As my Swiss passport was due to expire in a few months' time, I thought it best to get a new one ahead of time. Always be prepared, is one of my mantras.
These days the process of renewing a passport is very straightforward: I just had to fill in an online form and submit to the Passport Office in Switzerland, and within less than 24 hours I got confirmation that they had the necessary confidence that I am indeed who I said I was (which is always a relief!), and they asked me to book an appointment at the Swiss Embassy in Tokyo. The only reason for having to put in a physical appearance is the biometric data that needs to be captured, i.e. fingerprints and photo.
So to the embassy I went towards the end of last month, for the first time in 10 years, since my last passport renewal.
Unlike the image of an embassy that is often being portrayed in films (with a large building surrounded by a high security fence, and with a security guard at the gate), the Swiss Embassy in Japan is in fact a rather nondescript building, which could easily be overlooked, were it not for the Swiss flag near the entrance. There is also no security personnel positioned outside (but then, of course, this is Japan, so a run on the Swiss Embassy by hostile forces is probably unlikely...). There is just an intercom to announce your presence, and then they let you through the door. If there are security cameras in place, I wouldn't know, as I didn't spot any.
Once inside, the whole process took me a mere 20 minutes, including waiting time (and despite the fact that I had to do the whole fingerprint-taking procedure twice, because the first time round, the machine refused to capture my prints). I guess if you combine Swiss and Japanese efficiency, what you get is an uber-efficient process... That the technology didn't quite play ball is, of course, not their fault, although the woman before me, who had apparently encountered similar problems, felt that she needed to vent her anger and frustration at the person behind the desk, who wasn't really to blame and was only doing her job...
I was told that it would take about 3 weeks for the new passport to arrive in the post, and I was asked whether I would need my old passport during that time, which I denied. It was only after they had punched holes in my old one, thus rendering it invalid, that I began to have doubts as to whether I had made the right call. What if I had to fly back to Switzerland at short notice due to a family emergency? After all, my dad is in his 90s, and basically anything could happen at any time. But it was too late to reverse my decision, so I decided not to stress over something that was out of my control anyway.
Much to my surprise, though, the postman delivered my new shiny piece of identity after exactly one week! Given that it was actually issued back in Switzerland, I was pretty impressed about the mere speed!
Upon my inspection, I realised that it was almost a little piece of art!
The Swiss take much pride not only in their national, but also regional identity. To my knowledge, Switzerland is the only country in the world where car number plates bear a symbol of the flag of the respective canton. While other countries seem content with just a combination of numbers and letters, the Swiss like to have some colour on their licence plates. On the downside, it also makes them immediately identifiable as non-locals when driving in another canton, making them an easy target for local drivers if they feel that the 'foreigners' don't drive quickly enough in front of them, or in other ways don't follow local conventions.
And as the flags of the 26 cantons feature so prominently in daily life, it comes as little surprise that also the Swiss passport displays them - one on each page. And just to make it a bit more graphic, the new passport now also features a section of the respective geographic map as background, and an indication of where in the country the canton is located - just in case the passport holder should have forgotten (anyone else looking at the passport - which would consist mainly of immigration officers of various countries - wouldn't know - or care - anyway).
Who needs an actual map or an atlas if you can study Swiss geography from a passport?
It feels like a shame to get those pretty pages stained with a stamp, although that's actually what they are meant for...
In contrast, the pages of a Japanese passport feel rather uninspired...
The only thing that slightly lets the Swiss passport down is the fact that the picture they take of you is black and white (in contrast to the coloured one that my wife has in hers). Add to that the fact that I look rather grim in the picture they took, and it reminds me more of a mugshot than of a passport picture...
Sadly, whenever I will present the little red booklet to immigration authorities in the years to come, they will focus on this very picture, rather than on the artwork on all the other pages.
But as long as they let me into the countries I want to go, I guess I shouldn't be too bothered...
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