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Visa Troubles

Posted by Stuart at 10:17 AM on October 09, 2002

So far my trip has been fairly smooth and hassle free, at least from a bureaucratic standpoint (food posioning not included). I have stayed even-keeled and balanced and my emotions have mostly all been of the positive kind. This all changed this past week, however. Now that I am making life-changing decisions on jobs and housing, the stress level has risen dramatically and more negative emotions have broken the surface a few times.

My first episode happened as I was looking for apartments with Mag and our American friend Kary. I'll leave that story for another day.

I am living through the second episode now. My 90-day tourist visa expires tomorrow, so I am in Singapore trying to get an extension. Actually, I am trying to get a Non-Immigrant Visa so that I can start working on the 24th. I came here armed with my offer letter from he university and false hopes of it being a smooth process.

The trouble started in the Bangkok airport. Unknown to me, my 90-day visa was only good for "single entry". In other words, when I went to Angkor Wat in Cambodia 3 days after I arrived in Thailand, I used up / nullified my visa and was granted the normal 30-day tourist visa when I returned. So when I tried to leave yesterday, I was informed that I had overstayed that visa by 30 days and I had to pay a 200 baht (US$5) fine for every day. Doing the math I now owed Thailand $150 because I didn't read the fine print somewhere.

Don't forget that 6000 baht is a heck of a lot of money (especially when dinners can be had for under 100). Needless to say I was furious. It was all I could do to not throw an American temper tantrum. But I keep my cool and fumed to myself most of the 2 hour flight to Singapore. I finally calmed myself down by telling myself that it will be worth it once I get my proper visa. Fine. Lesson learned.

So I get to the Thai Consulate today and present my offer letter. "Sorry," they say. "The letter must be addressed to the Consulate, not to you. You can have them fax it to us today and we can get the visa to you tomorrow." Well, that's fine except that the university is on break this week and no one is in the office. That means that I will return to Thailand tomorrow empty-handed and be granted another 30-day tourist visa that prohibits employment. Next week I will have to try to straighten things out from there.

If I step back and view these struggles from an intellectual standpoint, I am learning that there is a big difference between Thai and American culture with regards to handling difficulties. The Thai way seems to be to say "no problem." If its a really big difficulty (in my mind) they say "small problem". Several times this week Mag has told me that I am being too emotional. My friends in Singapore tell me that I am too impatient. This strikes me as ironic since most Americans would say that I am not emotional enough. (One good friend in particular would get angry with me because he said that I *NEVER* show emotion!)

So let's look on the bright side of things. While I'm here I hope to visit some friends who I haven't seen since I was here last November. I think I will also make a trip to IKEA to see if there is anything I can pick up for my new apartment in Bangkok. I will also continue to try to see my world in a more balanced, less stressful, more Asian way.

No Problem.