It’s been a long and somewhat stressful day. Most importantly, we attempted to register our marriage certificate today at the household registry office. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that Geoff and I do not speak Chinese. We also do not read Chinese. Nor do we write in Chinese. This makes Chinese paperwork rather difficult. We finally got somebody to translate our marriage certificate and got it all filled out with all the signatures in the right places. We arrived armed with that document, photocopies of our witnesses passports and ARC cards, and our two notarized and verified affidavits swearing that we were free to marry, not to mention our own two forms of identification.
We arrived at the office at around 12:30. We walked in, took a number, and discovered that we were about 25 numbers away from the front of the line. However, somebody must have been alarmed by the presence of two white people in the building because somebody came to ask us if we needed help. Once they figured out that we couldn’t speak their language, they sent for somebody who seemed to be a bit higher up. He looked at us in complete shock and distress once he figured out that we were both foreigners and wanted to get married in Taiwan. With his very limited English, he told us we would have to come back at 1:30, after lunch. So we went home, and I ate toast.
When we came back, the man was ready for us. It seemed as if perhaps he had been practicing some of his vocabulary to prepare for our visit, because he was much more communicative this time. He started sifting through our documents, trying to identify them, constantly sighing in distress. We were there for probably an hour trying to figure out if we had everything we needed. It turns out that Geoff needs to have his affidavit translated and verified by some court. The address is in another city about an hour away. We’re hoping this can actually be done at the ministry of foreign affairs here in Taichung. Fingers crossed. We were also told we have to have Chinese names. Geoff has one. No problem. But I never received one, so a lady started flipping through some giant book trying to find me a name. I still don’t know what it is or how to say it or write it, but it’s written on a scrap of paper in our document cache, and I’m told it means something like confident and beautiful. How ironic is that?
So after all of that, we’re still not married yet. But we just keep moving forward one step at a time. We’ll try to go back next week and do this all over again with all the correct papers. Then we will be legally hitched. Geoff keeps telling me it’s not official yet, and while I know that our real wedding will be the big moment, and there’s no doubt that we are already fully committed to each other for life, I was still a bit nervous and excited today. The paperwork and general legal pain-in-the-assiness of a divorce reminds me of how important that piece of paper really is. It will be an important moment for me. One I was extremely nervous about ever taking again just a couple years ago.
I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I actually heard something on Desperate Housewives today that made me feel a little bit better. That cute neighbor guy told Terri Hatcher to think of her first marriage and divorce like bootcamp. A preparation. Training for the real thing. I am definitely smarter this time. We’re both getting married for all the right reasons. The only reason to get married really. We love each other and can’t imagine being apart. We need each other in a healthy and endearing way. I hope we can get this bit of paperwork taken care of soon. There are still a lot more forms to be filled out. But I’ll do anything for this man.
On This Island 