Friday, January 7, 2011

My Kafkaesque experience with the bureaucracy

Moving to another continent is not easy

These days I'm very busy. I'm totally focused on getting my documents translated and verified, so I can move to Taiwan and tie the knot with my sweet girlfriend. Although I had the feeling, that things won't be so easy, I'm surprised how complicated it is to get 4 documents translated and verified. I keep getting different information everywhere I go and every time I come to a new office they say I've done something wrong. The only good thing is, that it gets fixed that way. It's a very slow progress and at this point I still don't know when I can step off the plane and set foot on Taiwanese soil. I'm now somewhat half way through, but the expense is bigger than I expected and it's more time consuming, because I have to do 3 times more things than I was told initially. And most of them can only be done in the capital city, which is over 2h away by train. Once I have all my Slovenian documents translated to English and verified by our courts and ministries, I need to submit them to the Taiwan Trade Office in Vienna (equivalent of an embassy) and when it gets verified there, I can apply for visa. After I get that, I can finally travel to Taiwan and tie the knot with my cute girlfriend. Of course it doesn't stop here. Once in Taiwan, I need to translate everything to Chinese and verify again (and pray that they don't say something's wrong with my documents). Then and only then I will be able to marry my Lily and live in Taiwan with her. I do feel stressed sometimes, not only because I feel like Joseph K., but because it's a long and cold winter and a lot of time has passed, since I've been together with Lily. I miss her more and more by the day. It's about time we meet in Taoyuan, don't you think? So please, my Kafkaesque bureaucrats, work faster, I have a plane to catch and a woman to marry.

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