New visitor's visa requirements...unbelievable

Legal Visa & Residency
#1

When you are from the Philippines, as of Oct. 1, 2008, anyone who wants to join the spouse or parents need to have this:

A Marriage contract/birth certificate from National Statistics Office, authenticated by Department of Foreign Affairs and TECO.

To have your papers authenticated by DFA takes a week and for TECO to authenticate your BC/MC, you need loads of supporting documents and it will take another a week to do it.

In order for Filipino visitors to visit their loved ones in Taiwan, you will present truckloads of documents. It is like getting a US visa.

Comments?
Anyone who has gone through all these headaches?

#2

so…it’s okay for the US to require it…but not Taiwan

#3

Considering that more people wants to visit the US and never leave the country, it is understandable for their strict requirements.

#4

Many Pinoy’s have overstayed illegally in Taiwan as well. The overstay rate for Pinoys is very high.

#5

Many Pinoy’s have overstayed illegally in Taiwan as well. The overstay rate for Pinoys is very high.[/quote]

Care to back that up with some real numbers? Besides anecdotal evidence?

It doesn’t make nearly as much sense as Filipino/a’s to overstay in Taiwan as it does in the U.S. First of all, Filipinos don’t stick out in a multi-cultural society of many different races/ethnicities as they do in a mono-cultural society where everybody looks the same ethnically as Taiwan. Non-Chinese stick out like a sore thumb in Taiwan - even a white boy like me can spot a Japanese or Korean in Taiwan, even they stick out as “different” in Taiwan! A Filipino is a massive sore thumb. Asia is the worst place in the world to hide out from the Man.

Also, while most educated Filipino/a’s can speak English as well as your average native speaker, how many of them can speak Chinese 1/10th as fluently? Nope. And culturally, Filipino/a’s are basically Americans who speak Tagalog. It’s 100 times easier for them to blend into American society - easier than any other foreign group bar Canadians, in fact - than it is for them to integrate into Chinese society. Non-Chinese integrating into Chinese society…ha! That’s a laugh. Even despite the money, why would any Filipino/a want to continue to stay in Taiwan, where they are treated like dogs and barely speak the language and as serious Catholics are offended by a culture they do not understand and are looked down upon by the vast majority of Taiwanese as lower trash than Negroes in 1950s Alabama?

Any Filipino/a who would want to immigrate to Taiwan has a serious hole in his or her head.

#6

NOt quite as harsh as that Quentin. A lot of valid points but many Phillippinos have made a life in Taiwan and continue to do so. They are not treated like dogs. And Taiwanese girls like them just fine, the men. And if we can get our hands on the phillippino women, they are sure fine too.

Thing is most of the women factory workers are looked away cept for sundays so they dont get exposure to TAiwanese men that may want to date them. Heck I want to date some of them !!

Some of my best buds at TAS were phillippino. One of my ex GF is dating a phillippino band member.

The phillippino house keeper that I knew that overstayed her visa and ended up with six months in detention liked it just fine . WAs making good money and salting most of it back home. She said she was always well treated by her Taiwanese hosts. And she managed just fine here, cept now she cant come back for at least five years because of overstay.

Its not quite the bleak picture you painted maestro.

Many of the phillippinos have married into tAiwan society and are doing just fine.

#7

It’s simply a question of cost/benefit analysis. A Pinoy person who wanted stay in Taiwan would know they could never become Taiwanese. It’s only a damn feck Westerner who would think that they could ever be accepted as normal as a non-Taiwanese in Taiwan. Someone from SE Asia would know that could never happen.

I would assume (I might be wrong) that a Pinoy would just calculate how much they could make for their family and future back home, here in a country where they have a higher income and practically no day-to-day expenses. If that meant breaking the law (God forbid! Breaking the law in Taiwan! What a travesty!!!) then they would do it…making - and saving - money until they were deported.

The Taiwanese government knows that, so they try to control and monitor the inward flow of economic migrants. If they focused on the outward flow, creating a financial penalty for poorer-country overstays, that would only create a burden for Taiwan to support the non-conforming illegals who couldn’t pay the overstay fee and thus had to be detained in Taiwan.

So instead, SE Asian overstays are blacklisted and detained for a few weeks. Then they’re shipped back home - where their money has already been remitted.

In short, there is no real penalty for a SE Asian person for overstaying in Taiwan, if they think that they can’t stay or return here legally.

Hence, why not?

#8

I know many Pinoys who have immigrated here and have become ROC Nationals, and many who are married to locals who have good lives here.

The only one wth a hole in their head is the one who decides others should not be here. Which begs the question… if life is so bad here what are you doing here?

Surely you are not implying that you have immigrated here and because of your own failings which you wail about on Forumosa, that others are emulating you? :discodance:

#9

Again more rubbish posted. There are thousands of Pinoys here who have become ROC Nationals. I do business with a lot of them.

Many of them are also ethnically Chinese. IF you have problems being accepted here that is your own issue. I have more problems with foriegners accepting me as being Tawianese than any of the locals.

#10

The laugh is on you Quentin. Many foreigners here have managed to intergrate into the local society.

They do so by learning the language as a start. Being able to say " One more beer " in Chinese hardly counts. You need to be able to express yourself a bit better than that. :wink:

#11

Being able to say " One more beer " in Chinese hardly counts. You need to be able to express yourself a bit better than that. :wink:[/quote]

Hey let’s not belittle the phrase, “one more beer.”

That’s 50% of the Chinese I say.

I can’t seem to ingrate into the local sobriety, either.

#12

Quentins probably a lot more engrained into the local tapestry then he himself knows. His “temporary” Taiwan home may remain temporary for the next 2 decades as it were :slight_smile:

#13

Where would the rest of the Taiwanese population w/out elderly relatives get their domestic help if they didn’t overstay?

80% of the help in my residence in Mucha was illegal.