Wow.. just wow, receiving your baby birth certificate

K

keninhk

Registered User
Wow.. I expected this to be a fun and memorable event in my life so far. Memorable yes, Fun no.

Everyone has to go through this if the baby is born in HK. Within the first 42 days to go to the designated center to collect.

1) The wait, 30mins. The aura when walking in the room was Tense.
2) The official, 10mins. The most agonizing 10 minutes this month ? Including the 3am crying baby scenarios. The aura of the room was fully understood at this point
3) Receiving the certificate. Wanted to ask a simple question and she took off, without as much as a bye? Waited patiently for her to come back like it was a friggin? crime.

I feel for the tired looking mothers with the baby in tow. At least there is a clean baby feeding room? I have filed the experience under ?wtf just happened? moments cross-referenced with ?dealing with government department officials?.

Pre-warned is pre-armed. Good luck! :)
 
Sounds quite unlike my experience - in the Admiralty office. Went in, got the ticket, waited a few minutes - paid the fee and got the certificates. No hassle, very efficient - like most government departments here in my experience!

What issues did you run into?
 
I agree with new dad! I didn't experience any problems. Booked appointment online. Waited about 10 minutes before my number was called up. All very efficient.
 
Ours wasnt that bad but we certainly took the longest since we were the only non-locals there & they took ages to work out our "foreign papers." All in all, I guess about 1-2 hours in the Shatin office.
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My husband had a huge raging fight with the officer at the birth registry because they have very strict policy about naming in the their official records. In the part of India my husband comes from the father's first name becomes the child's last name but the officer was having none of it. In the end, it came out somewhat okay but yeah, it's a bureaucratic process, not that we expected any different. Like all HK bureaucratic processes I think it is efficient (and I meant that in a good way). If my husband hadn't dug his heels in, called the supervisor etc. it would have taken half an hour or less which I think is pretty good.


14 months later, when my husband went in for my daughter's birth certi, he got the same officer and he recognised my husband and say "You again!" They both had a good laugh.
 
I think were 2 factors contributing to the memorable experience.
1) The Hk'er officer quota of mainland mothers. We had to pick our cert. in the Shatin office due to the location of hospital our baby was born. According to dialogue overheard from staff, was the ratio imbalance in the NT area and that birth registration office was the busiest in HK.
2) My enjoyment expectation was set too high, maybe I should have wore a frown when picking my baby's birth cert? Probably would have enjoyed it in accordance to acceptable limits as stated in the basic law :/

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I think it's like a lot of things with government agencies/offices in HK (including public hospitals)--it depends a lot on the background of the person applying (especially things like nationality etc.--for example one user posted above about difficulties with names due to coming from a particular Indian culture etc.) and the time and circumstances when applying. Hong Kong is usually about business....they don't spare much on the touchy-feely stuff. However, I find that applying for documents and things of that nature usually goes a lot more quickly and efficiently here than it does in my own country but they certainly don't waste any smiles on anyone most of the time. A thirty-minute wait doesn't seem to long to me. I think altogether the process of us filing with the government at the birth of our daughter in 2011 took about 1 1/2 hours and my husband is a local Chinese guy. Even though we had to wait everything went smoothly--however, we didn't have any difficulties with names or anything like that or quotas. Having been married in a government office in Hong Kong as well as had to file for many types of paperwork here over the years I never walk in there expecting a cheery encounter--the job will get done, though.
 
Same experience as m-c and newdad in the Admiralty office - a 10 minute wait, efficient and helpful (suggested we get multiple copies for future use). I booked our appt online beforehand.
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