Immigration Woes
Immigration Woes
Monday, 1 June 2009
The students have all departed for the summer holidays, and the campus is a very quiet place to be at the moment. Those who are not familiar with the role of a school principal might presume that this meant my life had suddenly become more relaxing. Sadly, this is not the case.
The past week has been a hectic time of end-of-academic-year meetings, various functions on and off campus, report writing and reference writing. The summer holiday sleep-ins are yet to become a glimmer of hope for me.
One time consuming unexpected turn of events was the sudden discovery on Wednesday that my visa for Hong Kong had expired two weeks previously. In the hectic end-of-term stream of events, renewing my visa had completely slipped my mind. However, this was potentially a Very Serious Matter, as I was technically here illegally as a ‘visa over-stay’.
Realising the problem, I made a quick trip to the Immigration Office to sort out the problem. To be more precise, the trip there was fairly quick, but the process after arriving was anything but speedy. Fortunately, after four long hours, everything was finally sorted out, but only after writing a long confession and explanation, waiting in four different queues and paying a fine. To be fair, the staff at the Immigration Office were very fair and tried their best to be helpful and co-operative, but I did inwardly groan when I joined the line for the third window (of four) - I had been given the number 339 and number 219 was called just after I entered the waiting room.
The good news is that I can now walk freely on the streets of Hong Kong without fear of arrest, at least on immigration charges.