My Time in Exile!

Feature, Hong Kong, Travelogue — By Geoff Matthews on June 18, 2010 at 7:34 am

Pop quiz hot shot, your back in Asia, tucked away in the southwest corner of Taiwan catching up with some buddies you haven’t seen for some time and you receive a phone call telling you that you have 24 hours to leave the country. What do you do…WHAT DO YOU DO? Sorry for the Speed reference all you non-Keanu fans! I tell you what you do! First, the back story:

When one lands in Taiwan, one is issued a 30 day landing visa which permits one to stay in the country for…you guessed it, 30 days. This is a non-transferable type of visa. This means it cannot be transferred to a working permit. A tourist visa, which you must purchase beforehand can be. The way around this is to simply land, find a job and have your employer apply for an extension which can be transferable within the 30 days you are allotted. Closer inspection of my passport, however, revealed that I was given a 90 day landing visa when we arrived, not 30. Katie was given the proper 30 day visa from the customs agent that she passed through, I went through another booth. Katie’s documents were processed in time and she didn’t have any issues. I, on the other hand, presumed that 90 days meant 90 days. I have been to many countries now and I stay as long as they say I can stay, which is recorded in your passport. The labour office, who was processing my work permit, alerted my employer of the error and that they had notified the Foreign Affairs Department. The Foreign Affairs Department said that I was issued the wrong stamp upon arrival and that I needed to have that stamp voided and a new stamp (30 days) issued retroactive to the day I landed. Herein lies the problem, I have already been in the country more than 30 days. Foreign Affairs now says I must pay a fine, have a permanent record for overstaying my visa and leave the country. Ok, what? Overstay, what? Arguments ensued between my employer and the Foreign Affairs Department but there is no winning that battle. Their fault? Yes, does it matter? No. 24 hours, leave the country, don’t care where. What do I do? I call my wife, who is in the middle of teaching a class, and inform her that I will be withdrawing a large sum of money from our bank account and I will be in Hong Kong until further notice. I leave on a Saturday for Hong Kong, my passport sets off an alarm at the emigration counter, more arguments and filling out paperwork and by the end of it, receiving a full page stamp in my passport indicating that I am not allowed back into the Republic of China for one year, unless, I return on a working visa. What the what? The passport office in Hong Kong did not open until 9am Monday morning. I arrived at 9:01am and took my number and waited. I was armed with every document I could get my hands on. An invitation letter from my employer, an approved copy of same stamped by the government, an approval letter from the labour board, a copy of my contract etc. When my number was called, they inform me that they do not issue working visas at their office, resident or tourist only. Crap! Double crap! A flip of the coin told me to apply for a resident visa and hope for the best.

I returned at 4pm that afternoon to pick up my visa. What they do not tell you is that they actually don’t even issue visas of any kind. They simply approve you, staple a document inside your passport and tell you which office in Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport you can pick up your visa. Ummm, I am not going to Taipei, I am going to Kaohsiung. Uh-oh, came the reply. So now I don’t have a working visa, or any visa. I have a piece of paper that says I can get one in Taipei, but I certainly don’t have what they told not to come back without. I threw a good deal of caution to the wind and returned to Kaohsiung. Humming and hawing and reluctant to let me pass, but the customs agent lectured me and let me in under strict orders to sort out my paperwork within one week. Agreed. Since then my documents have been processed and I now have my Alien Resident Certificate (ARC), my work permit and I am awaiting my national health card. Although I have no fondness for how the situation played out or how it was handled, I kept my composure through it all. As much as I wanted to play the blame game, raise hell and start pointing fingers, customs agents and Foreign Affairs Departments are not people you want to piss off. With a quick click of a mouse they can make any future travel plans pretty miserable. And besides, as Katie pointed out to me, we have spent the last year of our lives paring down to be easily mobile and ready for adventure, let the universe decide if we are to be in Taiwan. As it turned out, it’s Taiwan for now.

So with a couple days to kill in a very rainy Hong Kong, I charged up the camera and went walking. The first night was spent over a lonely couple of beers at Lan Kwai Fong, a party and bar area of the central district. Over the next couple days I strolled the streets from the Western District to Central, past Admiralty to Wan Chai, where the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre is, and on to Causeway Bay, then a bus to Stanley Market, when I was tired, I took the tram, when it poured I stopped at a coffee shop and watched business men and women running to and fro with newspapers over their heads like they do in the movies. Hong Kong is full of breathtaking views and stunning architecture with just enough english to be comfortable, but with all the Asian randomness and wonderfulness thrown in. It has a good mix of old and new world. Competing hard for the title of “fashion capital”, every brand name under the sun has a shop and likely a trade office also, more cargo companies than you can count, embassies, electronic and airline companies. If you can think of any large company, they will have an office in Hong Kong. It truly is the business gateway to Asia. Here are some snaps on my time in exile: