The Visa Shake-Up

Well, Hong Kong proved a disappointment. At least as far as my visa situation is concerned. I left Hong Kong last night, having failed to secure a 60-day tourist visa. This does not mean that my application was rejected; it means that the office could not give me an answer in a timely fashion, and I chose to return to Taiwan.

The best I could get out of the office was that "no reply" had been received from immigration in Taipei regarding my application. Apparently, the fact that I had applied and been turned down in New York raised red flags. Who knows how this will sort itself out?

Tuesday, on what is supposed to be my day off, I am going in to my school's head office in Taipei to talk to the two principals of Shane, Mark and Dave. I had several telephone conversations back and forth with Dave yesterday from Hong Kong; the only light he could shed on the situation was that he had never seen a case like mine, not in 11 years in the field. "Everybody" gets a visa, I'm told; sometimes not for the full 60 days, but at least more than a 30-day landing visa.

I will make clear at this meeting that I am unwilling to pay any more money for visa applications. I have already shelled out over $200 just in application fees, not to mention the costs of my plane ticket to Hong Kong and two nights in a hostel. I have done everything that is ordinarily required to obtain a visa. I will also make clear that I refuse to apply for anything other than a real residency visa going forward. Eve and Ruby still do not have their operating license, which prevented my applying for a proper residency visa this time around; if they don't have it by December, when I am supposed to go back for another visa run, I will request my wages, compensation for my flight in, and a plane ticket home. I am no longer willing to persist in lying to the Taiwanese government over something that is neither immoral nor illegal in Taiwan--teaching English.

Anyway...Ruby called my cell phone at 10:30 this morning to see what had happened and to find out where I was. I had e-mailed Eve last night that I was coming home, but either she didn't get the e-mail or she failed to communicate with Ruby. I got a little testy with her, as I had just gotten in at 1:00 that morning and was still very tired. She proceeded to ask a bunch of questions about why my application had failed again--questions to which I have no answer--and made a point of telling me to come in early Monday as I have a new class.

This is just so typical of Ruby. She just jumps all over me all the time. The day I landed in the country, having just been on airplanes for over 20 hours, she "couldn't wait" for me to meet Eve. The afternoon I returned from training in Taipei, very bedraggled and disoriented from having gotten a little lost in Taipei Main Station coming home, I stopped by the school, only to have her tell me she absolutely needed my CELTA certificate (which I had already told her three times had not been issued to me) that minute. It could have waited until Monday. Calling me about my schedule could have waited another day, until I'd had time to collect myself.

Homesickness is starting to set in. I'm starting to realize how many ESL programs there are in the States that I could get into. I could get into this field back home and not have to worry about visa applications and my legal right to be where I am.

Ah well...enough grousing. Time for a more positive post on Hong Kong.