the bureaucracy has expanded to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy

Today I had to pop over to the U.S. Embassy to pick up my new passport. ("Popping over to the embassy" involves a two-hour bus ride, a half-hour train ride, and a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk.)

I got up extra early so that I could take care of this in the morning and be back to teach lessons this afternoon. Somehow I made it back on time.

Just wanted to take a few moments to share some of the highlights of my visa-getting, passport-renewing, work-permit-obtaining experiences here in Thailand.

Avid readers will recall The Incident last February. No need to go into detail about that again, I think.

But the last time we ewnt with our intrepid office staffer for a visa renewal (this time with a gaggle or herd of other farang teachers), there was almost another Incident. We got to the visa office, paid up, and sat down for the waiting. I've always wondered why we have to be there in the first place--once we've handed over our money, our role consists entirely of waiting. We don't sign anything, we don't fill anything out, we don't even appear at the counter. We just wait. But I digress.

We were waiting (and doing it admirably, if I do say so myself) when our university staff member came to us in a bit of a panic. Panic and visa office are just not a good combination, you know? Anyway, apparently they changed the rules on her since the last time she was there. She had to run around the neighborhood looking for a place that would let her receive a fax (because God forbid she could actually do this at the visa office), and then she called the university and asked her officemates to fax her lots and lots of extra documents.

We waited. Eventually the extra documents (what were they, anyway? Dental records? My Permanent Record from elementary school?) resulted in one-year visa extensions for all. Yippee.

And then there's the American embassy.

The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok is located on Wireless Road. Supposedly Wireless Road is so named because at some time in the vanished past it was totally free of power lines. That day is long gone. Before arriving at the U.S. Embassy, one must walk by the embassies of Bulgaria, New Zealand, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Each of these is, like the U.S. Embassy, a forbidding compound surrounded by a high brick wall and lots of pointy metal spikes. However, the U.S. Embassy stands apart from these others in the chaos outside it. There is generally a long line of nervous-looking people who are trying to get visas into the U.S., and also a smaller, less line-like group of bewildered-looking U.S. citizens.

Why are we bewildered? Well, there's a big sign on the wall that says U.S. citizens don't have to wait in line. So we walk to the door, which is shut and guarded. A guard tells us. "You have to wait." We look at the line; we start to walk to the end of it. The same person says, "You don't have to wait in line." We turn back towards the door. You guessed it; "You have to wait." So...we wait, but not in line? That seems to be the gist of it. Hence the loosely formed mob of confused, sweaty Americans.

Eventually we are allowed in (before the nervous-looking visa seekers--I guess this is what is meant by not waiting). We show our passports. Our bags are searched. Our mobile phones are confiscated. With the mobile phones, we must leave an alternative I.D. We follow the signs to "American Citizen Services." This is a tiny room containing a few chairs, lots of blank forms, and two service windows.

Here's how to get your passport renewed.

You show up, fill out the correct form, and get in line. Why are you filling out the form here in the office instead of at home, having downloaded it from the website? Why, because the link marked "Passport Renewal Form" doesn't work, of course! But, as it turns out, that's immaterial--there's no form for passport renewal. You just go ahead and fill out the form for passport application. But wait, there's a long form and a short form--fill out this preliminary questionnaire to determine which one you need! Now, remember, This Form Must Be Filled Out Completely Or Your Application Will Be Rejected. Check out this item: "Address to which you'd like your passport mailed." Hmm. Didn't the website say they wouldn't mail the passport? That you had to come back to the embassy to pick it up? You look up, momentarily puzzled, and notice a great big sign on the wall: "Passports will not be mailed." So, this mailing address they're asking for: is that just a hypothetical question? You ponder for a moment on the "you'd like" part of the question. Maybe this is a "How can we serve you better" kind of moment--the US Passport Service must genuinely care about each and every citizen, to insert a question about our preferences into this kind of questionnaire, no?

Anyway, after filling out the form, you get in line for the service counter. Once you've been seen, you sit down and wait for the clerk (the same one who's dealing with the people who are still in line) to go into the back and perform some kind of voodoo with your paperwork, then call your name again. You return to the counter, where your paperwork is returned to you, and are directed to wait in line at another counter. After waiting in this line and paying for your renewal, you go back to the first room and wait again, where you return the paperwork (yes, the same paperwork) to the clerk (yes, the first clerk) and are told to come back in two weeks to pick up your new passport. Oh, that's two weeks, not counting U.S. holidays, Thai holidays, or the last Friday of the month. Check your calendar!

Still worried about that form, and whether it's Filled Out Completely? Sorry, the clerks at the embassy can't help you. They just take your money. You've got to wait until you come back in two weeks to find out if the Passport Service has accepted your application.