Lost my HSBC SecurID, which is needed for logging into internet banking. Got the new one in the mail along with a letter. The letter explains that I need to log on using my old SecurID before I can use the new one. Right.

Reading on the letter has the phone number I can call to activate the new gadget if I lost the old one. The letter is dated 5 days ago. The phone number has since changed to a new number to offer me better service. I know this because when I called the phone number in the letter, I had to listen to a 2 minute explanation in Cantonese before getting the English explanation. The recording offers to transfer me to the new number if I press “1.” Oh good.

Get transferred to the new number. Navigate the bewildering maze of menu options. Have to listen to a 2 minute recording about how to use the SecurID before I can press “O” to talk to a human being.

Said human being asks for my name and pertinent ID information and then informs me that their system is down and they can call me back later. Why did she ask for all that info if she couldn’t do anything?

An hour later, the phone call, SecurID is activated.
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Going through boxes taking space in the hall, coming across old papers. Bills from 1996 – that I shipped from HK to SF and back again. The instruction manual for the cable TV box when I lived in SF, that I shipped to HK. And so on.

Then something I knew I had but had no idea where. My grandfather’s (father’s side) passport. From 1928. Born in 1877 in “Austria, now Roumania” written in pencil. I never knew my grandfather – he died before my parents met. There’s a photo. A stern expression, round glasses, suit, tie & overcoat. 5 feet 8 inches tall, blonde hair, gray eyes. Do I see myself in him? A little.

The oddest thing about this … one of those mysteries of life that no one living can answer. I know the family name is Fiedler. I know my grandfather changed it when he came to the U.S. (According to my father, he was a cabin boy on a German cruise ship, jumped ship when it reached the US, swam to shore and changed his name. I have never believed that story.) My grandfather’s surname is different from my father’s. A slight variation in spelling. A ‘u’ instead of an ‘e,’ an ‘l’ instead of an ‘r.’ How did we get from his name to my father’s name? I’ll never know.

Hmmm, visas for Germany, Romania, Poland. Entry stamps for several eastern European countries. Transited France in April 1928 – guess he arrived by boat and then traveled by train. Left France again, back to New York, in September. Visiting family?

“Applications for passports by persons in the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Porto Rico, Guam, or the Philippines, should be made to the chief executives of those islands.”

“The fee for a passport, including one dollar for the execution of the application and nine dollars for the passport, is $10.00.”

Hongkie Town
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