The nice thing about living in Hong Kong is that most of these stupid edge cases have been sanded out of the system already. Probably because they doesn't just affect immigrants, but "local" people too (the 10% of the population who emigrated in the 80s, but kept their flats and bank accounts cuz they're intending to come back sometime). I've never had a problem with foreign mailing addresses, or my name being too long for the input field (like in Korea where they give you 4 characters max), or needing a citizen's ID number to complete transactions (you can use your passport number for literally everything from government forms down to supermarket loyalty cards), or any of that nonsense.
It's always a rude reminder of "normal" to deal with businesses and government bureaux in other countries. Like "another Brian" said in the blog's comments, the third world isn't even the worst in this regard, cuz at least there you can rely on personal relationships, or at worst bribes. It's the less efficient countries of the first world, where clerks generally won't take bribes and don't care who your friend's daddy is, but will go through their triplicate forms at the speed they please (and make a series of blocking calls to you to clarify each piece of information when you don't fit into their check boxes), and close the office at 4 PM, client be damned.
It's always a rude reminder of "normal" to deal with businesses and government bureaux in other countries. Like "another Brian" said in the blog's comments, the third world isn't even the worst in this regard, cuz at least there you can rely on personal relationships, or at worst bribes. It's the less efficient countries of the first world, where clerks generally won't take bribes and don't care who your friend's daddy is, but will go through their triplicate forms at the speed they please (and make a series of blocking calls to you to clarify each piece of information when you don't fit into their check boxes), and close the office at 4 PM, client be damned.