Hi there, I’m American born, 37, with parents who are both Taiwanese citizens but met and married in the USA. I’ve been living in Taiwan on and off for 4 years now but have never started the process of getting a passport or TARC, mostly because I go back to the States so often that it didn’t seem like I would meet the stay requirements (now I sort of regret it because I didn’t realize there was a 5 year option, which I would have been more likely to be able to hit).
Anyway, I decided at the very least I would go and get my passport during my next trip to the States, which, if I am to understand, requires me bringing a copy of my parents’ marriage certificate. Since I’m going as far as to do that, I wondered if I should go ahead and also translate and authenticate it, and then register their marriage back in Taiwan when I go back.
But I have a couple of questions…
- Can I authenticate their marriage at TECO myself or does one of my parents have to go do this in person?
- Same thing for the Household Registration bureau; does one of my parents have to go and register the marriage?
- Will it be a problem because my parents were married in America under their English names but obviously their Taiwanese documents have their Chinese names? My dad’s English name is a poor transliteration of his Chinese name but my mom’s is different altogether… I might have an old US passport of my mom’s that includes her maiden name with her Chinese name as her middle name but I’m not sure that’s on her marriage certificate.
- Also, they’re actually in the process of a divorce right now, so… do I have to register the divorce once that goes through too? I don’t want my parents to still appear to be married in Taiwan if there are some legal ramifications for that even though they now both live outside of Taiwan (they both do maintain separate household registrations though).
Getting a passport seems relatively easy, but TARC seems like a different beast, so I wanted to try to knock out as many obstacles ahead of time as possible.
Also, can I use copies of my mom’s passport and household registration for the passport when I go to the TECO offices or does it have to be the original? I’m assuming just my mom’s is enough as my dad doesn’t live in the States OR Taiwan and it would be harder for me to get a hold of his documents.
(Will probably be back with more questions on TARC stuff once I start that process…)