Lovely Lady sails to Japan 1956

Judging from the number of passports from the former Yugoslavian Federal Socialist Republic that were used for foreign travel, it seems to me that the Yugoslavian government was not as strict on their citizens as other socialist or communist states when it came to leaving the country. And this was not a more recent development, either. As far back as the 1950s, when the communist government was still young and the ideology still strong, the average citizen seemed to have already enjoyed a fair amount of mobility.

Most of the passports I have seen had the usual European countries: Germany, Austria, France, Britain, Switzerland and Italy, to name a few. Occasionally, there were even passports used for travel to the United States and Canada! Rarely, however, have I seen passports used for travel to Africa, Asia, and South America, let alone Australia.

This is why I was very excited when I saw this passport, which was used for travel by sea to Japan.

It must have been an exciting voyage to go by sea. Of course, you would have to deal with the boredom of seeing the endless flat, blue horizon of the sea, and perhaps seasickness as well, but the thrill and excitement of seeing a different city with different people speaking a different language at each port of call must have made up for it.

In 1956, when the thirty-five-year-old Croatian lady embarked on her journey, air travel to Asia was already possible. While it was probably very expensive, it was not impossible, and the route to Asia would have probably taken you to the Middle East, then the Indian subcontinent, then on to the Malay Peninsula, and then to Hong Kong, from where you might take a flight to the Manila, Taipei, or Tokyo or, if you were lucky enough to acquire a travel permit to enter communist China, Shanghai or Beijing.

The fact that air travel was possible at the time (although it would admittedly cost a pretty penny) makes the story of this lady, Ms. Majda Dragomanovic, even more interesting. If she didn't have the money to fly, then it means that she was not a member of the "elite" of her society, which I imagine comprised mostly of government officials and their cronies.

Of course the fact that she went to Japan in itself is very interesting. Why was she there? Was she paying someone a visit? Did she do some kind of work? And, if she did, it was certainly not diplomatic work since this is not a diplomatic passport and it does not carry a diplomatic visa, but rather a tourist visa. But how much touring did she do? She stayed for almost three months!

There were many Americans stationed in Japan at this time. Was she perhaps visiting an American GI  whom she met in Europe somewhere during the war and fell in love with?

Or was she just simply interested in the exotic country in the far, far East? And, if so, had she saved up all her life to go? We have to remember that even sea travel was probably not too cheap and that she was coming from a socialist state, where you can't really "save money" since wages are so low since the economy is controlled. So where did she get all the money? Was she sponsored by her lover, who was a member of the government? Or did she work on the ship? Or did she do other types of work to earn easy money?

Hers must have been one heck of a story.

At any rate, here is a summary of her travels based on the immigration endorsements that are found in her passport:

• 05.01.56
• Passport Issued - Zagreb, Croatia
• Travel Permit to Japan granted - Zagreb, Croatia
• 24.04.56
• Indonesian Transit Visa - Belgrade, Serbia
• 28.04.56
• Japanese Transit Visa - Rijeka, Croatia
• 10.05.56 
• Exit - Rijeka, Croatia
• 17.05.56 
•  Transit - Port Said, Egypt
• 25.05.56
• Transit - Assab, Eritrea
• 31.05.56
• Transit - Karachi, Pakistan (handwritten)
• 12.06.56
• Transit - Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
• 06.07.56
• Travel Permit to Burma, Singapore, and Hong Kong granted - Rangoon, Burma
• 07.07.56
• Burman Transit Visa - Rangoon, Burma
• 12.07.56
• Exit - Rangoon
• 15.07.56
• Transit - Penang, Federation of Malaya
• 08.08.56
• Transit - Hong Kong
• 09.08.56
• Hong Kong Transit Visa - Hong Kong
• 21.08.56
• Entry - Kobe, Japan
• 23.08.56
• Entry - Osaka, Japan
• 24.08.56
• Entry - Yokkaichi, Japan
• 26.08.56
• Entry authorization granted - Yokohama, Japan
• 22.10.56
• Stay permit extension granted - Tokyo, Japan
• 08.12.56
• Passport extension - Tokyo, Japan
• 09.12.56
• Exit - Tokyo, Japan (by air)
• Transit - Hong Kong
• 17.12.56
• Transit - Singapore
• 31.12.56
• Burman Transit Visa - Rangoon, Burma
• 07.01.57
• Exit - Rangoon, Burma
• 11.01.57
• Transit - Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
• 09.01.58
• Travel Permit to Belgium, Austria, Germany, and Italy granted - Zagreb, Croatia
• Passport extension - Zagreb, Croatia
• 19.06.58
• Belgian Visa - Belgrade, Serbia

It is interesting to note that, just a little over a year after her return from her Japan trip, she renewed her passport and applied for travel permission to a few western European countries and that she was even issued a visa for Belgium. However, for some reason, the passport has no further entries.

Was it because she noticed that she no longer had enough pages to fill in her passport and therefore got a new one for her next trip? Or did she run out of money for another trip and therefore decide not to go? Was she denied other visas (although I doubt she was)? Did she no longer have a reason to go West?

On a final note, it seems that her documented intention to travel to European countries after visiting Japan makes it more probable that she was also in Japan on vacation for some sightseeing. In any case, this passport is surely an interesting piece with an interesting story to match.

 

A Chinoy Student's Travels, 1967

Here is a passport that I have been wanting to have for quite some time now. It is not very easy to find Philippine passports issued before the 1970s not only because not many people were issued passports, but also because many are kept by the bearers' families long after they are gone. Unlike in most Western societies when the personal effects of someone who has passed away are sold off in estate auctions, given away, or simply dumped in the garbage, Filipinos tend to keep them as remembrances of their departed loved ones. Also, the fact that your predecessor was issued (and used) a passport in the olden days is a sign of affluence and one would certainly like to hold onto that.

That is why I jumped at the opportunity to nab this passport when I saw it on eBay. Perhaps some other collectors out there also have a gap in their Philippine collection as the bids for this old thing were very high, especially considering that this is a damaged passport (it was wet and it seems a rat or some termites ate off part of the edges) and the visas and stamps inside are not very interesting - there aren't even any revenue stamps!

Nonetheless, I certainly wouldn't let this big fish get away! And so I am proud to present it here.

This passport belonged to a Chinese Filipino (Chinoy) student born in Manila and living in Pasay City at the time. What is interesting is that the person to contact in case of an emergency lived in Cebu, so I wonder if his family was originally from there and not Manila. This young man travelled to Japan and the United States on this passport. Surprisingly, he spent only a few days in each country on both trips. Was he there for academic purposes? For a conference or a contest, perhaps?

An interesting stamp from his Japan trip is one that indicates that he exchanged $19.05 at the Haneda Airport Exchange Office of Mitsubishi Bank on 19 Dec 67, the day he left on his flight back to Manila. I am guessing he thought it would be wiser to exchange his Japanese Yen into USD dollars in Tokyo rather than exchange then into Philippine Pesos upon his return to Manila. Perhaps the exchange rate for the Yen was bad back home?

His port of entry for his US trip is Honolulu, but I think it was just a stop-over on his way to San Francisco as his Philippine departure stamp indicates "SFO" as the destination. Because the flight was long-haul, most planes at the time (no jets yet!) would stop over in Hawaii and/or Guam on their way to the mainland.

The passport itself is very similar to US passports issued at the time. Like its contemporaries from the US, the Philippine passports had windows on the covers to show the passport numbers indicated inside. There are also spaces for the bearer's address as well as the address of an emergency contact in the same area: on the inside of the front cover. The layout of the information pages are also similar to those of US passports in the 1940s (the Philippines gained independence from the US in 1945) and the perfin on the upper right that reads "DFA" (for Department of Foreign Affairs) is similar to the perfin on the US passports at the time which read "USA."

A Spanish Resident in the Philippines, 1968

This will be the first of many posts I will publish of scans of the passports I have in my collection. I am quite proud that I have many interesting pieces in my growing collection. This one was among the first I received (that were not issued to relatives or parents).

This passport was for a Spanish citizen who was a resident in Manila. I suppose that he moved to the Philippines and was not born to Spanish subjects here (many of the Spaniards living in the Philippines in 1898 chose to leave the country after the Treaty of Paris was signed and the Philippines handed over to the Americans, but some did stay). He seems to have been a businessman and made very frequent trips to Hong Kong and Japan, although he did apply for a US visa (perhaps as a measure to convince immigrations officers to grant him visas/entry?) and did make a trip to Taiwan once.

Because the endorsements (especially the entry stamps in Hong Kong) were so large, the passport was cancelled even before it expired since there was no more space!

Personally, I do not find the stamps too interesting as they are repetitive, but at least I get to have many examples of Hong Kong, Japan, and Philippine immigration endorsements at that time and get to compare them. Notice how the Philippine entry and exit stamps have no common design and are not uniform. I also have an interesting "story" of a Spanish national living in the Philippines who frequently flew to Hong Kong and Japan on JAL and PAL, not to mention a nice Taiwan visa issued in Manila!