Monday, November 8, 2010

Alien status

While I have yet to be asked for it, after nearly two months of being in Korea, I now have my official alien card. If my school hadn't been kind enough to set up both Internet and cell phone under their name, now I could finally get these on my own. The alien card also means I can establish a bank account, get free wi-fi at Starbucks and I'm sure countless other privileges that I didn't even realize I had been going without. Of course, it all seems that it is in exchange for some type of authorized surveillance and tracking.

My alien card, about which, my coworker said, "I don't like this picture of you." When I tried to get her to explain what she meant, was it a bad picture or what, she got really evasive.

Comparing bureaucracy in Moscow and Ulsan, while the paperwork here seems much more detailed, strenuous and ridiculous -- they required a notarized, apostilled copy of my diploma even after I had sent my original diploma -- for some reason the system seems more efficient, even though it took me a little over a month to get my alien card. This month was, surprisingly, not on the government side but was my employer. After my boss finally applied for the card, I had it in less than a week.

Here's to being a legal alien! Not even my boss understands why this registration is necessary.

3 comments:

  1. Just awesome. I, too, am registered alien(!!!), visiting from a big cold planet called Canada, far far away. Nobody ever knows why anything needs to be done, but it is always done incredibly efficiently and for about $3.

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  2. cool card, I don't know why that girl didn't like your photo! On your place I would make this card your profile pic on FB for a while;) I understand nothinf of those symboles (which are corean letters, I suppose) But looks great anyway. It seems like a nice thing to show later to your grandchildren, who are going to be proud of the "coolness" of their grandma :)

    Lisa

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  3. I think it's funny that she said she didn't like your photo because the first thing I thought was "Wow, what a great photo. She looks like such an adult, an official adult. Not just a cheesy kid (see: the s*** eating grin in my driver's license photo) hmmm....I think I'm going to practice this in the mirror tonight.

    Angie

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