There was a time when David could fly to Stockholm, Sweden via British Airway up until shortly after 9/11. Several months later after 9/11, citizens with People's Republic of China passport could no longer fly to European countries through British Airway without a "transition visa". Again, David's traveling companions could simply take any airline they wanted if they hold a Canadian citizenship and passport.

There were times, when David wanted to simply travel to Europe, Australia or Europe just to see famous tourist attractions of visit relatives. But he knew that last minute deals advertised as $399 does not apply to him. Round trips to London are not for people with citizenships from certain countries. By the time a visa is obtained with his PRC passport, God knows whether that $399 deal would have become $999 deal. Why are these countries so afraid of PRC passport holding tourists? There could probably be two reasons that these people are so afraid of PRC citizens. 1) PRC citizens are poor and would bring 3rd world problems to their countries; 2) PRC citizens would bring communism to their country. But if David gets a Canadian passport tomorrow, does that mean he had the above problems today but got rid of them tomorrow after one night's sleep?

Legally, Queen Elizabeth II rules over UK, Canada, Australia and many other places. David thought some of the Queen's officers had already checked his background and made certain that he was OK to travel, work and live in the vast territory under her reign and protection. Why would other subjects of her majesty deny his passing by, for "democracy" maybe or for the application fee of the "transition visa"?

In any house or family, a guard is charged with the tasks of "welcoming friends" and "defending against enemies". But in any of the developed countries, particularly UK and US, David felt he always belonged to the category of be "defended against". So he wondered whether border "guards" are the special type of "guards" that are only charged with the task of "defend against enemies", in these countries perceived themselves as been highly "developed".

In one of the Seinfeld episode, there was a character called Babu, who was deported from United States to Pakistan because he did not receive INS (disbanded Immigration and Naturalization Services) notification to renew his visa. Most Seinfeld audiences had a good laugh at the comedy, but little had any non-immigrant Americans ever considered this: Is there really such a thing as "visa renewal notification" in the United States? This was an example of how fictional world could use common sense to portray INS, which operates under the total defiance of common sense or common logic. In fact, INS was such an organization that even without sending out visa renewal notifications, already behind by two to three years of work constantly, that adding other tasks to their job descriptions is unimaginable.

David spent eight years applying for an American green card, but was told to wait for another two years in the end, therefore he moved with his wife and daughter to Canada because Canadian immigration process was advertised as speedier than that of the United States. David felt that a Canadian passport is just as, if not more, traveler friendly in most parts of the world. But now, it seemed that a planned three year immigration stop is turning into an infinite loop because of a small accident, a big ignorance or false advertisement.

While applying for a Canadian citizenship, David Chen was told that his Chinese translated official English name -- Da Chen -- is a duplicate of someone who might have criminal records in the past. David knew there must have been quite a number of "Da Chen" in China, and it is possible that several of them might have moved to Canada, but he is quite confident that if somebody simply looked at the Chinese writing of his name -- "Chen Da" 陈沓, the possibility of someone with his name and has a criminal record is close to the possibility of winning a lottery. In fact, from elementary school to college, he always felt lonely that there is nobody with exactly the same name as his, while many other kids, named Wang Zhi Gang or Wang Jing Song existed in every school he attended. Both of the above names had meanings like "Stone Wall Jackson" in American English: Wang Zhi Gang means "stern willed from the King family" and Wang Jing Song means "unbending redwood pine from the King family".

Name duplication is a well known, and often joked about, problem in China because of her large populations. It was said, that one police received a suspect's name and wanted to talk to a Wang Jing Song. He went to the street and asked where the suspect lived. Then he got about 20 addresses for 20 people with the same name living in various places -- on the same street!

To avoid such a well known problem, David Chen's parents decided to give David a very ancient form of his name as 陈沓 out of the following 21+ possibilities such as:

Family name: 陈

Given name with pronunciation of "Da": 沓，大，褡，达，打，答，搭，哒，笪，嗒，瘩，鞑，妲，耷，垯，疸，怛，荙，跶，靼，怛 . . .

It was a name searched out of a Chinese dictionary to avoid duplications. Then David's parents recorded such a name on his elementary school registration paper. The name accompanied him through out the years that he lived in China without seeing another "Da Chen" with the same spelling in Chinese. David immensely appreciated his parents' efforts of coming up with such a good name for him, and joked about it saying it was more unique than a name such as "Major Major Major" in Cache 22.

It is after David started living in the West, that his name started giving him troubles. Because now, these many family names could be all translated into "Chen" by different people:

陈，郴，成， 程，钱，秦