the oddest Christmas i've ever had

i hope everyone had a merry Christmas wherever you are. i myself had the oddest one, and hopefully one never to repeat.

let me explain...

a few weeks ago, Alan decided that he wanted to stay in Korea past his February leave date, partly because of the increasing violence in Algeria (which was to be his next stop). he asked his work if he could teach until mid-April,

(SNAG #1:) but they said they needed him through a full quarter (which ended in late July). by staying through July, Alan would have to both forfeit his post-Korea travel plans and his plans to bike across the country to graduate school in New York City. so he decided to find shorter-term employment elsewhere.

i told him that i was certain my workplace, CDI, would hire him given his experience teaching English and working with kids. he submitted application materials to them and awaited their answer. meanwhile,

(SNAG #2:) the Korean government, in the throes of a national presidential election, was changing its policies on E-2 visa holders (English teachers). apparently, some schmuck was caught in Thailand molesting children. as it turns out, he had arrived in Thailand via Korea as an English teacher. public outrage, the whole works. so the Korean government, feeding off the xenophobic hysteria, instituted a much stricter E-2 visa application process, which includes getting a criminal background check and interviews with both the nearest U.S. Embassy or consulate and the nearest Korean Embassy or consulate.

since Alan is on an E-2 visa, set to expire immediately upon ending his contract, he had to get hired by another academy and get his paperwork in before the new rules came into effect. otherwise, he would most likely have had to return to the U.S. to get the necessary security clearance before getting issued a new E-2. by the time we found all this out, there were only four days left and

(SNAG #3:) Alan didn't have an original sealed transcript in Korea. (this is because of another host of expensive snafus that had happened just one week before, but that's a whole different story). so he had to get an original sealed transcript sent to Korea in two business days.

meanwhile, after Alan's brother already dropped over $50 to send the transcript via International Express Delivery to Seoul, (SNAG #4:) CDI decided that it wasn't worth processing E-2 paperwork for and training an employee that could only stay 3 months and declined to offer him a position.

what this process underscored was the fact that having an F-4 visa (for foreigners of Korean descent) was better. this is the one i have. it allows me to stay in the country for two years and pursue any employment i want. in contrast, an E-2 visa holder must leave the country immediately upon terminating employment. in addition, it is more difficult to obtain new jobs because of paperwork and the typical length of contract (minimum one year).

so of course, Alan tried to get an F-4 visa, and this led to the next series of events that nearly ended his comfortably stay in Korea.

first, he went to the Korean Family Registry office to get the document that demonstrates Korean family lineage via his father and mother. however,

SNAG #5: the information on Alan's family registry was wrong. both Alan's and his brother's Korean names were completely different than the ones with which they grew up. in addition, their birthdays were wrong. (he surmised that his paternal grandfather probably added his grandsons' names without consulting his parents and in the process, changed their names to ones he preferred, all while botching their birthdays).

the advice of the Immigration Office was that Alan should get a copy of his birth certificate, his mother's birth certificate and a sworn affidavit from the U.S. Embassy stating that he is indeed the same person as listed on the family registry. he also needed proof that his mother had renounced her Korean citizenship. (his father passed away many years ago.)

poor Alan! at this point, he was spending every morning before work trying to arrange his stay in Korea: going to CDI (repeatedly) to arrange work, on the phone with relatives to get critical documents sent, asking bilingual friends to translate with the Korean bureaucrats, going to the U.S. Embassy to get a sworn affidavit (45 minutes one-way), and traveling back and forth to Immigration. on his third trip within two weeks to the Immigration office (60 minutes one-way), he finally submitted everything he had been told to collect, including the affidavit swearing he was the same man on the Korean family registry,

only to find out that because he was the man identified on the Korean family registry, this meant that SNAG #6: he was a Korean citizen.

apparently, by having his name placed on the Korean registry, he was in effect a Korean citizen. (much like a child born the U.S. parents in another country is a U.S. citizen by default, so are children born to Korean parents.) while his parents had renounced their citizenship after becoming U.S. citizens, no one in their immediate family knew that Alan and his brother were also on the Korean registry until Alan went to apply for an F-4 visa. no problem. all Alan had to do was renounce his Korean citizenship. the lady at Immigration sent him upstairs to do so.

except (SNAG #7:), once upstairs, Alan found out that according to Korean law, one must renounce before the age of 18 (which is the age of conscription). otherwise, they are eligible for mandatory military service. the lady at the Immigration Office called the military to find out if Alan's name was on the list for conscription (it was) and if he could get an exemption (he couldn't). in other words, the news was: he could not get an F-4 visa without first serving two years in the military.

so, dejected, he left the Immigration Office without an F-4 visa. this meant he would likely have to leave Korea at the end of January when his employment ended.

meanwhile, i was doing E-2 visa research on the Internet and came across this advisory from the U.S. State Department. it reported that some foreign-born males had been involuntarily sent into the military while in Korea on a tourist visa. it didn't worry me. i had heard of many Korean-American men coming in and out of Korea without incident. i assumed, while it was on the books, it was rarely enforced. so i casually mentioned this advisory to Alan, joking that he could still get conscripted. i figured as long as he didn't put in the paperwork for the F-4 visa, he was safe.

however, Alan was not so casual about it given that it would be he who spent the next two years in the Korean military. after all, the lady from Immigration did call the military and in essence, by asking for an exemption on his behalf, also notified them of his presence in Korea.

he did some Internet research and found this article about a man from Seattle. not too different from Alan's situation, he got extremely worried. he called around to find out under which circumstances men got conscripted. back home, his uncle's friend who works for the Korean consulate in Seattle told him the the military would absolutely forcibly enlist him if they could connect the name on the registry to him. YIKES!!

all the sudden, the disappointment that he might have to leave in late January seemed minuscule next to the fear that he might either have to flee the country ASAP before the military could find him or that they already knew where he was and was in the process of detaining him. needless to say, last weekend was super stressful. Alan packed a suitcase with plans to leave on the next international flight. all he needed to know first was if the woman at the Immigration Office who called the military on his behalf had given them his English name.

so last Monday (Christmas Eve), in 1.5 hour lunch break between classes, Alan and his boss's boss jumped in a taxi and went to the Immigration Office to speak with her. as luck would have it, she had taken the day off! we wouldn't know until Wednesday whether or not he was leaving that night.

in the days leading up to Christmas Eve, i spent as much time with Alan as i could in case he had to leave. the plan was that, if possible, he would go straight to Thailand and wait 4+ weeks until i arrived on our scheduled trip date. but on Christmas Eve, i went home.

i went home because i needed Christmas to not be about Alan, immigration, or bureaucracy. (although it is somewhat ironic that the Christmas story also involves registering one's name in one's homeland.) instead, i needed it to be a time for peace and reflection. since Alan doesn't celebrate Christmas, not even as a pagan holiday, it was especially important that i be able to freely and openly celebrate the coming of Christ - without worrying about offending his beliefs.

well, so this was my Christmas. i spent the morning catching up on some podcasts including a couple interesting sermons. i went to a joint church service of more than a dozen local international ministries. Christmas dinner was the snacks offered afterwards in the lobby: a Reese's peanut butter cup, a small bag of Ruffles, a juice box and a Jolly Rancher green apple lollipop. then, i came home and prepped for classes.

all in all, it was a low-key day (no family, no friends) - not the Christmas of tradition or of expectation, but still meaningful nonetheless. an odd Christmas it was,

and even merry on December 26 when we found out that the lady did not give the military any information tying the man on the Korean family registry to the the man i know who is carrying a U.S. passport with an English name. hurrah!

Alan has almost completely unpacked his suitcase.

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in other quick updates, i realize that i haven't written much. aside from bureaucratic drama that may have led to my boyfriend fleeing the country, i am also now working full-time as a teacher during the day and a essay correcter in the evenings.

last week was a killer. due to an inability to do essay corrections early in the week (because of everything going on), i ended up spending Wednesday and Thursday nights in a smoky PC room correcting essays until wee hours in the morning - in order to make a 7 p.m. deadline on Friday. (Alan, the sweetest boyfriend in the world, stayed up with me both nights, getting me cups of water and instant coffee from the coin machine every hour or so.)

since there were no classes on Christmas, we worked a half day yesterday (Saturday) instead. i've spent the rest of this weekend (which is almost over) relaxing in bed, catching up on emails and podcasts (been too busy to write or listen), and prepping for tomorrow's classes.

well, thank you for making it through to the end of this post. i tried to make the post as uncomplicated as possible - but alas, it was not simplify-able.

here's hoping that your Christmas was less complicated, less stressful and abundant with happiness, joy and peace.

with love from Seoul,

SuJ'n