Pencil Portrait Sketch | My First Passport Photo

Guess who is the girl in the portrait? My daughter? Nope. That is me. Yeah, it was taken in the early 80s when I was 4 years old. I remember showing this picture to my daughter several years ago when she was 4. I asked her who do you think this girl is? And she said it is her. When I told her it was me, she got confused and refused to believe me. I told her again it really is me when I was her age and she became upset because I think she just could not accept the fact that I was young LOL.

I asked the same question to my son today. I asked who is the little girl, is that his big sister or someone else? Without hesitating, he said it's his big sister. He became upset when I told him it was me...

Kids are funny.

Anyway, I remember exactly where this photo was taken and why it was taken. It was actually a black and white passport photo. My parents brought me and my siblings to the photo studio to take our photos because we wanted to make our travel pass. We had to make the travel pass because we wanted to attend my aunt's wedding which was held in Kuching, a town about 400KM away.

At that time travel pass was required for Sarawakians if they wanted to travel to other places within Sarawak (Malaysia Borneo). I know it sounds strange but back in the early 80s, the remnants of communist guerrillas (of Sarawak communist insurgency) were still roaming the jungles of Sarawak terrorizing the locals to give them provisions. They often targeted anyone traveling on deserted trunk roads and rural villages. They did not hesitate to kill anyone to get whatever they want. So, military checkpoints were built along these roads to check travelers' passes.

I didn't remember the long bus ride or if anyone checked our passes. I vaguely remember the wedding. It happened so many decades ago but I keep the portrait with me to this day.

Here is the actual portrait:

And the progress photos: