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Are They Letting Me in or Aren't They?
Just a quick sidenote on one of the more funny sides of travelling professionally for your job.
When I recently tried to figure out if I needed a visa for South Africa, I came across the following note. Interestingly, a visa for the Republic of South Africa does not allow me to enter the country:
Possession of a visa does not guarantee the holder automatic admission into the Republic of South Africa.
It gets even funnier:
A visa only authorises the holder to proceed to the Republic to report to an immigration officer at a port of entry for the purpose of being examined as to his/her ability to comply with the (entry) requirements […] (all quotes “The Embassy of South Africa to Germany”)
Now that is something. Holding a valid visa, I may in fact not enter the country. I may only board a plane, fly 10.000km and “present myself” to an officer. The visa only permits me to have myself “examined” by a government official.
I do have to admit I find it kind of hilarious to read this - even though it may be perfectly legal. If that isn’t a perfect example of “admin speak” that so often p*es me/us off, I don’t know.
Posted by BijanK at 1.08.07 18:41
TrackBack:http://www.bijankafi.de/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/391
By Ayse Erin
on 1.08.07 21:05
I will never understand this visa stuff. I've experienced many visa situations before and after having become a Belgian citizen. And I've also had many situations showing how my Turkish passport unuseful is. Once, I had been turned out at the Syrio-Lebanese frontier because I had a Syrian visa but no Lebanese one on my Turkish passport (I didn't have the time to renew my Belgian before leaving for Damascus and thought I could go to Lebanon with a Turkish passport and a Belgian ID). Then I have my best friend, who's Bosnian and who lives in Sarajevo but formerly lived and studied in Kinshasa, Brussels and Okinawa, Japan. She wanted to visit me in Brussels but they refused to give her a visa... because she's unemployed for the moment (she's an artist, how is she supposed to get employed?!). And there's also my boyfriend who has a Dutch student visa and wanted to officially settle with me in Brussels. While trying to do everything the proper way, he had been attacked (literally!) by the visa clerk at the embassy of Belgium in The Hague. Apparently, he was lying because he's Turkish and all Turkish people act the same way to enter Belgium... bla bla... the guy has a Dutch visa valid for the whole year!! And I have many other stories like this, but I think you got the picture! I will honestly never understand the visa policy of any country for that matter. And it is so sad to see how many times some countries can use this system to openly humiliate people.