My Taiwanese wife and I (nearly divorced) have agreed to split custody of our three kids as she wants to keep one. But, she said that if there are some advantages (as far as future citizenship, or something I can’t think of) to all three being in my custody, then she will hand over all three. Dual citizenship is not affected by custody, and I can’t think of any other possible advantages off hand.
Does anyone know of any?
Also, the changing of surnames. My Taiwanese friend who does a lot of counselling etc, said that usually (for Taiwanese husbands anyway) the surnames of the kids that I gain custody of would be changed over to my surname. My wife is adamantly against this as my Chinese surname is not my “real” surname. Does anybody know anything about this?
Thanks.
[quote=“LordBritish”]My Taiwanese wife and I (nearly divorced) have agreed to split custody of our three kids as she wants to keep one. But, she said that if there are some advantages (as far as future citizenship, or something I can’t think of) to all three being in my custody, then she will hand over all three. Dual citizenship is not affected by custody, and I can’t think of any other possible advantages off hand.
Does anyone know of any?
Also, the changing of surnames. My Taiwanese friend who does a lot of counselling etc, said that usually (for Taiwanese husbands anyway) the surnames of the kids that I gain custody of would be changed over to my surname. My wife is adamantly against this as my Chinese surname is not my “real” surname. Does anybody know anything about this?
Thanks.[/quote]
Gaining custody does not mean the kids have to change their Chinese familu name to match yours. My son has always used his mothers family surname even though I have a Chinese name. To change a name an application process has to be gone through. As your kids probably just use your English Surname there is no harm in letting them keep their current Chinese names. So my son has my Surname on his English documentation and his Chinese name using his mothers surname on Chinese documents. Divorce being stressful enough I’d just let the name thing be and agree with your wife not to change the chinese names of your kids. After all they are always going to be your kids
My Ex wife was happy that our son used her family name. it makes no difference to us in reality.
maybe it would be even harder for them to have to change their names too.
I know that the law was changed around two or three years ago which now allows consenting parents to change the surname of their child. I know this because my wife and I were allowed to sign a single paper, which allowed us to change our child’s last name to that of my wife’s. It was my previous argument with the government that my child should not automatically take my name as my name was meaningless, with no lineage, yet my wife’s was. Taiwan law formerly would always name the child after the father. Formerly only mothers who had no brothers in her family were allowed to name children after their own surnames.
This law has been changed to and fro quite a number of times now, allowing change and then disallowing it again, but I am hoping that this time it manages to stay the way it is permanently.
On a related note on surname differences; I heard of a chap recently who had quite a paper trail to follow when trying to obtain a joining family visa for Taiwan, as his children and wife didn’t share the same surname as his own (they were unmarried). He was prevented from immediately entering onto the island until he could prove that he was related to his children by way of certificates and stamps from his own country. As it happens, the chap who told me this story of his friend, also told me of two other friends who were also unmarried with children, but who both easily arrived, connected with a joining family visa, only because by chance, they all happened to have the same surnames from birth.
If this story is as simple as it was told, then their may be an advantage to keeping the same name (if you’re a bloke) if relying on another family member for the joining family visa.