Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Eedoryeong]

This is a minor rant about how foreign passports are treated in this country.

I've been to a few countries now and it seems to me that every other country's ports of entry make far more responsible use of the precious pages of our generally expensive and not-easy-to-get passports. But in Korea, sloppiness and wastage seem to be the goals at several entry points and immigration offices.

Why? Why can Japanese arrange their little postage stamps in perfect little columns, why can even the Chinese and Taiwanese, in perpetual bickering, at least agree on the one united China territorial stamp-sovereignty of page 10 of my passport, but Korea's stamps look like a dog with a stamp-shaped tongue went and randomly licked my passport in a fit of affection? Why can a four year old do a better job of treating my passport with respect than a thirty-four year old officer at the gate of the great DaeHanMinGook?

Were I a conspiracy theorist, I'd say it was an act of passive-aggression acted out against foreigners.

Were I a Korea apologist, I might say something like 'learn to request the stamps in the right places in Korean!' I did that this morning. In fact I asked the woman at the immi office to transfer my stamp to page 6 of the new passport. Did she do that?

No. That 미진 농장에 도라 가야하는 씨발 바보 시골 녀 ignored my request and stamped page 7 of my brand new 100-dollar passport, ensuring that page 6 will never be used unless threatened under pain of death.

There's got to be some way to harness that national pride by shame-reforming individual officers to understand what their sloppy wasteful expensive work looks like next to the organized work of officers from every other country on planet Earth. I'm sure some of you who come and go from Korea would have a good three or more pages left over in your passports were they to treat them in a respectable fashion and stamp closely next to the other stamps.

Does this bug anyone else?

Okay, rant over.

[Hater Depot]

It's quite true. They stamp it all over the place heedless of whether they're stamping over another stamp or whatever. The contrast to the orderly stickers you get in Japan is pretty funny.

[Eedoryeong]

[Imbroglio]

If it means that much to you OP, why didn't you politely stick your hand on the page and ask him nicely to use the right page?

[Underwaterbob]

I haven't really noticed. My passport is a mess from Thailand, Japan and Korea. It's expiring pretty soon anyway.

[Ut videam]

It's not just Korea.

My first international trip was to Australia, yet the immigration inspector at Sydney airport inexplicably stamped the second or third visa page of the passport. On the way out, the guy put the exit stamp in the "Entries" column underneath the entry stamp rather than in the correct column beside it, thus wasting an entire page on a single trip that required no visa.

[Eedoryeong]

[Scouse Mouse]

Australia: Entry and Exit stamps on different pages.
America: Entry and Exit stamps on different pages, and something stapled inside and then yanked out when I left.
Korea: 1 impressive looking sticker for E2, and the facing page has entry and Exit stamps.

I am not sure how they will place the F2, but from what I have seen so far Korea has treated my passport much nicer than the US or Australia did. One of the unfortunate benefits of being an EU citizen is that my passport looks relatively naked due to lack of stamps, so I can't really compare with any other countries I have visited:(

Just curious, but what country are you from? And do you know how they treat foreign passports?

[jbpatlanta]

I used to make freequent trips to other countries My passport filled up quickly. I just flipped through it and noticed that it is not unorganized. The stamps from China, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, and Korea are all pretty organized. The one from Thailand and the Philippines are stamped into corners on other pages. Personally, I don't worry about it. I let the immigration officer figure out how to fit extra stamps into it.

I went to the embassy to get more pages added into my passport. After that with 20 something new pages in the middle of my passport, every immigration official in every country I went to wanted to turn to the back past all the new blank pages and stamp the back pages. I complained about it the first time and then after that I told the officers which page to stamp. And amazingly they all listened to me and stamped it where I asked them to.

[maddog]

This trip to Korea has so far cost me four passport pages-

one for my visa

another upon entry (these two are understandable)

another when I got my alien card (why couldn't they have used the same pages as above)

and another by the f4ucking incompetent moron at Wooribank

The infuriating thing about the Wooribank situation is that there was already in page in my passport that had been stamped by them on my previous trip. The cokkhead at the bank insisted that he had to use a new page as it was a different branch.

I arrived in Korea thinking I'd have five spare pages in my passport. Now, I'm down to three. To make things worse I have a WHV for Australia which is tied to this passport and I am too old to get another WHV. So, I'm afraid to leave Korea during my vacation in case they shite all over my passport again.

[Matilda]

I had a recent teachers trip by ferry over to Tsushima and entered Korea via Busan port. The immigration officer asked what date I left Australia... I am in a ferry terminal that only sails to Japan???

He then mentions that I do not have a stamp from Australia, so I politely educated him on the wonder of modern e-passports. He did not look amused

[indytrucks]

[OiGirl]

I get a full-page stamp once every month or so. Love it!

[buster brown]

If you're American, it doesn't cost anything extra to request a 48-page passport instead of the normal 24-pages. Then they can waste as many pages as they want...you've gotta go through 5 a year to fill it up.

To answer your question: No, it doesn't bother me in the least.

[OiGirl]

I have a 48-page American passport.

I have filled 15 pages since I arrived in Korea in 2006.

It's not gonna make it to expiration in 2014 at this point....

Can you get pages added to the 48-page passport? How many times?