thanks. i was hoping so.
How badly do you want to see your son? How will being in Taiwan improve this situation?
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obviously very badly. but going to england wont help. his mother is a psychopath and will probably move to sweden or somewhere just to spite me. and in england fathers/men have no rights i dont have the energy or the money to fight a rigged system and a woman who will stop at nothing to wreck me. i was hoping to just live here in taiwan mainly for a change of scenery and improved mental health. the prospect of being forced back to england is making me have some very dark thoughts
Are you able to obtain a gold card, or you are not eligible?
If you are not, just go back to the UK, wait for the things to settle and once borders will re-open you can think about moving again.
Anyway, I think you have certain things to sort out, and you should seek the attention of a specialist. A change of location can help only up to a certain bit.
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last time i earned more than 160k a month taxable recorded income was in 2017. its probably too late now to apply even if my meager professional qualifications were enough to reach the bar from what ive read in the threads about the gold card.
It sounds like you have a mobile source of income, so youâve got plenty of options. Youâve probably got the best info youâre going to get here to start you off. Try going directly to the OCAC if youâre ethnic Chinese:
https://www.ocac.gov.tw/OCAC/Eng/
or go to the immigration office and see if they can do anything for you. If not, maybe a lawyer. And youâve got other covid safe, non-British options. Palau is covid free last I heard, though it might be hard to find a way in. South Korea is or was accepting tourists and is doing fairly well. Probably other places, too, if you do your research. Thereâs a few other places you can buy citizenship or at least residency if you have significant savings. If not, thereâs plenty of other little islands a British citizen can visit or live in with good enough internet. Any of the âOverseas Franceâ islands will take you for as long as you want. Again, getting there is an issue, but you donât have to go home of you donât want to. Then, you can come back to Taiwan when things settle down.
If your Chinese and IT skills are that good, you could enroll in a University in Taiwan.
If you do need to return to the UK, why would your Ex need to know?
You are in control, not her. You owe her not a second of your thoughts or time. Will she try and get the child maintenance service (is it?) onto you or something?
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Hereâs one alternative, maybe go hang out in one of the Britsh overseas territories if possible like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda or Gibraltar.
For staying in Taiwan, looks like your best bet is to sign up at a language school that organises student visas.
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maybe the language school gambit is the path to take. thanks for all your helpful suggestions
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Thatâs going to be a hard sell since you already speak near perfect mandarin. Maybe going for an IT degree is more worth your time anyway.
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Surely he could take advanced lessons or pick another popular language like Japanese.
Oh wait, maybe not:
Try your luck and keep us updated, all the best mate
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If I were in your shoes Iâd also be looking for a long-term path to staying. Thatâd mean getting Taiwanese citizenship and renouncing your UK citizenship (sounds like it wouldnât be a loss to you - I know it wouldnât be for me), but it also means youâd have to stay for several years on a non-student ARC. And since you canât get a job without having a degree, it means getting a degree too. Iâd try to get into a Taiwanese university and get a degree.
Easier of course, would be a marriage that leads to a path to citizenship in three years, but then youâd risk being married to another lunatic and Iâm sure thatâs not something youâre especially interested in.
Good luck!
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Try to get a degree here in Taiwan. Itâs difficult to get student visas right now⌠but not impossible. Ok, maybe itâs impossible. Iâll see what ultimately happens to my friend.
If you must leave, get a degree and come back.
Sorry, I hope someone can propose a better idea :(.
As mentioned earlier, this is not always the case. The general rule is five years of experience in lieu of a degree (not applicable to all job categories).
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Fair comment. I was going on the assumption that OP doesnât have the experience.
Securing a job and work permit as a financial trader based on his experience alone would be a stroke of luck indeed. But not impossible, given his language ability.
sweating, if you have the spare funds, in theory you could register a company in the UK and enlist a legal firm/CPA to help setup a representative office in Taiwan and self sponsor a work permit that way which would in theory buy you an extra year of time, but it would be quite difficult to accomplish all this within the very limited timeframe you have available, in fact the process usually takes up to 9 months.
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Seeking consultation at a British consulate would be beneficial to you.
You can consider hanging out in Canada/Australia/New Zealand etc for the time being as visa free six month stay to ride out the present pandemic.
For your future southeast Asia has more potential than other regions on the planet in this century unless you want to explore South America and Africa.
@sweating As long as you have a tax form saying that you made that much, thatâs all you really need. 2017 should still count because the limit is within 3 years (of completed tax years?).
Applying for the Economic category of the Gold Card did not require any sort of university qualification.
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It must be demonstrable experience. I had a hard time proving I had any when that applied to me, but it was for a more fluid category of work and eventually got it done.
âFintech stuffâ might be fluid enough to slide by on as well, but I donât think thatâs the direction the OP is looking for. If I could making a living trading crypto I might do the rep office thing. That will get him at least a year.