I know, I know, I should be grateful I have the damn thing in the first place… But I can’t help feeling that it hasn’t helped alleviate the general fucking STUPIDITY that local institutions exhibit toward foreigners. Worse, the unfamiliarity of the thing (I just had a conversation with someone in which I was told it was identical to the ARC card held by people on work visas) means that banks etc. don’t have a clue how to deal with it.
I have lost track of the number of times now I’ve been asked “Where’s the expiration date?” (It doesn’t have a FUCKING expiration date! That’s why the front of the damn thing says ‘PERMANENT!’")
Now, I’ve been asked (by a bank) for copies of my passport pages to prove that I fulfill the 183 day rule. I tried explaining that I wouldn’t even have an APRC to show them if I didn’t meet residency requirements, but according to the nice lady who is helping me, this FACT is insufficient for the unimaginative cretin who wants to look through my passport.
I hope he enjoys the task, because I will copy all 48 pages for him to try and piece together at his leisure. My only regret is that I have clustered most of the Taiwan entry stamps together for my own convenience and I would now prefer to show him entry and exit stamps which are scattered around like a wild man’s shite.