Booked a flight for 2nd of September, didn’t pay for the ticket. Get the phone number for the Taiwanese ‘Liason’ Office in Sif Africa. Call them to get some info about the visa. So some German woman answers (‘discovered’ later on that she’s Afrikaans). What do I get? 20 questions with some attitude thrown in for good measure. Eventually she craps me out for calling the wrong branch and gives me the Jo’burg number (note: the first number I called was the only phone number in the Jo’burg telephone directory).
Dial the number given to me. Taiwanese woman answers. Tells me that I sound Chinese. Asks if I’m white. Tell her that questions like that are inappropriate in the ‘new’ Sif Africa. Eventually find out that in order to go to Taiwan I need:
the equivilent of 80 000NT$ in my bank account
a letter from my ‘boss’ in Sif africa stating that I intend to return and carry on working for him (I don’t have a job)
a letter of ‘invitation’ from someone (lord knows who) in Taiwan, inviting me to ‘visit’ them, and also stating that they will look after me (I think that I’m old enough not to need someone to hold my hand) - I mean, how the hell am I meant to get this???
All this for a 30-day visa.
Out of curiosity I give the Korean Consulate a call. Friendly people. No hassle. No visa required. Offer to notarize a copy of my degree. Give me phone numbers in case I’d like to learn some Korean.
I found out later though that there are MANY Sif Africans (who are not native speakers of English, that is, Afrikaans-speaking) in Taiwan working ILLEGALLY without degrees and through agents in Taiwan. Hence the effort needed to get a degree. I mean, holy cow, if there are a lot of Afrikaners in Taiwan (like in London) then I probably don’t want to go. No offense to all the boertjies who might just happen to read this, maar julle kan nie lees nie, kan julle?
Oh well, off to Korea, where the, uh, sun never, or always, whatever it does.
[quote]Dial the number given to me. Taiwanese woman answers. Tells me that I sound Chinese. Asks if I’m white. Tell her that questions like that are inappropriate in the ‘new’ Sif Africa. Eventually find out that in order to go to Taiwan I need:
the equivilent of 80 000NT$ in my bank account
a letter from my ‘boss’ in Sif africa stating that I intend to return and carry on working for him (I don’t have a job)
a letter of ‘invitation’ from someone (lord knows who) in Taiwan, inviting me to ‘visit’ them, and also stating that they will look after me (I think that I’m old enough not to need someone to hold my hand) - I mean, how the hell am I meant to get this??? [/quote]
I wonder what Sun Kuo-hwa is doing about this, he is obviously against all unfair and discriminatry visa rules:
(It is interesting that the TT chooses to run this non-story, whilst steadfastly maintaining its lack of interest in the immigration problems of foreigners here.)
The Taiwanese government is extremely foreigner-unfriendly. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs here exists to curry the favour of repressive dictatorships, maintain the fiction that China is trying to swamp Taiwan with mainland “prostitutes”, and to do all it can to prevent the emergence of any kind of a permanent foreign population. However, I have found that most people I meet here are not anti-foreigner. I wonder if the Korean situation is the exact reverse ? That is, the government welcomes foreigners with open arms, but the populace hates the sight of them. Each of the limited number of foreigners I have met who lived in Korea hated it with a passion.
Have to agree with hexuan. If you’re ever in a pub and talking to the stranger beside you and they mention they taught English in Korea, get ready for an earful. I also seem to run into a lot more people who’ve taught in Korea than in Japan. Is it because they like Japan and end up staying there?
Add my name to the list of hearing quite a few fellow colleagues and random strangers in pubs go off about how much their experience in Korea totally sucked.
(Sorta related, this guy who’d taught in both Korea and Japan before coming to Taiwan gave me this hilariously non-PC quote for the ages: “You can eat Japanese women like sushi.”)
Where are you originally from? If you were from South Africa surely you would have known she was Afrikaans immediately. Just traveling then?
I think you’re probably trying to piss people off with your racist remarks rather than actually share your experience. Hopefully nobody takes the bait, and I don’t think anybody will since most people on this forum are not from South Africa.
Or you are trying to bait the people who are always ripping off a certain charming section of the SA population.
Whatever. Have fun in Korea! By the way, if that doesn’t work out - a friend of mine has traveled and taught in Vietnam and says it’s divine.
Why didn’t you take it up, Juba? What a rare and exciting experience that could have been! It would surely have provided plenty of material for a very interesting book.
Getting back to South Korea, my strongest impression of a single two-week visit to that country many years back was of the violent aggressiveness and xenophobic attitude of the local men. I found them very nasty and threatening when drunk, as so many of them so often seemed to be. They appeared to have little hesitation about laying into their women with blows and abuse in public, and evidently disapproved very deeply of foreign guys going with any locals of the opposite sex. I sensed more hostility to me as a foreigner there than I have anywhere else in Asia. It certainly didn’t strike me as a country where I’d be likely to fit in very happily.
[quote=“Omniloquacious”]Getting back to South Korea, my strongest impression of a single two-week visit to that country many years back was of the violent aggressiveness and xenophobic attitude of the local men. I found them very nasty and threatening when drunk, as so many of them so often seemed to be. They appeared to have little hesitation about laying into their women with blows and abuse in public, and evidently disapproved very deeply of foreign guys going with any locals of the opposite sex. I sensed more hostility to me as a foreigner there than I have anywhere else in Asia. It certainly didn’t strike me as a country where I’d be likely to fit in very happily.[/quote]Well put. Korean men suck worse than Brits on holiday in Spain.
But Korean women are daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanm fine.
[quote]Well put. Korean men suck worse than Brits on holiday in Spain.
But Korean women are daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanm fine.[/quote]
Perhaps that’s the source of their insecurity of foreigners “stealing their women”. Drunk wife-beating guy hooked up with beautiful babes - I’d be pretty nervous myself in their shoes.
twonavels - If you found racist remarks in my post (?), it was all in jest. That woman did sound German though, which is why I made the mistake of speaking German to her. I am S. African and can usually pick up if someone is Afrikaans, but if they come from a remote area it can be difficult to place the accent. Even if I had an American passport, I would have to go through the same procedure for a visa. It’s a S. African thing.
I too have heard the tales of terror from Korea, with recruiters and all, but I’ve also heard some crazy stories about Taiwan. The best to do with both countries is to just go and look for work, right? So if I don’t sign up with a school in S. Africa how am I supposed to get that letter of invitation? I don’t know anyone in Taiwan, and even if I did, how would they feel about ‘looking after me’?
I don’t find your remarks funny at all, but I guess we can agree to disagree on that point.
About the letter of invitation: don’t you know any other South Africans in Taiwan? The letter does not have to come from a school. My sister just invited some guy over who posted online looking for somebody to invite him and it worked. She never even met the guy.
As a South African you might face visa difficulties for a few countries. I had to go for an interview to get a visa for Indonesia. They questioned me for more than an hour before I finally got the visa.
twonavels - you really are an idiot. I think I made it pretty clear that I obviously do NOT know anyone in Taiwan, and that is why it would be a hassle for me to get the letter of invitation. Of course, I could just call the Worldwide South African club that I (proudly, of course) belong to and ask them for assistance.
‘…agree to disagree…’ Jesus. What are you, a philosophy major?
[quote=“blue “hand the size of Texas” face666”]About like they’d feel if someone shit on their kitchen floor.
[/quote]
Why do USAnians use ‘shit’ as the past tense of, uh, ‘shit’? They do the same with ‘spit’. I always say ‘shat’ and ‘spat’. It just sounds better.
Anyway, this is the kind of rhetoric I’d expect from a nimrod like blueface666. I also suspect that he wears socks with his stylin’ Teva sandals, and sports a goatee.
