Despairful Consultation

Teaching oneself a language to a high level of competence is nothing new, actually. What else would you do if you had all the free time in the world and nowhere to go?

Still, the story may be interesting, even inspirational.

What…sit there writing comprehension exercises and correctly edited stories and composition all day? Naaaa…at the most you’d be typing and reading young person’s online speak from game sites and YouTube and the likes. Your English would be full of slang and LOLs and underground speak.

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Ymmv.

Hena must be busy watching TV. Very infrequent replies for someone locked inside with nothing to do. Hena are you there? Anything good on TV? What you watching?

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Uh… This topic sort of went in a rather unexpected direction in the time I didn’t check on it.

I don’t have access to the computer all the time mind you.

Let’s see, going through this one by one…

First of all, I’m asking for opinions on which place would be better to start off on precisely because prospects of getting my legal issues sorted have become visible which means this would be my following problem.

He does not have any plans for retirement I don’t think… Well it’s not something I would actively question him about either. To begin with he’s not employed… Or rather he’s self employed to put it more kindly. He has problems getting along with his employers as he doesn’t like to be ordered around apparently so his jobs have never lasted even though he has a PhD.

Next, I have for the most part only talked to my father in Chinese. Well I’m sure it was a mixture of Chinese and English at the start but it became only Chinese as time passed. I don’t actually have that much of importance to do every day, A large chunk of my time is spent doing petty things for my father (e.g. finding tools and parts for him).

I do the cooking although as I cannot do the shopping myself, the cooking is mostly an intuitive mess of judgments consisting that this would probably go with that and mixing it all together with my experience so far. Since it’s not possible for me to get all of the ingredients to follow recipes all the time it tends to be makeshift with what I have on hand. My father does most of the housework on the other hand.

I think the most successful sites for making money in my current state was freelance sites but… Honestly, the competition is far too rough for the pay unless I just haven’t been at it for long enough.

As for English, I never properly studied it at all honestly. In fact if you asked me questions on grammar rules I probably wouldn’t be able to answer half of them. Majority of my English is just based on judgments of “this sentence seems to sound better this way”. The foundation of it is probably just reading what people have written and correcting myself whenever I find people pointing out grammar mistakes either from things I wrote or others.

I had access to TV when I was young but it has been quite a few years since my father stopped paying for the TV and I haven’t watched it since. Can’t say I really miss it either.

So between not having Internet access half the time and no TV you’re pacing up and down the apartment reading Shakespeare and what have you?

Notice the details missing in exactly what he cooks and exactly how he makes money online

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Uh, no?

I don’t even have much books to read. Though I suppose there’s several volumes of Harry Potter from a very long time ago…

And what kind of details are you requesting from me? I already said because it’s difficult for me to properly follow recipes most dishes I make are only based off some rule of thumb where I would avoid mixing together things that would end up tasting horrible.

To set a simplified example of this, if I happen to have a box of curry I would just throw in whatever vegetables and meat that I can use and call it a day. That means it might end up as a curry consisting of pork belly, bell peppers and cabbage instead of the standard potatoes, carrots and meat. It’s edible but when asked if you can really call it curry… I don’t know.

As for working online… I’ve said numerous times already that it honestly isn’t that successful and I’ve mostly given up on it already but if you want to try, feel free to poke your head into Upwork or Freelancer.

Though it’s rather late to go back since I’ve already written this far, I would like to get back to the original questions rather than describing details about my life.

If people want to discuss language aquisition, the OP’s life story in general, or similar strange stories in general, this thread is not the place to do it. If the discussion continues to go drastically off topic, certain posts will be moved or deleted.

Some more progress and while I know there has been a topic that branched from here, it no longer seems to be very relevant to my topic and more about forum policies so I’ll leave it alone.

That said, since the consensus over there seems to be that my stories are unbelievable (I still don’t get where I went wrong in that) I’ll explain things a little bit more in-depth this time.

Discussing things with AIT has ultimately led to the answer that I had two paths, one to stay in Taiwan and the other to return to America. However to properly become a Taiwan citizen I would still need to take a trip to America. Naturally someone has to pay for it, in this case it would be the government assuming I can’t get any relatives/friends to do so.

However government loans would not cover the trip back to Taiwan or the paperwork required to become a citizen of Taiwan. Furthermore I cannot leave America until I pay back the loan.

In other words, there never really was two choices. I only have one choice, that is to return back to America, first settle down there and then decide if I want to go back to Taiwan.

The loan would likely round up to around $2000 ~ $3000 with 60 days of no interest and 1% interest after that. Fairly expensive compared to covering costs myself but I can only bite the bullet since I have no other options.

Next AIT would apparently coordinate with the department of Human and Health Services to help me when returning to America, since it’s out of their expertise I’m not expecting to receive much detail on what would happen to me at that stage so… Well for time being the plan is becoming more concrete, though there are still some fine details to smooth out.

By the sounds of it though, I can choose where in America I want to go although it would alter the plane ticket price meaning that the loan may become bigger… First of all, does anyone have a recommended state for me to start out at?

Next, though I could probably clarify this with AIT myself, how do loans even work normally? Government loans in particular. Obviously I have zero experience in dealing with things like this.

Any other relevant advice would be handy…

… Although I still haven’t solved the pending problem of convincing my father. Feels like he’s going to be the biggest wall at this point. Just running out of the house in the middle of his financial problems does not sound like a very humane thing to do either though… Really can’t come up with any solutions to that yet.

Hmm, didn’t know about the repatriation loans program, there indeed is a fair amount of info about it online.

What reasoning did they give for the statement " to properly become a Taiwan citizen I would still need to take a trip to America"? Were you able to find out anything directly from local government agencies?

Apparently I need to go back to America and apply for a “Taiwan Compatriot passport” at the Taiwan Economical and Cultural office in America and then return to Taiwan using the passport and staying in Taiwan for a full year to properly obtain residency.

A Taiwan Compatriot Permit is a document for Taiwanese citizens traveling to China.

A number of documents seem possible, but I see obvious roadblocks. Hopefully people with more knowledge will chime in.

There’s an Overseas Chinese Identity Certificate

http://www.ocac.gov.tw/OCAC/Eng/FAQ/List.aspx?nodeid=455

One condition clearly is:

(5) Proof of ROC a nationality, or proof of Chinese ethnicity authenticated or issued by a ROC Foreign Representative Office;

Overseas Chinese can apply for a passport

but a condition is:

A certificate of nationality of the Republic of China (Taiwan)

I’d be sure I was able to establish that if I wanted to go that route.

That’s interesting information to know, thanks…

Although what the heck is a certificate of nationality for Taiwan?

Either way honestly speaking all of this would be a lot less complicated if I had money so going back to America, paying off the loan and stabilizing my situation there sounds like the most direct solution. Still a little dubious on what kind of support I’d receive from HHS though since simply “returning to America and finding a job!” is rather abstract still.

Edit: Scratch that, so basically I need something like my father’s passport? If so that’s one more reason for me to need to somehow convince him. My head hurts…

It’s a certificate they give you once you’ve demonstrated that you meet the conditions for nationality, which you can then use to get an ID card and passport. It’s mentioned in Article 11 of the enforcement rules below. When we did it for my daughter it was in the basement of the National Immigration Agency building, what I believe is one department of it.

This is the Nationality law, not much of relenace past Article 2:

A person shall have the nationality of the ROC under any of the conditions provided by the following Subparagraphs:

  1. His/her father or mother was a national of the ROC when he/she was born.

http://law.moj.gov.tw/Eng/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?PCode=D0030001

This is the enforcement rules, it seems to have some more useful information:

http://law.moj.gov.tw/Eng/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?PCode=D0030022

The Immigration Agency has an English hotline:

886-800-024-111

https://www.immigration.gov.tw/mp.asp?mp=1

I think they have some clause where if you come in on a foreign passport then you have to go back out and come back in on ROC paperwork to be considered as an ROC national.

My son came in on an Irish passport, so he is legally Irish, not of Chinese nationality. However if he flew out, and came back in on an entry exit permit then he would magically be an ROC national.

However it might be safe to assume that they might look differently if you came in such a long time ago, foreign passport expired, or whatever, as the case may be. I heard of a case where a girl in a similar situation - taiwanese parent brought her to taiwan on a foreign passport, and then the parent died. Extended family didnt sort out the papers so she overstayed for years. Then was nearly deported but went to the media and Ma Ying Jeu stopped the deportation and she was issued with her Taiwan paperwork.

There are also lawyers that can guide you and submit papers on your behalf, but they are pricey. I think I was quoted 40,000 nt to sort out an exit entry permit for my wife. I got it in the end for free by myself. But actually the advice they gave me, for free, was key. Dunno if I want to post the number but if you pm I will go look for it for you

That would still be cheaper than $2000 to $3000 US.

Which state did you live in before? There may be someone there who still remembers you.

California.

Though I won’t deny the possibility… Is there even much point if they do? We’re talking about when I was <6 you know.

Also yes, if I had money to work with I probably would have more options like the ones mentioned above. By the way, the loan will be $2000 ~ $3000 because apparently there’s some rules that makes the plane ticket more expensive than usual. Not sure about the details but that pushes the ticket cost to over $1000 at minimum.

Eh, overall I feel like at least I know what I can do in the worst case scenario where I end up homeless now. Still looking for advice for the states I can go to and loans though since no one has touched it yet. Not expecting much advice for my father because… Well, I honestly don’t see any magical solution to this beyond managing to convince him somehow with my own power.

What can he do to stop you? Is he unstable? Is there a danger of violence?

There’s nothing in particular he can do to stop me as it’s not like he chained up the doors or anything.

However many things would go smoother if he would cooperate and furthermore the fact that he’s currently stuck in financial difficulties makes it hard for me to just run out while knowing that. Of course if he voluntarily kicks me out as a result of failing negotiations then that’s that.

The good part of it all is that at least I have some sort of plan for if I do get kicked out now.