There’s an old, expired passport that I hold dear to me. It was the most traveled one to-date that had recorded my travels to Europe between 2017 and 2019, peppered with all the fascinating stamps from different countries within its pages. Germany. France. UK. Along with Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Another one before that - my first - had immigration stamps from China, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Those stamps bring back memories of my travels - the adventures, the moments. There, on the pages of my passports, lies the inked evidence of where I had been before.
Some were filled with stamps, while the remaining pages were left empty and untouched. Why must all immigration officers, regardless of country, found preference to stamp on those one or two pages in a fifty-page passport is beyond me.
That may have irked me a little then, but today, there’s something else that I didn’t expect to feel about my travel document: it no longer physically document my travels.
Passports in recent years, after 2020, looked rather sad. As more countries have gone digital, scanning QR codes, going paperless and all, the physical passport no longer carry inked markings to note any entry or exit of destinations.
At most, in some cases, there may be a small sticker of a QR code stuck to a page. Other than that, it’s pristine pages all the way. Untouched. Empty.
Gone are the satisfying sounds of that quick, heavy thud when the immigration officer behind the counter lands the rubber stamp onto the passport, punching blue or black ink onto paper.
Also gone are the stories each passport used to tell.
I’ve travelled to South Korea and Japan with my previous and current passports respectively. Both countries had gone digital with their immigration process, which was great and fast… But my passport has no stamps in it. A QR code sticker upon entry, but no blue-inked stamp on any of its pages. No trace of my travels. What’s a passport without the inked immigration stamps?
Maybe I’m nostalgic. I find it funny that I have gone around Japan and other places with empty notebooks to collect stamps as free souvenirs and keepsakes, while our actual passports remained empty.
Maybe it’s just me.
Did my previous two paragraphs make this essay sounds like it’s written by AI? Perhaps the AI detection may think so. But what does it know, really?
But I’m not alone in this, I think. Stamp hunting is fun. There are tons of stamp-hunting communities out there, and endless amount of creative stamps everywhere.
Everywhere except in our passports. Kind of ironic.
I have been hand-carving my own stamps as a ways to print some of my handmade creations.
I did this partly to cut printing costs, and partly to make my creations have a more tangible, imperfect feel that can only be achieved when done by hand. It means more effort and labour invested, but also more heart and intention that goes into the creations.
It’s been enjoyable. Quite an adventure learning printmaking on my own, testing out ideas, and imagining so much possibilities of what else I could make.
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I don’t think stamps like these will ever lose its appeal. And I know it’s not the same as those immigration stamps – they were never pretty like these ones, but it has its charm.
Younger generation of travellers likely will not get a chance to see stamps in their passports if at all at this point. It’s going to disappear one day.
I feel sad about that. Of missing the joys of having passports filled with international stamps that tells a story of your adventures. It’s not the same anymore.
Andrealism holds essays on lived experiences, and making things. It also features my art and photography.
Thank you for reading and for your company.
~ Andrea
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