Getting a Vietnamese Work Permit and Visa

My year-long working visa which I was able to acquire with my brand spanking new Vietnamese work permit arrived exactly two days after I made my (final) decision to leave Vietnam in December. Yes, I am leaving and I am extremely happy about it. It will be heart-wrenching to say goodbye to my students, who I absolutely adore, but I really need to get out of here. I'm not going to rant about the many reasons (and the main reason) I have decided to leave just yet because I promised to do a Work Permit/Visa post. Two whole people have e-mailed me about it, but who knows, maybe there are more of you out there who'd like some information on this tedious process.

How I got my Vietnamese Work Permit/Visa (Hanoi)

I needed a number of documents/items:
1. Passport with valid (tourist) visa.
2. University Testamur - to prove I have the specific qualifications necessary for the work I would be doing in Vietnam (in my case, a secondary teaching qualification).
3. A national Police Check (Mine was from Australia, if you have been in Vietnam for more than six months you must get one from the Vietnamese police - have fun with that).
4. Position application form - given to me in English/Vietnamese by my employer and used only for the Working Visa.
5. A full Health Check Certificate.
6. Two passport photos.

First I had to make copies of everything and take the copies and the originals to my Embassy (Australian Embassy Hanoi). At the Embassy I showed my originals and paid the steep price of around 500,000 per document to have the copies of my police check and testamur certified.

Then I made a COPY of the Certified Copies and took everything (copies, certified copies, and originals) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, 40 Tran Phu, Hanoi. I don't think I actually ended up showing them the original documents but better safe than sorry.

Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 40 Tran Phu:

Once at 40 Tran Phu I was directed to Counter 1 - where I wrote my name on a list and was given a form to fill out about the documents I wanted notarised. I then waited (about 2 hours) for my name to be called. While I waited I observed numerous middle-aged Western men come in with young, female, Vietnamese friends who conveniently pushed in for them.

When my name was called it took all of three minutes to hand over my form and the COPIES of my certified copies, and for the guy to check the original certified copies and my passport. I was given an invoice and told to come back tomorrow to pick them up. A colleague of mine was able to pick his up the same day so they must have been particularly busy when I went. I recommend going as early in the day as possible.



I returned the next day with my invoice and went straight to the cashier counter to pay (only about 60,000 for both documents) . Then I went to Counter 4. There were quite a few people and I was confused as to what to do so I just copied the other people who put their invoice receipt onto a spike at the front of the counter. I don't think this was the right thing to do, but the woman working at the counter saw me do it and nodded at me and took my name off the spike and put it to one side. She called my name twenty minutes later and I was out of there, with my nice doubly-certified copies of copies. The Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs puts a red sticker/stamp on the documents.

The last thing I needed was a Health Check Certificate. Only a number of hospitals offer the health check specifically for the Work Permit so make sure you check before you pay to have one done. Because there are so few options the English-speaking places can charge ridiculous prices - I paid 2 million but I have been told that at Vietnamese clinics you can get it done for 600,000. My appointment was at 11am and the whole process took about three hours. I was ferried from ' station' to 'station' within the hospital - eye check, blood test, urine sample, chest xray, blood pressure/weight/height, and a short consultation with a French doctor. You can choose whether to return to the hospital to pick up the results after three days or to have them sent to your workplace. I had them sent to my school and it took seven days (I called after five to hurry the process along).

Finally, I had all my shit together. Or so I thought. I returned to my school and gave the office all of my documents and they sent them off to Labour and Society (they also paid the 400,000 fee) . Three weeks later they were all returned, accusing me of being two different people because my university testamur does not have my middle name while my passport and police check do. ARGH!

I then had to go back to the Australian Embassy to write a Statutory Declaration that the documents do, indeed, refer to me and only me. I also had to pay (again, I think it was about 500,000) just to have my signature witnessed. I guess even if I'm not paying off my student debt yet Australia is still getting  money off me.

So, I handed it all in and waited... with baited breath...not really, I forgot about it even when my tourist visa expired.

It took another week after that but finally the work permit arrived. Now, a work permit is not the same as a working visa - it's what you need to apply for one. Once my work permit arrived, the nice ladies in the office (who were rather sick of my shit by this stage) took the process completely into their own hands - which is what any business which has hired you with the promise of a work visa should do. I just had to sign some forms and then they sent my work permit and passport off to get the visa.

So, finally, after four tourist visas (seven months in Hanoi), and three weeks after my last tourist visa had expired, my passport arrived back at the school with my one-year Working Visa....which I will only be using 70 days of. Oh, but look at all the adventures I've had.

What could you possibly see in me? Is it my soul hung out to dry?

If I had to choose the one thing that scares me the most in Vietnam it wouldn't be catching sight of my reflection after a nice walk through the humidity, it wouldn't be my feral year six class, it wouldn't even be the disgusting squat toilets at the Bia hoi (although they rate highly)...it would be the traffic. The infamous Hanoi traffic.

Crossing the road is bad enough, there is no way in hell I am getting on a motorbike and getting out there into that shitstorm. I get taxis everywhere and it's a bit of a pain. One great thing about taxis, though, is being able to watch the chaos and insanity out the window. I've started collecting photos of the interesting things I see. Usually motorbike situations that are interesting to me, and possibly other non-Vietnamese, but to the locals they're just everyday sights which I probably look like an idiot for photographing. So, here are a few of my favourites so far...

He's got a Rolling Stones Tee but he only knows one song. They think they're from the 60s but they were born in 1991.

July has been the month for big decisions. I am now biting the bullet and officially staying here until the first day of June next year. Ten more months in Vietnam. Staying until next year rather than leaving in December is the most practical decision. I'm no longer in my 'early twenties' so it's time to act like a grown up. I am really lucky in my job: I adore the kids, my boss and colleagues are great, and it's usually a pretty laid back workplace. That's reason enough to stay until June.

I have actually started to feel a bit more comfortable here lately; I've seen some more of the city and countryside, found some new restaurants, and I'm starting to enjoy my area despite its distance from the centre of town. The weather is still ridiculous - hot and humid every day - but I know that come October I might actually get to wear my favourite jeans again so I can soldier through the sweaty summer. Seriously though, it really is intense, the other day I tried to wipe my sweaty face with my sweaty arm - which was gross - then tried to fix the problem by wiping them both with my sweaty t-shirt. There is no beating it. Someone should invent an air-conditioned bubble suit for Westerners who can't hack the humidity. I would pay for that shit.

Yesterday we took the summer school kids on excursion to the ASEAN Cultural Village. We drove into the country and then took a 40 minute boat ride down a river to the 'village'. It was crazy humid and by the time we even arrived at 9:30 everyone was so sweaty it looked like we'd all taken a dip in the river. ((Side note here to say that Vietnamese kids seem to give no fucks about littering - I told off more than one kid for nonchalantly throwing empty drink bottles into the river and they just grinned at me)) We were then taken around a few of the buildings and the guide spoke to the students about their significance; five out of forty children listened to her, it was embarrassing.  I stood there silently looking at the guide, when I wasn't telling off disrespectful children. One of my students said ' You can't even understand but you still listen!' and I said ' Yes, because unlike you I'm not rude'. He had a point though, I had no idea what was going on until one of the older kids came over and offered to translate for me - renewing my faith in my students. After a couple of hours even I had had enough. One of my year 7 students made me laugh out loud when he came over and whispered to me ' No 1 currrr'.  It was too hot to function.  I was even considering throwing myself into one of the many filthy looking lakes just to wash the sweat off. One of the year 10 students offered me the first sip of his iced tea and then took a sip himself and said ' that was a kiss'. AWKWARD! I rolled my eyes.

On the way back to Hanoi we stopped for lunch at a very traditional Vietnamese restaurant. What I thought were chicken wings were apparently frog legs. Sometimes I am very glad to be a vegetarian. Afterwards we sat around for ages waiting for....well, I'm not sure what we were waiting for as the Western teachers sort of just follow the pack on excursion...but we were treated to numerous displays of early-teen flirting. Oh, so much slapping and kicking and screaming and insults. Fascinating.

After lunch we stopped at the ASEAN Resort so the kids could use some of the rides and games they have there but it turned out that they all required expensive tickets, so the students just sat there for an hour playing on their phones. There was a jumping castle which I wanted go on so badly; sometimes being a grown up sucks.

I haven't worn a shirt since 1993 that's the year I moved my operation to the beach

Recently I had a friend from Australia come to visit. We spent a couple of days enjoying Hanoi, wandering around the streets and drinking cheap beer on street corners. I also ran into a group of my year 11 students in a night club, to my horror, but that's another story.

We went on a Ha Long Bay cruise which was sweaty, very sweaty. I look at the photos now and think ' oh what an idyllic long weekend' completely forgetting that at the time I was dreaming of air-conditioning. The boat was lovely and the food that the staff prepared for dinner looked truly amazing but I am now at the point that if I take one bite of Vietnamese food I feel ill. It's ridiculous. I can't even stomach tofu.

It was really nice to have a friend from home here. I felt like I could relax a bit and just enjoy this city. I didn't realise that I had been lonely but I guess I so. I have met people here and if I want company when I go into town its easy to come by but I don't really have anyone to just sit in a café with and chat for hours.

Annnnyway. I have decided to stay here until the end of my contract in May rather than breaking my contract and going to Europe in January.  Having my friend here, who is also a teacher, made me realise how lucky I am in my job: I adore my students, my boss is great, and my workplace is generally more relaxed than an Australian school. In order to survive here mentally and emotionally for another 10 months I have decided to spend Tet (Vietnamese New Year) in Europe. It's expensive, and I only have 10 days but I figure the cost and travel fatigue is worth it if it means I can make myself stay here until the end of my contract. Then I can go straight to Europe in June and hopefully find work in an international school. Ugh, I feel like my whole life is made up of holding periods when I'm waiting for the life I want to begin. I guess this is what being an adult feels like. Hooray.

Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going

I'm in Saigon. Back in Vietnam after 12 wonderful, brunch-filled, days in Melbourne. I also spent 11 days before that travelling down the coast from Hanoi to Saigon. Hoi An was beautiful, and I had a great time in Nha Trang (despite some serious sunburn), but unfortunately the holiday didn't convince me that I love Vietnam, as I had hoped it would. I start back at work (summer school) in a few days and I'm looking forward to it. Rather than ramble on I think I will do a photo spam/journal of the first twelve days of my holidays. Here we go:

Hoi An

 

...Eleven hours on the train to Nha Trang

 

Flight to Saigon

 

Let's be honest.

(WARNING - extensive self-involved text to follow)


The decision to move to Vietnam couldn't have been more different to my move to Spain in 2009. I moved to Spain a few months after I finished my undergraduate degree and I had been counting down days, planning, dreaming, and driving everyone nuts about it for close to a year. The third year of my degree was all about history essays and researching everything I could about my future life in Spain. My Mother took me to Europe for four months when I was seven years old and ever since then I've had a love for the continent; I've been back twice for prolonged periods. I moved to Spain to be in Spain. To eat Spanish food. To hear Spanish spoken around me. To travel the country and see the landscapes. Teaching was just a way to live abroad, albiet a mostly enjoyable means to an end.

My decision to move back to Australia was influenced by a variety of ideas and incidents. Although I returned earlier than I had expected to I don't regret it at all. It was time to grow up and focus on a career and I am completely satisfied with the decision to become a qualified teacher. I wrote my History thesis and got my teaching qualification and to my surprise, I was feeling quite settled in Melbourne. I kept thinking I would get a job in a local school, save some money, and then possibly consider moving back overseas in the future.

I couldn't find a job. I applied and applied and heard nothing. I knew it wasn't due to my own shortcomings. There is a major shortage of teaching jobs in Australia right now, in both primary and secondary sectors, and the jobs which do exist are mostly contracts for a year at most. Difficult to find work and once you have it there's little security. Regardless of the fact that my failure to find a job wasn't a personal failure it still felt like shit. I started applying for everything, half-heartedly, and not expecting that anything would come up. Four days later I'd been offered a job in Hanoi.

Now, here's my dirty little secret. I've never been interested in travelling in Asia. Never. Not in the slightest. Not China, not Japan, not Thailand, and yeah, not Vietnam. Many of my friends have been to Asian countries and loved them, but I've always been about Europe, Europe, Europe, and occasional yearnings to see South America.

I've always found it fascinating that different people are interested in different places. What makes two Australians with similar backgrounds, socio-economic status, educational opportunities, and careers so interested in totally different countries and cultures? I feel an affinity to Melbourne and to many of the European countries I've visited but to Hanoi? Definitely not.

I don't love this city. I'm still trying to work out whether I even like it. When it comes down to it, I came here for a job not for any personal desire to live here. If I'd been offered a job in Melbourne at the same time I would have taken it. I have met a few other new expats here and they're mostly ESL teachers who have travelled here before, loved it, chucked caution to the wind and moved here. When they ask me why I'm here I feel like the biggest scum bag in the world when I say I came for a job. I feel like it's shameful to admit that I'm in this country just to earn money and improve my career prospects while they're struggling to find teaching hours in a country they love. I know that if some douchebag had told me they didn't even really care that  much for Spain, while I was desperately looking for a job, I would have been most unimpressed.

So I am trying really hard to make some kind of connection with the country. I have some travels planned for June which will take me along the coast and hopefully seeing some of the county will spark something between me and Vietnam. I've been venturing out on the weekends and trying to meet new people. I'm trying not to become bitter about the 9 hour power outages or the fact that I can't go a week without eating something which makes me violently ill.

All this said, I love my job and I am glad I am here. I just wish Vietnam inspired me like Spain does.

Learning to love life in Vietnam. Coming soon.

Baby thinking of you keeps me up all night.

Well, I'm in Vietnam. I'm totally, utterly in awe of pretty much everything. It is so completely different to home and to everywhere I have ever lived or travelled. I haven't experienced any culture shock yet, probably because I haven't had to struggle to do anything as I've had lots of assistance from my employer which is fantastic. I can't wait to get out there with my camera.

...I was going to write a longer post....but dude, I am so tired. Bed at 7:30 for me.

A tornado flew around my room before you came. Excuse the mess it made.

Visa - check
Travel Insurance - check
Flights - check
Farewell hugs from my friends - check
Bills changed into flatmate's name - check
Apartment packed up/bags packed - bloody hell

Only three more days until I'm off to Hanoi for at least a year. Oh my. Oh my. Oh my.

Return (to the blog) and Departure (from Australia)

I'm back! It's been a while, blog. I've decided it is time to revive you because it's once again time for travel/adventure/teaching/culture shock/what the hell am I doing?/expat blogging.

In the space of six days I have applied for a job, been interviewed for said job, been offered and accepted the job, and I'm now in the process of doing a million things in order to move to a new country in less than three weeks.

I'm moving to Vietnam.

I did not see this coming.

Sure, I applied for the job. I applied for lots of jobs, haphazardly. Four months of searching for a teaching position had put me in the mindset of  'what have I got to lose? I'll apply for everything'. I can't believe it actually worked. I didn't have much time to consider whether to accept the offer, which is probably good because I may have chickened out. I've had a few days now and I'm more sure about it every day. It's not like when I went off to Spain, full of naive bravado and unrealistic expectations; I know this is going to be hard. The first three months I'll probably cry at least once a week, I'll be too scared to order food in restaurants, and I'll wonder what the hell I've done. But hopefully, I will like my job, my apartment, my co-workers, and the fact that I'm doing something different, and once the initial culture shock passes I'll realise how lucky I am and settle in to discovering life in Vietnam.

I've been reading back over my old posts, in particular the last post I wrote in Australia before I headed off to Spain in 2009. Everything I said in that post still applies and is the reason am rapidly packing up my life and moving to a country in a continent I've never even been to; also, I just want to teach!