Another aspect of travel history: I read "Travel Permit: The Cultural History of the Passport"

In the second decade of the 20th century, the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world, and countries gradually tightened the freedom of travel. At first, the seemingly endless border closures made the passports that were used for entry and exit lose their sense of existence and their validity period. Leave it alone after passing it.

After the epidemic was lifted, there was a retaliatory wave of overseas travel, and consular offices across the country were overflowing with people waiting to renew and receive new passports. This was the most beautiful scenery in Taiwan not long ago. As the country reopens, there have been a lot of reports about passports. For example, passports with missing or damaged inner pages have been deemed invalid and have been deported.

A passport consists of the cover, inner pages, personal information, and cross-border carrying, inspection, interrogation, and even personal entry or deportation. This reflects that the passport, as a necessary document for outbound travel, has long been standardized and global. It is a universal system that can even be said to be a value. However, the documents and procedures required to go abroad are not always taken for granted. How did the development of human travel history come to this point?

Ever since humans have had the need to travel, travel permits have appeared in history under various names and forms. For example, in Chinese books before the early Qing Dynasty, they were called "Fu Jie", "Du Certificate", "Customs Clearance Document", etc.; in Japan at the turn of the Tokugawa period and the Meiji period, there were so-called "Trip Kiritou", "Inland Travel Certificate" and "Travel Voucher". (It is still used in Japanese-controlled Taiwan and even in modern Japanese, and is a synonym for パスポート), as well as "passport" as it is commonly known in the Chinese world.

The envoys of ancient Egypt shouldered the mission of the Pharaoh, and carried travel permissions made from clay tablets. They could move freely wherever the royal authority reached, avoid danger, and conduct diplomacy, trade, transportation and other exchanges. Kublai Khan awarded Marco Polo a gold medal of passage, allowing him to obtain the service and protection of horses and cavalry when he returned to Europe through the Mongol khanates.

The gradual formation of sovereign states in modern Europe will constitute a dangerous travel area relative to the domestic international space. Holding a travel permit applied to the king and parliament is tantamount to having asylum from the political authority of the country, or conducting diplomacy. power of affairs. As for the 18th century, upper-class British youths who went to Europe to embark on the "Grand Tour" (Grand Tour) carried a travel permit signed by the King of England, which was like a ticket to pursue a classical gentleman and liberal arts education.

The culture of "grand travel" originated from the education of the upper-class elite in the United Kingdom, and was later imitated by the middle class in some continental European countries. This highly routine activity means that the international movement of people is more complicated, and it also It provides new impetus for the delineation of national borders and the control of entry and exit of people. The requirements for travel permits in various countries have become more stringent. Coupled with the surging revolutionary trend in modern times, the government needs to establish its authority by maintaining domestic and overseas flows.

Despite this, travel permits still vary in their own way regardless of the issuing unit, specifications, personal information, etc., and there is no unified standard. For example, the travel permit issued by the United Kingdom to aristocratic young people traveling to Europe is up to 30 centimeters long and registers information such as destination, companions, luggage and equipment; and asking a powerful person to write a letter of introduction is also considered a valid travel permit. .

In the past, travel permits were mostly used to provide support and assistance. Since the 19th century, they have gradually become more important in confirming the identity of the traveler, which is an important means to identify whether the person holding the document is the person he or she is. But such a transformation does not happen overnight. Before the system is established and rigorous, it is not difficult to change the travel permit.

Mary Shelly, the author of "Frankenstein", once helped a British female writer apply for a male travel permit, allowing her to travel to France to pursue a career in the French literary world "without the need for surgery." For female writers, forged documents not only provide cross-gender and cross-cultural opportunities, but also provide opportunities for freedom. Similar to the story of running away with false documents and gaining a new life, Shelley's female friends are not alone.

Modern photography technology has been used in wars, prompting countries to import photos into travel permits to identify travelers, so as to avoid the hidden danger of spies playing tricks and conducting cognitive operations or sabotage activities. This is compared to a travel permit that only describes appearance and physical characteristics in words. Photos began to be regarded as representing individuals and guaranteeing representation, providing an objective and accurate mechanism to construct a more reliable connection between travel permission and the holder.

However, ideals are full and reality is thin. A hundred years ago when travel document photos did not have the established standards now, there was a lot of room for photos to be exploited. The travel document photo that Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik revolution, used during the European War was a disguise photo in which he wore a wig, a worker's hat, shaved his beard and covered up his classic bald spot.

In addition, even if they were not used to conceal others' eyes, early travel document photos also provided the holder with space to shape their personality. In 1915, in the travel document photo of James Joyce, the representative writer of stream-of-consciousness literature, Joyce is wearing a fedora hat, glasses, a beard, and an expressionless face. It is impossible to associate the image of a literary giant. ; The wife and children in the ID photo also reveal the gender hierarchy in the patriarchal system. Women's travel documents must be accompanied by their husbands.

The passport format that we know today was probably gradually modified by the League of Nations after the European War in order to alleviate the confusion of border inspection officials when faced with passports with complex and diverse shapes and vigorously promote the unified international standards of passports: size, Personal information and visa inner pages, country name, national emblem and the word "passport" on the card cover. Since the 1990s, the world has gradually adopted the ICAO standardization regulations for chip passports, so a chip passport icon has been added to the bottom of the cover.

Show your passport to get your boarding pass. You will be asked about the purpose of travel, length of stay, declaration of luggage, etc. when exiting and entering the country. Only when you follow the regulations can you have the freedom to travel. This stems from the passport standards promoted by the League of Nations in the last century to strengthen binding. The relationship between personal identity and nationality is determined, and the legacy left behind.

However, for many travelers who experienced the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, who could freely cross borders without holding a passport, the legacy of travel history that we rely on to breathe the air of freedom abroad is a kind of collapse that is deprived of the freedom to travel. . Novelist Stefan Zweig once said that before 1914, the border was symbolic, no different from crossing the Greenwich meridian, and there was no need to be questioned or fill in cumbersome documents when entering by boat. But now the border The censorship mechanism has turned into a barbed wire fence, filled with morbid mutual distrust.

Many modernist writers and radicals have been troubled by the pressure and restrictions imposed on personal movement by the modern passport system. Chuweig's collapse is not alone. In the process of the passport system being gradually shaped and established in the early 20th century, it not only affected many travelers, but also brought up issues such as how identity is defined and attributed, as well as the changing moods of travelers during cross-border travel.

With the disintegration of the four major empires after the European War and the redrawing of political geography, millions of people lost their nationality and also lost the minimum rights protection they relied on the government to provide. This is a group that relies on the standardized and institutionalized passport system to claim basic personal rights without the protection of the government.

The creation of travel documents outside the system, such as the "World Passport", "Indigenous Passport" and other travel permits that transcend the monopoly of the state, is to solve the plight of stateless people and to prevent indigenous people from identifying with the territory of colonial countries. and jurisdictional requirements.

Listing rules and sorting out changes in the system makes it impossible to see behind the cold system, the changing activities and thoughts hidden among the flow of people. The author of this book, Patrick Bixby, with his interdisciplinary background in literature and art, explores the passport files of celebrities, cross-border writing in texts, and contemporary film and drama works to help readers trace a book that focuses on Europe and the United States, as well as Paying attention to the history of passport culture around the world, this is also another aspect of travel history.

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