The Struggle against Bureaucracy Continues (Part 1)

As Taiwan’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic has shown, crisis management is truly one of the government’s strong suits. I am inclined to imagine that perhaps that is the reason why all of Taiwan’s bureaucratic incompetence is concentrated in the immigration sector. I have already written, I think, of how I was given the wrong visa when I first came to Taiwan, and the mess that ensued. Well, the saga continues.

It looks like I will be staying in Taiwan over the summer, since my flight home was cancelled and at any rate, travelling anywhere right now is not the safest thing to do. Having decided to continue at ICLP, therefore, I realised that I would have to find a way to legally extend my stay in the country. Since my visa was already a 180-day visa, the extensions applied to visitor visas in light of the pandemic were of no relevance to me. Therefore, the only feasible way forward was to apply for an Alien Resident Certificate.

For reasons unknown to me, the ARC cannot be applied for directly but must be preceded by an application for a Residential Visa, which only lasts fourteen days and serves as a somewhat pointless stepping stone to the ARC. I will not enumerate all the documents necessary for the application but suffice it to say, after spending more than an hour at the Bureau of Consular Affairs, I was told that one key document could not be accepted in the form of a photocopy – that is, my medical exam. Despite the fact I have seen no such information on the application materials given to me, the bureau official was intransigent, and so I left with little but a vague promise that when I returned to the bureau, all I would have to do is add a medical certificate to my already existing documents and be done.

It was for this reason that I had to undertake a medical exam at the Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei. I specifically chose this hospital for several varyingly valid reasons. Firstly, the Mackay Memorial Hospital was on the top of the list of certified hospitals given to me at the Bureau of Consular Affairs. Consequently, it was also the first hospital I searched up on the internet, and having been convinced of its competence, I searched no further. Secondly, the Mackay Memorial Hospital presented most of its online materials both in Chinese and in English, so I was confident that if things went horribly wrong, I would still be able to communicate my way out of trouble. Thirdly and finally, the hospital’s history is deeply intertwined with that of the Presbyterian Church, which I have been studying quite extensively as of late. I figured it would be nice to go see the hospital since I had already read so much about it in the history books.