A Very Complicated Mess

[ambassador]

I wanted to live in Thailand, and a teaching company I was put in touch with, like so many teaching companies, wanted a teacher.

I said I would work if they could get me a work permit and they told me it would take a couple of weeks to sort out. A couple of weeks became six weeks and I soon began to wonder if I was being used as they needed somebody to fill a previous teachers shoes until the end of the school term.

After stressing that I did not want to continue working illigaly, the company wrote me a letter to take to the Thai embassy in my country which they said would get me the relevant visa and that I would have to get my qualifications together for them to send to the ministry of education upon my return after the holidays.

I was not granted a visa as I did not have all my documents and was also grilled on how I had managed to work without a permit.

The next day I searched for my qualifications in my mothers attic and found my diploma and higher national diploma but not my school GCSE's. To my horror the name on the certificates was the name my foster parents gave me when I was 3 years old, NOT my original name which is on my birth certificate and my passport and which I had been known by between the ages of 0 and 3 and 17 onwards.

I am now returning to my adopted homeland on a 30 day tourist visa and all I have to send to the ministry of education is two diplomas in my old christian name and a TEFL intro certificate, plus a letter from my mother explaining my complicated name situation.

Even if it is possible to get a wk permit without having a degree (still not sure on that one) then the ministry of education are going to laugh out loud when they see my application.

I'm a good teacher, I only teach kids and i'm not one of these backpacker teachers who are just there to fund their boozing.

I am a decent man and I have made some wonderful friends in Thailand and I love the country and want so much to stay there legitimatly. I am now in my 30's and want to settle there and see how I get on. I don't have a serious girlfriend because I don't and won't feel secure there until I am legal.

I also contribute to a well known travel magazine but do not make enough to live off it. If it comes down to it I will come home and go to university and get a teaching degree which would take three years, but surely that can't be the only way of legally holding up flashcards and singing 'head, shoulders knes & toes to a bunch of todlers. I don't want to work illigally again because I don't know what the penalty is - I fear it could be permenant deportation and I simply can't take that risk, I would be devastated.

My Thai expat friends at home have told me I worry too much and have given my contact numbers of their family and friends who could find me alternative teaching work on the outskirts of BKK but I still won't be at ease if I am going against the law of the country I love and respect.

This is very important to me. I don't know what to do and it's making me very unhappy.

Any advice warmly appreciated.

[simon43]

Maybe you need some formal document (translated into Thai by an accredited source), that states the situation about your name. Perhaps get your solicitor to write a statement explaining the situation. you then swear to this in his presence and its signed and stamped. Now take this document to an accredited translator (preferably in Thailand) who can give a Thai translation of it.

Good luck

[ambassador]

Thanks for your reply, that's an idea I've considered, also maybe my doctor or even contacting my old school but I've pretty much run out of time.

Also, is a degree the only means of getting a permit to work? I know a guy who hates kids and is very introvert yet he is legal to teach because he has a degree in mechanics or something like that. I've heard mixed comments about the ways to obtain a permit but still don't know where I stand.