I live in Taichung on a JFRV.
The last couple of days I had 2 conversations with a lady on my home intercom who wanted to come into my apartment and see how I live and do a little interview with me & let me do a questionnaire. Both times I refused and the guard did not let her come up to me. Now I found a note in my mail box asking me to contact the lady for a appointment.
Seems that Taichung authorities want to get a picture of life and living situation of foreigners.
I have no intention of letting someone into my apartment and won’t have any conversation with anyone. I just don’t like it.
Do they have the right to force me to open the door and do the interview?
Could it be of any consequences, if I continue to refuse to have this chat?
I would call them up, arrange for the appointment, and get it over with.
RULES FOR GETTING OFF TO A GOOD START WITH HOME INTERVIEWS:
(1) Be sure you direct the interviewer to leave his/her shoes outside in the hallway, and not come inside wearing shoes.
(2) Be sure to give the interviewer a cup of hot water.
(3) Downplay your comprehension of the Chinese language.
(4) You could mention your visa status if asked, but don’t offer to show the interviewer a passport, ARC, etc. unless specifically asked for. (Usually they don’t ask.)
(5) During your remarks, say some good things about the local city/county government. Mention a thing or two that you think they are really doing well.
the feeling I get while reading this response (thanks for that) was awful and a little bit like the feeling I expect when having the interview, which is exactly the reason why I will not do it.
Wasnt too long ago the local fuzz was empowered and required to come over at no notice and pay you a visit at home. Iv had coppers and military police with m16s come over to my apt in taichung a number of times (at 2am in the morning no less). The local coppers were supposed to know exactly who was living in their neighborhood. It was their job and they had a right to come see you.
Now they dont seem to do that anymore so progress has been made (for us regular folks, i dont mind if they keep a closer eye on criminals).
I think the interview for you is like the US INS interview. TO make sure that you guys are a couple? See the movie GREEN CARD.
I completely understand the reluctance to put up with such intrusive behavior on the part of the authorities. I really do. My own gut reaction is to want to tell them to piss off unless they have a search warrant.
However… if you just meet them with a smile, offer them a cup of tea (all the while speaking Spanish or Serbo-Croatian at them, or whatever incomprehensible gibberish like Pig Latin you can come up with), and let them give up in um, bareASSment at their poor English (which they’ll assume you are speaking, since that’s what all foreigners speak), you’ll have resolved the situation without coming across like a dick, and they’ll never come over to bother you again.
I’d tell her myself, but yeah that is exactly what I want to do, but my wife would be horrified.
The talking Spanish or Serbo-Croatian thing would work, in that case I’d rather use my native German, that would do the trick. But I think the interview could be set up for my wife and me. On the note I posted they address me and my wife, I just did cut that part out from the picture.
Nobody else got a visit recently?
Why the hell do they wish to visit me? Maybe they want to make sure that I’m not a Vietnamese wife getting abused by her husband.
we have a 17 month old baby, and the guard told me that he told her about that. If she has any brain, she might not come back. But I doubt it.
[quote=“touduke”]
Why the hell do they wish to visit me?[/quote]
Because their boss told them them they have to get the forms filled up by all resident foreigners, most likely in some effort to prove to some higher authority they are doing a good job making all of us happy. Like good little automatons they try to fulfill that task. No, they have no right to enter your home. No, they have no right to force you to answer any questions. Of course they will pretend they have both until you call their bluff and ask to see the law that empowers them in this way.
Dragonbones’ trick is the most harmonious solution. They will fill the form up themselves and pretend to their boss that they had the interview successfully. You can tell them you are too busy working to talk to them and they will do the same because for sure they are just going through the motions and do not care what you actually think or want, and if what you tell them in the interview doesn’t fit their boss’ expectations they will falsify the results anyway.
Why don’t you have a little fun with these idiots.
Reminds me of a survey the city government in Taipei did a few years back on improving the lives of foreigners. They were asking foreigners at MRT stations to fill in a questionnaire. I declined put provided them with verbal feedback.
I recommended to them that they should enact ‘Droit de seigneur’ rights in Taiwan only for foreigners, so that foreigners have first night rights of fornication. After all, they mostly come here just for the drugs and fornication.
I don’t know how Taiwan law applies to rights of privacy in one’s own home. Generally, it seems their law allows more intrusiveness by the authorities, things like stopping people on scooters who have broken no apparent laws just to check their papers.
I might contact them and ask them to meet in a coffee shop.
I’ve had two or three of these, I just go meet them out front and chat with them (in my best Chinese, which is still fairly bad), and they ask my name and my ID number and what I do for a living and such, and I tell them, and they are happy and leave. None of those things are secrets anyway – I fill them in on paperwork twenty times a year.
Why would you want to give them the impression you don’t want them there?
I’ve had two or three of these, I just go meet them out front and chat with them (in my best Chinese, which is still fairly bad), and they ask my name and my ID number and what I do for a living and such, and I tell them, and they are happy and leave. None of those things are secrets anyway – I fill them in on paperwork twenty times a year.
Why would you want to give them the impression you don’t want them there?[/quote]
While I don’t worry about violent crime in Taiwan, financial fraud and identity theft are rampant. That might be a reason why I wouldn’t give them my name or ID number. I might confirm it if they give it to me. If they are the authorities, they should have all that information, plus what I do for a living. To volunteer it to some unknown person who came to my door seems risky.
In 4.5 years of living in Xindian, I’ve never had a visit by authorities.
This is a part of a larger “initiative” on the part of the government. They have finally acknowledged that “gosh, there really ARE a lot of foreign spouses living here now.” So now they are going to “guide” them to help them adapt to life in the ROC.
There are certainly folks for whom that would be a good thing, but for most Western spouses, it’s a pain in the bee-hind. The visits or literature drops tend to focus on “helping foreign spouses parent correctly” and things like that, which are usually viewed as insulting by the Westerners who receive them. The government has found out through studies (translated stuff about this recently) that the educational attainment of children of one immigrant parent is lower than that of children of non-immigrant parents, because the immigrant parents can’t help the kids with their homework. (Don’t shoot me, I’m just repeating what the government seems to believe).
So, I think as usual, you’re suffering once more from the government’s astounding inability to realize that not all foreigners are the same. Some of them are already educated and have life skills before coming to the ROC, and not all of them wish to adopt completely Chinese/Taiwanese life habits. I think they truly DO mean well, though.
Now, if someone comes wanting to check your gas bottle valves, that’s a different story.
[quote=“ironlady”]This is a part of a larger “initiative” on the part of the government. They have finally acknowledged that “gosh, there really ARE a lot of foreign spouses living here now.” So now they are going to “guide” them to help them adapt to life in the ROC.
There are certainly folks for whom that would be a good thing, but for most Western spouses, it’s a pain in the bee-hind. The visits or literature drops tend to focus on “helping foreign spouses parent correctly” and things like that, which are usually viewed as insulting by the Westerners who receive them. The government has found out through studies (translated stuff about this recently) that the educational attainment of children of one immigrant parent is lower than that of children of non-immigrant parents, because the immigrant parents can’t help the kids with their homework. (Don’t shoot me, I’m just repeating what the government seems to believe).
[/quote]
I read somewhere (in one of the newspapers I guess) that something like 80-90% of all foreigner-TW marriages are TW male and Chinese/Vietnamese/Indon etc female. It’s understandable that the govt “help” is directed at them. It may be a PITA for westerners but we are very much a minority of the foreign spouses.
I’ve been living in Taiwan for ten years. I’ve never had an official visit to any of my residences. I wouldn’t have let them in if they had though. However, years ago when I was still on a JFRV Visa I got it renewed and a few days later my wife received a phone call at her office from the F.A.P. wanting to verify if we were still married and to confirm our address. My wife replied, “You received a copy of my id, a copy of my household registration, our address and my husband’s name appears on both, right? So, what the hell more do you want?!” That was the last we ever heard from them!
However, from time to time we get unnanounced visits from Taiwanese converts to Christianity who are very excited to come and extol the virtues of their religion and their savior jesus christ to us. We tell them to go away, too!
well because I don’t want them there.
They know my nationality, profession, marital status, age and when and how long I did/do stay in Taiwan, and they got the same data about my wife and my child. The fact that they still come to see if I am a Vietnamese woman shows that they are completely ignorant and hence not in a situation to offer any help. OTOH I see as well that I am a dickhead refusing to just get over with it.
the logic of Hartzell’s post seems to share my assumption that it is impossible to have a real conversation about things with a Taiwanese person in the context on hand.
Playing along the smooth way as he suggests seems downright condescending, I rather give them a headache.
I had Sanxia’s FAP call me some months ago, asking me what I was doing as they never found me home and really wanted to come and have beer … joking, forget about the beer, they just wanted to come talk to me and look around … they called me on my cell phone never the less as they got it from my ARC application …
Never seen them, they never called back since … BTW, the guy spoke very good English …
Many, many, many, many moons ago late 90’s last century two coppers came to our house to check me out … had them sniff my wife’s undies and they took off … :ohreally:
I met the chief of the FAP in Miaoli and he helped me process some important information and even gave me his card and said call if I ever needed any help…most of the FAP are pretty nice folks and want to help. I wouldn’t let any into my house for a forced interview though.
Could you not call and say that since you have a young baby you generally don’t accept home visits from strangers, especially ones whose work brings them into contact with a wide range of people, worries about Swine flu, colds etc.
Offer to pop down to the office and complete the questionnaire instead. Or fill it in online or by telephone.
