Job Discussion Forums

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

General question to gauge opinion out there.

Is your embassy of any help to you where you are teaching? Are you in contact with your emabssy for anything other than simple registration?

The Canadian embassy in Mexico City has a Friday night club for expats and invites. It'a nice diversion. The UK embassy here has a pub inside and has Wednesday openings. They also have a great cultural attache that organizes a monthly 'Hash' (something like a steeple chase? it involves heavy drinking and running...not my forte) for expats.

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

I emailed the Consulate (not the Embassy) in Oaxaca City to obtain some forms. They were very helpful; they answered my email promptly and sent me the forms I asked for by registered mail.

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

Pool, swimming pool, bar... events... and very conveniently a short walk from work... not every Brit in the city has access to all of this though Wink

Ben Round de Bloc · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1946

It's a good place to renew a passport, faster and easier than "back home" (USA.) Other than that, I've only been inside the building twice in nearly 10 years: to register shortly after I arrived here and to change my address on the registration once after that.

Sekhmet · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 329 Location: Alexandria, Egypt

The British embassy here in Egypt is remarkably unhelpful. Nothing nice like pub nights (hardly surprising, but still), and trying to get anything done there can take weeks. And during the SARS epidemic, the embassy in China wasn't particularly helpful either! But that might have been because of the number of calls they were receiving...

Girl Scout · Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Posts: 525 Location: Inbetween worlds

Taiwan doesn't have embassies. We have something called the American Institute for US expats. While they are not the most helpful people in the world, it is possible to get pages sewn into your passport.

The US and Taiwan do not have formal diplomatic relations. Only financial. The American Institute is part of the internal revenue service.

carnac · Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 1:07 pm Post subject:

The US embassy in Oman is useless.
They never answer emails.
They send out automated emails warning you to be careful, thanks very much.
Getting into the Embassy itself is like Fort Knox.
They have Omani staff who are equally useless. I had a problem with certification paperwork. The Omani employees assured me that the problem was my fault and I needed to jump through seventeen more hoops before we could begin to correct things. I finally demanded to see an actual American. The "problem" was resolved in two minutes.
The main function of the Omani American Embassy, as I see it, is to facilitate American B1 bombers transiting Masirah AFB. American citizens here can go jump.
For Americans in Oman, the Embassy is worthless.

Cardinal Synn · Joined: 01 Nov 2004 Posts: 586

The UK consulate (the Embassy is in another building) in Jakarta is excellent in my experience (though it all depends on the individual). I was helped out of a tricky situation with immigration and the help I was given was fantastic. The consol guy and his assistant took me to the immigration office in their car in their free time! Spent hours there with me, waiting for the wheels of bureaucrasy to turn. They were very helpful. Though I'm sure if I'd acted like an ungrateful idiot, demanding my rights etc., I'd have had a very different experience.

KiteBiker · Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:43 pm Post subject: Oman again ...

The closest Canadian Embassy to Oman is Saudi Arabia. They are helpful, concerned, and always vigilant, but awfully far away. A diplomatic Liaisson Officer made his way all the way down to Salalah to see what we were up to and to talk to some Canadian companies about tax issues [no surprise here]. My family and another bloke were the only ones in attendance at the expensive Hilton. Meal was excellent. Other bloke was British but passed himself off as Canadian and regalled us with stories from his truck driving days during the civil war in Dhofar to which the Officer had very little knowledge about!

There is a Canadian Consulate in Muscat but they are next to useless. They are there mainly to generate income for connected Omanies rather than to serve Canadians. Lost my passport, and had to deal with KSA directly. Very disappointing.

naturegirl321 · Joined: 04 May 2003 Posts: 9041 Location: home sweet home

The US embassy in Shanghai was decent for the 10 minutes I spent there. They bumped me to the front of the line and gave me extra pages, no charge. I was in and out within 10 minutes.

XXX · Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 11:44 pm Post subject:

I guess it would depend on the place. The one in Moscow was useless. I had a better time with the consulate in Krakow. I never got close to the ones in Bangkok and Seoul.

merlin · Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 6:49 am Post subject:

I think a lot of people confuse embassies with information services or lawyers.

The embassy is therer to first of all act as a representative of your government to the host government.

Secondarily to provide things like passports, visas, birth certificates, and other official government papers. It tries to help people who get caught doing stupid things like smuggling drugs or organizing political dissent.

A lot of people think it should act as a yellow pages, legal advisor and/or better business beaureau but this is just impossible, impractical and inadvisable.

It is usually when people expect an embassy to fulfill tasks outside the first two when they are dissapointed.

Sweetsee · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 2302 Location: ) is everything

While rotting in a Japanese jail I made the mistake of thinking my embassy could help me. I thought I was in a movie or something. There was a point when I just couldn't take it anymore and I demanded to speak to my embassy. Is that funny, or what? Some kook did eventually come out there and see me. The only thing he did was reassure me that I was definitely going to be deported someday. Funny about that because he was the only one that ever told me that. Of course, until the day nearly two years later when going to get a re-entry permit, the officer was stumbling over her words and after many attempts at garbled speech and many trips to who knows where she blurted out for all to hear...DRUG!!!...YOU ARE DRUG!!!

Hmmph...there you go.

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

I've got to ask sweetsee. Why were you rotting in a Japanese jail?

Sweetsee · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 2302 Location: ) is everything

That was trippy. While I was fumbling about trying to fix the end of that post, then letting out my big secret, then deciding not to and changing my mind again, I hit submit, felt apprehensive and after what seemed longer than usual there was dmb.