Working It Out is a health/fitness column chronicling MadameNoire Manging Editor Brande Victorian’s journey to drop the pounds and get healthy. Follow more of her story on BrandeVictorian.com.
Last Wednesday I returned from a trip abroad to the Philippines and Beijing. There were many struggles on my first journey east, one of which I already relayed. But the stares I got from casual passersby was nothing compared to the stares from customs agents at Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK).
On my way back from Manila to New York City I had a 23-hour layover and very much wanted to take advantage of that time to see the sites of Beijing. The city offers a 72-hour visa to passengers traveling through the Chinese capital on their way to another destination, so long as you have travel documents proving your identity and your departure from PEK. I had both, or so I thought, when I finally found the temporary visa line in the huge airport and stepped up to the custom’s desk, passport and boarding pass for the next day’s flight in hand.
“Is this you?”
“Yeah.” Part of me immediately questioned why I answered the agent so casually, but I’m pretty sure it was because I was so caught off guard by her question and the simple way she asked it. Of course it’s me! And who would say “no,” even if the person on their passport wasn’t them?
The agent stared at me for several more seconds…30, maybe…before simultaneously stamping my passport and picking up the phone. I’d watched enough Locked Up Abroad (foolishly) before my trip to know nothing good can come of an agent picking up the phone and calling someone in the midst of checking your identity. That’s when I stepped around the desk and another agent came up to me and said “Come this way please.”
Oh hell.
“Is this you?”
Why does everyone keep asking me this?? “Yes, it’s me.”
“Your face…smaller,” the male customs agent said demonstrating the fact that I no longer have a double chin.
“Yes, it is,” I said with nervous laughter. Normally I’d be happy someone noticed my weight loss. In that moment I needed to be nearly 300 pounds again. And apparently 23.
“You lost weight?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a more recent picture on an official document, like a driver’s license?”
“Sure.” Mind you my ID is from 2012 and expired in May and I still haven’t renewed. FML is all I could think as I handed the ID over, reminded of the article I’d just read a little too late that said “If you don’t want to be denied entry to a foreign country, check these 6 things on your passport.” What you look like was one of the six things, and an example was given of a man who was thrown in jail in England after officials at London Heathrow were unable to identify him because he had lost 100 pounds since taking his passport photo. I was right around that milestone. My passport pic had been taken in 2008.
“This picture is still really old too.”
“Yeah, I know. Um, I have before and after pictures all throughout my phone,” I said stumbling through my digital folders. The agent already had his hand up in protest.
“Those aren’t official documents.”
I stood there after what had already been an unbearable five days in Manila wishing I’d just bought the ticket that was straight through from Beijing to NYC with no extended layover so I wouldn’t be in this mess. All I could see was being locked up in some sort of foreign prison for identity theft and hoping, if I survived, the end result would be a book deal and some sort of Netflix series akin to Orange is the New Black. As those thoughts ran through my head, yet another agent was called over to check me out.
“You lost weight?”
“Yes.”
“How much weight did you lose?”
“85 pounds.” It was a hopeful guesstimate after the pounds I’d regained from a weekend in New Orleans and days of eating McDonald’s and KFC in Manila.
“Stand here,” the agent said, forcing me into a pose directly in front of his piercing gaze.
“Smile.”
I ugly smiled, similar to the way I would ugly cry later from the frustration of my entire trip to Asia, but without the tears.
Handthrust.
My passport and ID were back in my hand so I assumed his hand gesture meant I was free to go.
“Where do I go?”
Handthrust.
OK bruh, I’m just going to get out of the way before you change your mind on my less-fat a–.
That was quite possibly the scariest 10 minutes of my life and even though I was allowed to enter Beijing after that, my stomach remained in knots for the next 23 hours with paranoia I’d have the same issue when I tried to board my flight the next day. I did get a few long stares on my passport as I made my way to the gate the following morning, but nothing compared to the Chinese inquiry.
When I landed at JFK and went through the custom’s process, I scanned my passport and proceeded to the agent for checkout with the words of MLK, “free at last, free at last,” ringing in my ears.
“You went on vacation in Manila?”
“Yeah.”
“You lost a lot of weight huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice. Welcome back. Have a good day.”
Man it felt good to be home.
