Your Own Personal Residency

Friends,

Well, I guess my decision last month to write the newsletter early was the correct one. Saeed Jones wrote that he’s “pulling up the drawbridge” (then developed that into a poem ) and I think that’s how I feel for now, but I know eventually I’ll need to fight past that feeling. My students were more interested in how I was able to vote from Taiwan (Texas emails me a form, I print it and put it in an envelope that’s sealed with my signature) than they were in the mechanics or intricacies of the election it seemed. But. Yeah. There are a lot better people to read on the November 5th subject than me.

I’m here this month to share with you a tale of bureaucratic adventures that ultimately resulted in my becoming a permanent resident of Taiwan in October.

Background: First, an explanation of why I wanted permanent residency. As a non-permanent resident, all legal work I did in Taiwan had to have an associated work permit. This was fine for full-time teaching jobs, like I had at a high school the first two years. It was also fine for my part-time job at the university, because they were willing to apply for a permit for me even though I was only teaching a couple of classes. However, the lack of work permit prevented me from working other, smaller jobs. I could not substitute teach, I could not write an article for a website, nor could I privately tutor and legally be paid for it. Having permanent residence would also prevent any issues if we decided to switch jobs unexpectedly or take a leave from work, but this was less of an concern.

Disclaimer: The process I went through was annoying, but quickly became a funny story to tell. It was obviously much less distressing, invasive, or difficult than many others countries’ immigration processes, and even the immigration process of other types of migrants to Taiwan. I am also in a lucky enough position where having this permanent residency helps a lot, but it’s not a huge deal if I hadn’t gotten it.

Gold Card: If you work in certain industries or make enough money, you can get a special residency called a Gold Card, which also lets you not need a work permit for jobs. University professors count! But only if you teach at a university ranked in the top 500 global universities by USNews. I did not, though I would have if I had gotten that job at UT Austin. My current university employer also counts! But not, because I only work there part time. Carolina was able to get this card, and we did so because we thought it might help with networking or with my application or something, but in the two years that she had it all it did was cause her problems with her other accounts due to the ID number change. Now, Taiwan’s government is talking about adding ANOTHER card called the “Global Elite” card … yeah, idk either. It sounds similar enough to the Gold Card that I don’t know what niche it fills.

Attempt 1: Carolina and I became eligible to apply for permanent residency June of this year, having hit five years total! We applied, which involved taking passports, work permits, a letter from our employers, a certified marriage certificate, tax statements, a health check, and a police background check. Carolina’s application was immediately approved. Mine was immediately denied. I’d expected some problem with the fact that I had come to Taiwan on a spousal visa attached to her work visa and hers might need to be processed first, but no. My rejection reason was insufficient income. I had known about the income requirements, but I was unaware that a) spousal income doesn’t count at all, and b) it’s only for the past year. I met the income requirements as a high school teacher, and if you pooled our income and then averaged it, it would be enough, but, alas. Neither counted. A friendly post on the internet from one person said they just lied about how much money they made on their taxes, paid the extra tax, then used that to apply. I decide not to commit tax fraud before I’m a permanent resident.

Attempt 2: An alternative to having enough income is to demonstrate a certain level of assets. The assets can be in any currency and could be stake in a business or real estate, but they must be in Taiwan. I did not have these assets in Taiwan, but we did have the amount in the US. And, get this, they only need to check it once. So, in theory, the process should have been: 1) transfer money to Taiwan, 2) show government I have money, 3) ???, 4) transfer money to the US, 5) success. But here was the actual process:

1. Transfer money to Taiwan.
2. Transfer is rejected by Taiwan bank because the transfer was sent to Graham Oliver but in Taiwan my name is Oliver Graham.
3. Redo transfer.
4. Money arrives in Taiwan. Go to bank to get a special stamped form stating how much money was transferred. This process involved redoing the form 3x, first because they couldn’t read my signature so I needed to print and sign everything, then because they wanted me to sign my name backwards, then because my signature was missing my middle initial.
5. Take form to immigration. Immigration rejects form because it says how much money was transferred into my account, not how much money is in my account.
6. Go to bank, get new form. I know how to sign the form correctly this time.
7. Go back to immigration. Application is rejected again. Police background check is now out of date from Attempt #1.
8. Go to police station, redo background check, take it back to immigration. Application is accepted for initial processing, meaning nothing looks out of the ordinary, should be able to pick it up 4–6 weeks later.
9. At this point I am 100% sure there are no good vegetarian lunch options near the immigration office.
10. Three days later, I miss a call from immigration. I have heart palpitations. Turns out I had given them my 2023–2024 school year work permit, but they want 2024–2025 even though the school year hasn’t started yet.
11. Beg my university to help. They oblige. Maybe they have to, I don’t know, I don’t want to know. I make another trip to the immigration office.
12. 5 weeks later, I return there again to exchange my old residency card for a permanent residency card. I am thankful they haven’t changed the number, which means I don’t need to make another trip to the bank.

Success: I cannot imagine how difficult that would have to accomplish if I had a job with typical Taiwan working hours. But it’s done! The Taiwanese word for permanent, 永久/yǒngjiǔ is quite poetic, because you see 永 everywhere in the names of places to mean “everlasting” or “forever.” I’m already taking advantage of my new ability to work odd jobs. Here I’d like to say something about feeling more a part of Taiwan, but of course that isn’t true: the only thing holding me back is language, not bureaucratic red tape. And I’m working on that. One process at a time.

Further reading:

• A Taiwanese book won the National Book Award for Translated Literature! I haven’t read Taiwan Travelogue yet, but will soon — it sounds delightful. It’s a historical fiction account of a Japanese writer being sent to Taiwan during the Japanese colonial time period to write about it for a Japanese audience. While there, everyone wants to take her to parties and “touristy” stuff, but she just wants to see the true island life. She does so, and develops a friendship+romance with her accompanying translator. Apparently when the book was originally published in Mandarin some of the marketing made it seem like it was a real found historical account, not a fictional tale, causing a lot of consternation among the press — a prize was awarded and then rescinded and then awarded again!
• 3 November marked the 67th anniversary of Laika’s flight. Each year, I share the Ann Eichler Kolakowski’s touching poem + MotionPoems’ animation, “Triolet for Laika.” If you haven’t read Laika’s story , I highly recommend you do.
• The gasp-inducing art from my former student Ting-An Yang was profiled in her school’s paper. You should check it out, but also look at her art Instagram account .
• The Verge has been absolutely killing it this month. Sarah Jeong’s coverage of the South Korean political situation is funny and enlightening and unlike anything you find elsewhere (more on her Bluesky account ). Kristen Radke’s comic about baby monitors was the most intense thing I read all month. And Josh Dzieza’s reporting on AI “companions” was a little sad, a little frightening, and very fascinating.
• The big news in Taipei this month was the demolition of a pedestrian bridge near the largest public park. It was 40+ years old, featured in several movies, and just very iconic. Not many people were using it, though, and it wasn’t up to modern safety standards. People were upset at it’s removal! There were protests and comparisons to the CCP. Also, for some reason, the remains were taken to a construction site by my house and hidden behind some fencing.
• Karissa Chen wrote for NYT ‘s Modern Love about marriage as a way to defend against geopolitical instability — it’s unsettling and so specific and human.
• I enjoyed reading several articles from the Substack Telling the Bees this past month, especially “Antisocial Goods.” In this article, the author picks apart the ways in which sharing our bad experiences online has frayed social fabric and led to black/white thinking. I don’t think I fully agree with their conclusion, or at least their implication that things were better before this particular widespread thinking, but I still find it very interesting to read.

In video games there’s a concept known as “min-maxing,” where you maximize the most efficient and powerful parts of playing while minimizing anything that’s unhelpful or unwanted. Constantly worrying about the most optimal gameplay can be rewarding, but more often it sucks all of the fun out of the process. Spontaneity is good!

If I’m not careful, I min-max the fun out of my own life. One example is I constantly fret over the air in our apartment. When is it good to open a window and turn off the dehumidifier? Right after a shower? When boiling soup/water? For how long? How much does a breeze through the apartment help make things nicer versus how much does letting the humidity in make things worse? Without lab equipment and a lot of time, I’ll never know, so I need to stop.

Worse are my regular commutes. I have three different routes to get to the university, and they’re so similar that I can’t easily judge which one is faster. I caught myself the other day making a plan to spend a couple of weeks timing the different routes to see which one is better. It MIGHT result in 5–10 minutes saved each week. I mentally kicked myself, and now I continue to choose my route based on the day’s vibes or where I’m most likely to see dogs.

As I should. Don’t forget to mentally kick yourself out of bad processes every now and then, as well.

-g