Border Crossing

Most of the time Sven's reluctance to say his real name is only slightly annoying, or even cute. But last weekend, we thought we were in deep trouble. We went up to Victoria, Canada for the weekend. When we arrived at Canadian Immigration, the Officer holding our passports looked at Sven, looked at his picture (which was taken when he was 4 months old) and then said to Sven "what's your name?" Sven looked shy and didn't answer. So, she said "do you know your name?" and Sven said "Tinkerbell." At this point, Erik and I tried to convey to Sven the importance of saying his real name, but he wouldn't cooperate.

So, the Immigration Officer changed her question. Erik was holding Sven, so she said "do you know who he is?" indicating Erik. And Sven said "I don't know." What Sven really probably meant was "I don't want to answer these questions." Finally, in a quiet voice Sven said "I'm Thunder Nilsson.". At this point the Officer either took pity on us, or saw how futile the whole thing was, and let us go. As we left the Immigration office Sven said to me in a very small quiet voice "I'm Sven Michiya Namioka Thunder Nilsson."

On the boat home, I asked Sven if we could practice what he was going to say when we arrived in the U.S. Sven said "I don't want to practice. That woman was naughty, asking my name."

Hm, we'll have to work on the whole name thing before he reaches Kindergarten.