Features
Chthonic’s Lament
Freddy Lim, the vocalist for popular Taiwanese metal band Chthonic, recently posted a message at metalunderground.com outlining his band’s difficulties in touring abroad, mostly consisting of immigration and other officials mistaking the band for Chinese nationals.
For instance, when the band was traveling from New York to London, an airline ticket clerk told Lim he needed a visa to travel to the U.K.
Taiwan passports are labeled Republic of China, and Westerners who see them tend to think they are held by citizens of the People’s Republic of China.
Taiwan citizens do not need visas to travel to the U.K.
In any case, the band did have a work permit to play in the U.K., though even that process took longer than normal because U.K. officials also thought initially that the band was from China.
To compound the band’s humiliation, they were stopped twice by police in New York City on their way to the airport.
Click here to read Lim’s entire post on metalunderground.com.