One of the hardest things about moving has been clearing out our place.
When you move across town, you can rent a U-Haul to schlep your stuff to your new place. It becomes much more complicated when you move overseas. You have to either pay thousands of dollars for shipping, or have an employer willing to pay for it. Well, we didn’t want to pay ourselves so have resorted to bringing whatever can fit into 4 suitcases. This meant we have to decide what to toss, donate, sell or store.
It was easy to decide what to toss because a lot of the stuff we own was on its last legs anyway. We do have to plan around this part though – i.e., scheduling for Bulk Item Recycling services and asking family for help to move heavy things. As for storage, we are storing some things at my MIL’s house but need to be strategic about what we save.
The most difficult part is when we have to mull over an item that’s in between – not valuable enough to be stored, yet not shabby enough to be thrown away. Do we give it away? If so, to whom? Or can we sell it? Either way, this leads to a whole process of taking photos of the item, writing descriptions, posting it on the relevant platforms – whether it’s WhatsApp if we’re giving it away to family or Facebook and Craigslist if we’re giving or selling it to neighbors. Then, we have to spend time responding to messages, coordinating pick up times, dealing with no shows…which can be super frustrating.
I didn’t realize how time consuming and exhausting this part of moving would be. And we don’t even live in a big place! We dedicated a good part of March and April just to clear things out but STILL have about 30-40% of stuff left. As the big day approaches, we will gradually toss or give more things away.
Last week, we submitted notice that we won’t be returning to our school in the fall.
It’s a simple form, but I felt so conflicted filling it out. Even with our first year of kindergarten being completely virtual due to Covid, we found a wonderful, welcoming community at our school. I will miss seeing familiar friendly faces, soccer games and get-togethers, and the 5-minute walk to school.
Besides missing the obvious things like our school, family, and friends, I thought about all the “little” things I will miss about living in SF:
The oven: I LOVE to cook and bake with my oven. However, most Taiwan apartments don’t have ovens but maybe we can get a small convection oven as a compromise?
Food diversity: Taiwan has amazing food but I appreciate the variety of cuisines and ingredients in SF. Now that we’re only 1.5 months away from moving, I’ve been trying to cook and eat foods that will be hard to find in Taiwan (which includes Mexican, Indian and Southern fare).
Weather: I probably complained a little too much about the rain and cold this year but oh, I will yearn for the cool weather in SF when we have to face the typhoons and hot, humid weather in Taipei!
Neighborhood: While our 2-bedroom apartment is nothing to write home about, we love our neighborhood. Close to family, school, parks and grocery stores, the location is so convenient. I’ve heard that everything is incredibly convenient in Taipei so I’m not worried about that while we’re abroad. I just hope that we can find a place just as convenient when we return to the city.
As I get wistful about moving, it’s nice to find encouraging messages in unexpected places. One of those places is in a children’s book called Goodbye Brings Hello. I borrowed a ton of books about moving and dealing with change for C and O, but it turns out I may be the one who needs them most.
“There are many ways of letting go. With each goodbye, a new hello.”
This short but sweet book is about changes in life. It can be so difficult to say goodbye to the familiar. But the beauty is that when we say goodbye to something, we are often saying hello to something else. So as we say goodbye to our friends, school, oven, and neighborhood, we will say hello to many new things and experiences in Taiwan. And those hellos can be fabulous.
Within a week of going to the Taiwan consulate, we received our authentication certificates in the mail! They attached an official letter to each of the documents we needed to authenticate, which included the boys’ birth certifications and vaccination records.
Better yet, we also received our marriage certificate authentication from South Africa yesterday – yay! A letter with similar language was attached, but there were additional certificates with stamps and seals in the packet. Looks so official and all.
But the best news of all is….Baba’s visa application got approved!! After 2.5 months of waiting and following up, Baba finally got his very own Taiwan Gold Card Visa. That means he won’t need to go through the health exam (although we probably should still get his lung checked out 😆), and he would be able to work in Taiwan if he wants to.
This morning, Baba went into the SF Taiwan consulate to submit his passport for inspection. Once that’s approved, he will receive his temporary Gold Card and we can apply for the boys’ visas.
Applying for a resident visa is like putting together a puzzle. There are a million little pieces: forms, documents, health exams, etc. that you have to get in order before you can even apply for a visa. It is very confusing and laborious at times. But hey, it’s all part of the journey.
To apply for C and O’s visas, we had to get their birth and vaccination records authenticated, or officially reviewed by a Taiwan consulate. There is an option of applying for the visa and authenticating documents at the same time but with only 2 more months left before we leave, I wanted to get the ball rolling as much as possible.
After 3 years of operating by appointment only, the Taiwan consulate in SF fully opened its doors on April 3rd and was first come, first served. We arrived at the consulate at 8:20am (it opened at 9am) and there was already a group of people waiting.
Once we were inside the office and got a number, the process was smooth and efficient. While waiting for your number to get called, a few consulate workers walked around and proactively assisted people with their documents. This was extremely helpful and they were all so patient and kind! They first spoke to us in rapid fire Chinese but after seeing the confused look on our faces, they switched to English 🤣. This is yet another time I regret not keeping up with my Chinese!
A really sweet girl named Doris helped us get our documents in order. There was an issue with Baba’s name on the kids’ birth certificates (one had his middle name and one did not) so we had to follow up with additional ID verification. But Doris accepted our application for authentication in the meantime, and by 10am, we submitted our documents and paid the fee ($15 for each document). The authentication process takes about 2 weeks.
In other news, the authentication process of our marriage certificate is done! The documents are traveling all the way from South Africa and should take about a week to arrive. I was initially nervous about this process, but the agent we worked with at Wakwazi International was really helpful.
Baba still hasn’t heard back from the Taiwan visa office about his application. In the meantime, he is also trying to apply as my spouse which requires a health exam. But we hit another roadblock. One of the health tests you have to pass is a tuberculosis test, and the radiologist who reviewed Baba’s first chest x-ray has some concerns which means more blood tests and CT scan – which also means a delay and more out of pocket medical expenses.
Baba pushed the CT scan appointment as far back as possible, in hopes that the Taiwan visa office will get back to him before then and he gets approved as an individual. An individual visa will spare him from getting a health exam. I hope this is the case too.
The pieces are slowly coming together yet at the same time everything feels untethered. There is a lot of uncertainty. I suspect it’s going to feel this way for a long, long time so I guess I better get used to it.
This is a graph I often see that illustrates how foreigners adapt to a new place over time. Most expats start off in a blissful, honeymoon stage for the first couple of months. Everything about their new home is amazing and new. But resentment starts to sets in after people can’t fully assimilate to the culture, have difficulty learning the language or making new friends. Now everything seems so complicated and they get frustrated. It’s not until 6 months after the move that expats come to terms with all the upsides and downsides of their new home.
However, this is what I envision my adjustment will be like:
Apologize for my terrible graph-making skills 😅
I can pretty much guarantee things are going to be rough the first couple of months. We’re arriving during hottest month of the year (August) and will be stressing out about finding an apartment and registering the kids for school. Accomplishing these things will not be easy. We won’t have jobs in Taiwan so landlords might be hesitant renting to us. Similar to the US, school assignments usually come out in March. By August, a lot of schools will be full so we might not get a school of our choice. Then, the boys will have to get adjusted to a new school in a new country, but I know I am the one who will have the hardest time adjusting.
It’s also inevitable I will compare our life in Taipei to what we had in SF. I will long for the mild SF weather, our 5-minute commute to school, our friends, our neighborhood and of course, our family. I will miss how easy everything was for us back home, and question if we made the right choice everyday. I have to remember to be patient with myself.
Eventually though, we will find our rhythm and a community in Taipei (we’d have to!). We will learn to appreciate how wonderful this experience is and everything will be great until the newness of it all wears off. Then, life will feel normal again.
This isn’t me overthinking because throughout most changes in my life – whether it be starting grad school, changing jobs or having a baby – I go through these exact emotions. I start off being a Debbie Downer, but once I meet new friends and/or find my groove, I am happy. I just hope my “hostility” stage won’t last very long, and I’m able to enjoy our time in Taipei as long as possible.
Whew, it’s been a minute! I have some good news and bad news. First, the good news: my application is approved! I’m now officially a Taiwan Gold Card Visa holder. Bad news: Baba’s application is still in limbo and there are still so many things to do before we can all officially move to Taiwan.
Our visa application process hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park. A couple of weeks after I submitted my employment certificate, I received a response that my application does not belong under the Field of Economy but rather the Field of Finance because my former employer is in the insurance brokerage industry. The problem was, I wouldn’t exactly qualify under the Field of Finance. In addition to needing to have earned NT$160,000 a month, I would need some kind of financial expertise which I don’t have.
We decided to write a letter of appeal. I argued that while the my company could be classified under the financial industry, my job responsibilities and degrees are purely in business.
Meanwhile, Baba also received a similar response. His application under the Field of Economy was denied but they offered to do a special review with the National Development Agency. We learned that this process could take 1-2 months. We were already approaching March and plan to leave on June 3rd so we didn’t have the luxury of waiting.
We felt stuck. Doubt started to seep in and I was stressed. We started googling visa requirements for Spain. Although we could qualify for their Non-Lucrative Retirement Visa, timing would be extremely tight. And do we apply for Spain while waiting to hear back from Taiwan? How much time should we give Taiwan to get back to us? Is there anything we can do now for Spain’s application that is easy and low-cost in case our Taiwan visa gets approved? Why didn’t we apply for our visa earlier?! We had many questions but no answers.
But then, on the evening of March 6, I received the fantastic news: my application got approved! The next step was to submit my passport for inspection, and go through a final review by the National Immigration Agency. On March 15, I received my temporary Taiwan Gold Card. (I will need to pick up the official Gold Card when we’re in Taiwan.)
Baba’s application is still under review. At this point, he had written a letter to the visa office with more information about his work experience and education. He requested that his application be approved under the Field of Finance since his former employer is in the finance industry and he had worked closely with finance managers.
Initially, the visa office denied Baba’s request to move his application to the Field of Finance. They told him they need to do a further review of his “unique expertise.” But just this morning, Baba received an update that he could apply under the Field of Finance. Wish they could’ve made this decision when we made the initial request – that could’ve saved us 2 weeks!!
At this point, Baba could technically apply as my spouse but he won’t be able to work in Taiwan and there is more administrative work. For one thing, he would need to get a health examination that includes a chest x-ray, syphilis test, skin exam, among other things. He would then need to get a health certificate from his doctor and get the certificate “authenticated” by the Taiwan consulate. For now, our plan is to do two things at once: Baba re-applies under the Field of Finance and goes through the health exam in case the former option doesn’t work out.
But wait, there’s more! We have kids! Before we can apply for visas for C and O, Baba and I have to prove that we’re married. (Apparently, Taiwan doesn’t recognize children born out of wedlock 😆.) But the joke is on us, because our marriage certificate is from South Africa which complicates things a bit. All documents issued outside of Taiwan must be authenticated by the Taiwan consulate from where the document originated. Well, we obviously don’t live in South Africa so we had to hire an agent to help us with the authentication process of our marriage certificate. The Taiwan consulate in SA sent us a list of agents, so I contacted one, wired him money and prayed that this isn’t some elaborate scam. Our agent told us the process can take 4-5 weeks so we continue to wait.
In addition to the marriage certificate, we have to provide and authenticate C and O’s birth certificates and vaccination records. We also had to get a health exam and certificate for C, which of course needs to be authenticated too. (Children under 6 years do not have to get a health exam so O is spared.) Thankfully, since these documents were all issued in the SF Bay Area, we can bring them to the Taiwan consulate in San Francisco ourselves. And this all needs to be done before we fill out the actual visa application for the boys!
At the very least, my application is approved so there’s a high chance the rest of the family can get their visas too. But there’s still so much do to before we get there. I’ll post another update as things move along!
A few days after we submitted our visa application, we received a request to submit supplementary documents.
“Your CV was not considered as work certificate and was not accepted. Please provide local or foreign employment certificate with related work contents in economic industries or field. And the certificate shall be issued by the company shown on your tax statement which paid salary and hired you in the financial year. Also, the certificate shall have your employment period, work position and content, company logo, company information and signature of person or supervisor in-charge.”
At first glance, I thought this sounded concerning. Did we make a mistake on our application? Did they find something suspicious?!
Though uncommon in the US, it turns out that an employment certificate is a customary practice in Taiwan. The certificate is basically a short letter in which your company verifies what you wrote on your resume is true. It needs to be on company letterhead and signed by HR or your supervisor. Thankfully, we just needed to provide one employment certificate. The certificate had to be from the company that is on the W-2 we submitted.
Example of an employment certificate:
Worried that our old employers would be confused about an employment certificate, Baba and I drafted a letter they could repurpose. Fortunately, both companies seemed unfazed by it and sent back a signed certificate/letter within a few days. Whew, one hurdle down! We uploaded the certificate in the applicant portal and again, now we wait.
Isn’t it funny that as children, we’d kick and scream bloody murder when our parents made us learn Chinese but now that we’re parents, we’re doing the same to our kids? We know the Chinese in Taiwan will be a gazillion times harder than what we ever learned here, so we’re trying our best to prepare the boys.
We started them with online Chinese classes during the pandemic. When school opened back up, we enrolled them in the after school Chinese program. The actual language instruction time isn’t much; it was 30 minutes each week for the online classes, and 1-2 hours each day in the after school program.
Another challenge is that the Chinese taught here is mostly Chinese Mandarin and not Taiwanese Mandarin. While the two languages are very similar, Chinese Mandarin uses simplified characters and Taiwan uses traditional. Chinese Mandarin also uses pinyin while Taiwan uses bopomofo, or zhuyin. The boys have been learning Chinese Mandarin at school.
Knowing bopomofo is critical if you attend school in Taiwan. It’s the Taiwanese alphabet phonetic system, so it’s like Americans having to know their ABC’s. Even though my Chinese is limited, I knew I had to at least teach C and O bopomofo.
I first purchased a cute set of bopomofo flashcards on Etsy. Learning 4-5 alphabets a day, I taught myself bopomofo before teaching the boys. They picked it up within 3 weeks.
But the challenge was (and still is) reading bopomofo when the alphabets are strung together. It’s one thing to know your ABCs, but it’s another endeavor to know how to read. On top of this, there are the 5 tones in Chinese which the boys yet have to master.
A mom living in Taiwan suggested that I buy a grade 1 textbook to see what the curriculum is like. I purchased a self-study textbook from Kang Xuan, one of Taiwan’s main textbook publishers. The book itself was cheap (~$13 USD) but combine that with international shipping and it came out to $45. What made things worse was that I accidentally bought two copies (d’oh!) because I thought the company cancelled my order. I was eventually able to sell the second copy but at a loss. So my copy of the textbook was actually more like $65, eek.
Unsurprisingly, grade 1 Taiwanese Chinese is pretty damn hard. The first section is purely bopomofo. The boys and I have been trying to do a little each night, but it’s daunting. Even though we can read the bopomofo, there are times we don’t understand what we’re reading.
I much prefer pinyin because it uses Roman alphabets, which is more natural for us to read. With bopomofo, it takes more effort for me to convert the alphabet into the right sounds in my head.
The remaining sections in the textbook are all in Chinese. This is definitely not the same as 1st grade Chinese here in the US, where students are likely learning simple words like 吃飯, 說話, 前面. The textbook uses complex vocabulary and phrases (at least to me they are!). It’s expected because these books are for native Mandarin speakers – it’s just more worrisome for us.
In hindsight, buying the textbook wasn’t the best idea. It’s hard for even me to digest, so how could I use it to teach the boys? I should’ve listened to my parents and learned Chinese when I had the opportunity. Sorry Mom!
Later, I found a free resource with PDF textbooks geared towards Chinese learners. The books have English instructions, with both pinyin and bopomofo. The exercises are a slow and easy ramp up, much more manageable for beginners.
Baba thinks our efforts are futile. The boys will struggle in school no matter what, and I don’t doubt that. In a highly competitive and test-centric school culture like Taiwan, we’ll have to emphasize to the boys that they are doing this for the experience. It doesn’t matter what their grades are. What matters to us is that they remain open-minded, make new friends and absorb as much of the language and culture as they can.
I just hope they’ll remember this when they’re crying over 4 hours of homework each day 😅.
Kids. They bring so much joy but also so many complications. C and O will be 8 and 6 when we land in Taiwan so we have to consider how the move will affect them, both socially and academically.
SOCIAL
Thankfully, I think they’re still young enough to adapt easily yet old enough to remember the experience. Of course, their adaptability will depend a lot on their personalities too. Between the two, I predict C might adapt better socially. He is a happy-go-lucky kid, makes friends easily and is fairly logical when you reason with him. He was initially reluctant about the move, but is starting to understand how unique this experience will be. C is also super excited about all the yummy food in Taiwan too. 🙂
O, on the other hand, is slow to warm up but he’s at an age where he’s content following his older brother and parents around. He can be anxious and stubborn – and as a result, unamenable to new changes, so we’ll have to keep a closer eye on him.
Above all, I think the boys will struggle with not having family around in Taiwan. (And honestly, for us too.) They are incredibly close to their extended family. They are used to having aunts and uncles visit each week, take them on trips and teach them everything from math to reading and writing. We’ve been spoiled, I know. Help from family has been so invaluable the past few years, and it was one of the major reasons why we postponed our move until now. Yet if we wait any longer, then it will be harder for C and O to adapt to a new school. (I’ll explain why below.) There is really no ideal time to move abroad, sigh.
ACADEMICS
It will be interesting to see how the boys adjust academically in Taiwan. Right now they are breezing through elementary school in the US. In Taiwan, we will be putting them in local public school. This was not our original intent. We had considered putting them in private bilingual schools but decided against it for several reasons:
We believe public schools will give the boys a better perspective of Taiwanese people and culture. Private schools are typically full of expats or wealthy families so you are living in a bubble.
We’ve heard from a few expat parents that public schools are the best and fastest way to learn the language. While private schools teach Chinese too, many of them dedicate about half the time to English.
Private schools can be expensive.
Taiwan public schools are notorious for being harsh. There is a lot of homework, tests and rule-following. O will be starting 1st grade which is comparable to kindergarten in the US, so we’re hoping the transition for him will be smoother. (Taiwan elementary schools start with 1st grade. Kindergarten is a separate entity, similar to how preschools are operated here.)
C will be starting 3rd grade, and that worries me much more. This is another reason why we didn’t want to postpone our move further. By the third grade, Taiwanese students are fluent in writing, reading and speaking. There are a few public schools with a CSL (Chinese as a Second Language) program, but we need to be working at a Taiwanese company in order to qualify. If we continue to wait to move, the chances of C catching up in a Taiwanese school are next to none.
Baba and I have no way to help the boys with school, so we will be hiring a tutor to help with homework. I fully expect that there will be a lot of tears and frustration…from me and the boys. I will probably drive myself crazy wondering whether we made the right choice sending them to public school. Guess we’ll just have to see how it goes.
I have no doubt Madrid would be an amazing experience but ultimately, we thought we’d feel most “at home” in Taipei. We understand Asian culture, have some exposure to the language and are happy to binge on dumplings, hot pot and noodles all day!
Many people have asked if we chose Taiwan because we have family there. We don’t! We have zero ties to Taiwan. We are Chinese, but our parents were born in China and Vietnam. We chose Taiwan because it fit most of our criteria.
We just submitted our application for the Taiwan Gold Card Visa. This work/resident visa allows the entire family to stay in Taiwan for up to 3 years, and access to Taiwan’s National Health Insurance system, which is supposed to be top notch. To qualify for the visa, you must have worked in the following fields:
Each field has its own requirements. We are applying under the Field of Economy aka business. Within this field, you must have either worked in specific roles or made a monthly salary of NT$160,000 (or $5,400 USD) in the past 3 years. Because of a huge influx of visa applications during the pandemic, Taiwan now requests a curriculum vitae to verify that applicants are working or have worked in relevant fields/industries. But comparatively speaking, the requirements are pretty straightforward.
The application itself was easy too. Aside from having to update our resumes, the application had only 5 sections and took about 30 minutes to complete. There are also step-by-step instructions, and live support via email and chat.
The visa application review process takes about 2 months so now….we just wait. The immigration agency might come back and request additional documents or worse, reject our application. (In which case, Spain here we come?!) Some people asked why we didn’t apply sooner. The 3-year time limit for the visa starts the day your application is approved and not from the day you arrive in Taiwan. If we were to stay the full 3 years, we’d want the boys to finish the school year, which would be around the time our visa application gets approved (assuming all things go as planned). Fingers crossed this all goes smoothly!
Hongs Abroad 