Surrounded by red tape again...

I'm currently back in Thailand and its almost a week since I'm here. There was a screw up with Tiger Airways as they canceled my flight less then 12 hours of my flight time.  I willl post that in a later post...

I stopped over in Bangkok to settle some documents for getting married in Thailand and again encountered some interesting red tapes with our dear Singapore Gahment agancies again.  This time none other then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore stationed at the Singapore Embassy in Thailand. 

I have collected all the neccessary documents for the affidavit that need to be notarized by the embassy before translating it to Thai and officiate it.  This is what happened.  After going through the checkpoint of our fugly embassy (It's like a bloody fottress!!) I rang a little electric door bell and was greeted by a young thai lady.  She speaks quite fluent English and I stated my business here. She said my wife needs to be with me... WTF no1. I easily countered why that time I came it was not stated?  And how come their letter of instructions did not mentioned my wife needs to be with me?  I also explained we have tow kids and my boy is only a year and a half and you want them to fly over here just to see her in person????  She was a bit baffled and got struck by my no nonsense explanations.  She said she checked with her superior and they agreed to do it for me for my kids sake.  Round 1 I won :P

So I handed the stuff to her and she came back 5 mins later asking me why my wife is not a "Miss" but "Mrs" on her Thai national ID.  OK .. Need to explain this portion.  For Thai people, the title is important as it kinds of indicates that if you are a Mrs that means you had married before.  So I explained to her that on her Si Kio Kok Daeng (her old IC) her title is already Mrs as the army personal who registered her in writing put it wrongly.  She was never married before.  We have a document from her district Amphur that states that was a mistake.  But I did not have a copy with me.  So I asked if I could fax to to them now.  She's ok with it and I called my wife to fax the document over... Round 2 is a tie..

Recieved the fax and then another lady who I clearly believe she is a Singaporean (I think the former Thai lady knows I am difficult to handle so passed the baton to her :P), came over and told me the document only says she did not get married but did not specifically say her title is wrong so cannot accept the letter.  WTF!  So I spoke to her nicely and explained my wife's WAS stateless and the whole story.  So I countered.  Why don't you help me write me a letter SPECIFICALLY tell me what you need so I can pass this letter to the district Amphur to produce a specific letter of what you need before you need to proceed.  She was a bit shocked by my insistance of having this letter as I explained that we had no issue with this letter when we did the children and my wife's passport at the Thai MFA. So why MFA of Singapore want to play punk and did not want to accept this letter.  She said she checked with her superior and get back to me. 

10mins later she came back and said they will do it for me as they are more concerned about my marriage status rather than my wife.  Whoo hoo!  Round 3 I win again..  So I asked them why they have so much regulations if that is the case in the first place.  Give me a lame excuse say that they want to PROTECT me as they scared my wife was married .  Sincerely, I nearly want to burst laughing on the spot.... Anyway, I say thanks for your concern but I am not worried on that part..  She went on explaining that the local amphuer might gave us trouble but I thanked her and sacartiscally replied no trouble is bigger then what I encountered here today... hehehehe. 

I send the letter to be translated just at the building next to the embassy.  While waiting,  I can't help it but laughed to myself on how Singaporeans and these Bangkokians are so clueless on the current state of the world.  They think that everyone in this world has an identity and a state.  Unaware that just up North in Thailand,  there are hundreds and thousands of people having the same state as my wife used to be.  Its a sad joke if they do not understand their plight and why these people loved Thaksin in the North.

Anyway, took a victory photo (by myself) using my instax camera... hehehehe

 

Boy.. I look so fat in this picture... :P