stuff like this.
Felisa on November 17 2008 #
At least you don’t look like crazy-era Britney Spears in your several-years-old passport photo. The chemist worked her magic and made me look like a drug runner.
Jordie on November 19 2008 #