Wonder what this guy did to piss off the friendly happy Taiwanese visa office people?
Nothing, of course. They hate everyone equally.
Taiwan bans Fudo, and rest of Bosnians
I am not allowed in Taiwan
By Fuad Abazovic: Friday 27 May 2005, 18:05
I WAS ABOUT to visit the industry island of Taiwan also known as Republic of China (R.O.C.) for the third time in a row in order to provide you nice coverage from upcoming Taiwan based Computex show.
This sort of thing happens the world over. I think the reporter in question, while he has a right to be angry, but I doubt very much it has anything to do with anyone snubbing B&H, or him personally. It sounds like just he ran into bad luck at the visa office more than once. He might have this problem in the UK, or the US, or France, or Germany, or Australia, or Switzerland, or…the list goes on and on. As for the conflicting information he received…well it is not like nobody else has ever received conflicting information from government offices.
Sheesh…as he says, his Croatian colleague made it in. It sounds like an oversight…and that happens.
You’re right. You’d hardly expect the Taiwan visa office to pull any stops out to allow an accredited UK journalist into the country to cover Computex.
I suppose the randomness and luck element is what makes Taiwan “special”. Hell, I know a guy with a 10-year multiple entry business visa who only asked for a 2-month tourist visa to visit his brother. After winning the lottery jackpot visa he decided to stay for 10 years.
And Belgium once refused (well they “forgot”) to give my wife a visa to attend an EU event to which she was officially invited by the EU Commissariat. And I’m an EU citizen! I even spoke to the head of Belgium’s mission in London and he was all “Um… Er… Yes we’ll sort that out straight away…” Nah. Beat that!
I know hundreds of “Taiwan Visa Stories”. But for another thread and another time…
he really shoulda got his VISA ahead of time, he muist;ve known he would be coming to Taiwan months in advance…he is a journalist, but he cant expect them to give him special status because of that…regardless I will miss his computex articles,
He should’ve have put down ‘vicious gangster’ on his form - none of them seemed to have a problem getting into the country last week.