I’m looking to move somewhere next fall purely for the purpose of studying Chinese, and having a difficult time finding a good school. TLI seems to get some good recommendations, but when I called both the Kaoshiung and Roosevelt branches to ask about visas, neither one of their replies made sense to me. They said that I have to go to the police every month. Is this correct? Can I study there full-time and not work, or do I have to be on an ARC? Or do I have to possibly leave the country every month? Huh?
When you get the visa in your home country, it is a two-month visitor’s visa with a “student” note on it. You must have an acceptance letter from a licensed school to get this visa. You may extend it twice at the foreign affairs police station.
alwayslol, you are in Tainan right? Last I knew (others can correct me if I’m wrong) but you start out with a 2 month visitor visa, extendable every 2 months, up to 6. After 4 months you can apply for an ARC as a student, but only for the period you have paid up for. So if you have paid for 1 month, that’s all the ARC you get. But if you pay, in advance, for 6 months, then you get 6 months.
This is what I did when I first got here, but it was at Shi-Da. All my friends at Shi-Da had to renew their ARC every 3 months (minimum payment there, we didnt have enough $$$ to pay 6 months) unless they had a scholarship.
However, I’m not sure what you do when you are already in Taiwan. Do you have an ARC or are you leaving for a HK trip anyway?
The rules have changed. Now you get a visitor visa in your home country or somewhere else if you are here already. It will be for two months. After the first 60 days, you have to go to the police station every 30 days to extend it. TLI knows what documents you need. It is straightforward. Now, however, they might try to engage you in conversation (in Chinese) at the police station to try to make sure you actually are studying. In March the guy chatted with me for about 15 minutes, then said my Chinese was fine and so he saw no reason why I had to keep studying it.
You can keep extending your visa up to 180 days, then you’ll have to leave to get a new one. The option of getting an ARC because you are studying Chinese is only available if you study at a university.
That does mean “then you’ll have to leave the country and get a new one,” doesn’t it?
Yes.
TLI told me that even if I had a visa issued in the UK for 60 days with ‘no extension permissible’ on it, they could ‘almost guarantee’ they’d get it extended. In the end, I lobbied hard at the ROC mission in London and got a 90 day extendable visa which will, I hope, save me from too much hassle.
You can’t extend a non-extendable visa, but you can ask MOFA to replace it with an extendable one. I got that done when I showed my registration and attendance record for one of the private schools - Pioneer. If Pioneer can do it, so can TLI. But getting an extendable one in the first place is certainly better. Well done/lucky you.