The Annual Visa Nightmare

This week saw my annual bureaucratic nightmare as I renewed my visa and work permit which I have to do every 12 months.  I go to both Immigration and the Ministry of Labour loaded with the usual round of documents and my usual high level of dread.   I approach both offices with trepidation.  What is it about this experience that inspires such high levels of anxiety?  Why, after eight years, have I never got used to doing this annual chore? 

It is that I face head on that other multi-faceted side of the lovely and dignified Thai.  The aspect of that other side that I am facing is the bureaucratic Thai.  I go along loaded with my documents and ready to follow the guidelines which I think I know but then I am told yet again I am wrong and what follows is a lecture on where I belong in Thailand or a demand to go back to "Go" and start all over again.  Then there is the waiting; there is the not knowing what next or where I may have made a mistake.  It is all out of my hands and I have to just give myself over to the demands, procedures and rulings of a bureaucrat over whom I have no right of appeal.  It can be frightening as I need those stamps to stay here, the place in which I have invested so much and the place which has become my home.  This annual event reminds me how little control I have over my destiny here. 

I ask yourself yet again - how much longer can I keep doing this?  But then there are bigger concerns at play and I keep going.  And in the midst of all, Thai advice and philosophy rules the day.  Namely, keep a cool heart and don't get angry in the face of whatever you are dealt.  And you know what?  It works as I then get through it much easier and with a friendly smile and a warm word from the Thai bureaucrat.