Yours Internationally

"Is CHONG your maiden surname?"

"Have you ever had any other surname? Have you been married before this marriage?"

"Are you two the parents of this child?"

"Were you two married when you conceive this child?"

"So, where was this child born? ... In Bedford Hospital? Was it in the delivery room? Not in the car park or somewhere else? ... Oh, yes, we do have an option for that - it's called "in transit"."

So goes the questions posed to us when we went to the Registry Office to apply for Julien's British birth certificate. I admit I was a bit tired that day (from all the night feeds) and possibly not the most alert person, but I soon became quite awake by these strange questions.

Basically, we had to answer a series of such questions. Being used to the Singaporean norm of producing supporting documents, we had brought along all conceivable relevant papers - Julien's and my hospital notes, and even our own birth certificates, marriage certificate etc, but we were never asked for any papers. Interestingly, it seems that here, people operate on a system of self declaration and trust; we were simply warned that we would be prosecuted if there was any discrepancy found after we have put our signatures down on Julien's birth cert.

We left with both versions of birth certificates for Julien - the short one and the long one. As we were admiring them, Henry said, "Isn't that cool? Our boy has a British birth cert on top of his Singaporean one. Imagine what an interesting birth story he can share when he does his MBA - that he was conceived in Switzerland, then discovered in London (when we transitted on our way home to Singapore), nurtured in Singapore (my first trimester), then born in UK. What an international start! Of course, he will study overseas at some point..."

Oh, the dreams we parents have for our children! Anyway, Daddy Low, whatever you have mentioned is really not such a big deal. You are just a really excited daddy :)

Nevertheless, Daddy Low has pointed out something similar to what my sister has highlighted a few days ago - that we have quite a bit of international exposure. She had found intriguing that the congratulatory messages we have received for Julien's birth have come from names hailing from myriad nations. This is something, I guess, that no longer jumps out at us, because these people have moved from just being exotic nationalities to valued friends. Undoubtedly, we do appreciate the opportunity to know, interact and learn from our friends of different cultures and countries. And until you actually get to know a person from another country a bit better, it is easy to just form and retain stereotypes of the respective countries.

And having grown personally in our interaction with people of various nationalities and cultures, we are glad to have the opportunity to make friends and learn from people from all over the world. And of course, we don't forget all the fun we had hanging out together. It goes without saying that we hope Julien will one day have his own opportunities to access and be enriched from the varied influences that international experiences bring. Julien, I guess we have had a good start so far, for many uncles and aunties around the world already know you and love you and you have lots of many little IMD friends to know and play with.

Thank you, our friends from everywhere, for your well wishes, gifts, love for our little one, but more importantly, thank you for your friendship and the good times spent together. We look forward to reunion after reunion and an ever expanding younger generation of IMDies.

Now, my question to Henry is: So, where will Nr.2's birth certificate be from? :)