I have been fortunate enough to get to travel internationally for most of my life. I’ve had a passport as long as I can remember, and before that we would go back and forth to Canada on road trips with some frequency, so I have had more than my share of customs and immigration a experiences.
As a young child
“Are you traveling on business?” (I guess they have to go through the script, but what business does an 8 year old have, really?)
Traveling with Pets
“Is that a Lion!?” (No, he’s a cat.)
On Smuggling
“Why does your cat have two cellphones and his own laptop?.” (As a tech person I would often travel with multiple testing devices that would trip me up in different countries because of the import limitations . For a while we tried giving the cat two phones and saying they were to make him feel more connected.)
And while this one was never actually said to me, I will always remember the phrase because it was the first thing I learned in Japanese for some odd reason:
“Yes, that is a ham in my suitcase.”
It was accompanied by a cartoon of a businessman and a customs agent at Narita airport with a ham marked “Virginia”, proving that arguing over the random things we try to slip past customs agents is an international phenomenon.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-interesting-question-you-have-been-asked-at-immigration-counters-at-airports
Originally Posted On: 2016-01-16