Encounters with Strangers Posted by christian h., 13 Jun 2007 05:23 am

Encounters with Strangers (#3): Have a good trip home

A couple years ago, I made one of my periodic visits to the US Consulate in Frankfurt (Main), Germany, to obtain a new visa stamp. I was tired, since the latest appointment available is at 8:00 am, so I had to get up at 5:30 am to catch a train to get me there in time; and I was nervous. Even though for a white protestant German like me there’s basically no chance of trouble the thought that one official having a bad day could ruin your life is a little disconcerting. Will they wonder what I did in Morocco the year before? Will they notice United for Peace and Justice or Monthly Review among the charitable and political organizations I’ve given money to (if you’re male between the ages of 18 and 45, you have to list all of those)? I am being paranoid of course, but who knows how the “war on terror” influences the situation. Maybe there is more pressure on the consular officials to be extra careful. Maybe the consulate is being audited.

So I arrive a little early for my appointment - appointments come in groups of several dozen people at the same time - , the clear plastic folder with my documents in hand (no electronic devices! No cameras! No backpacks!) and after some standing in line in, luckily, reasonable weather, I get through the metal detectors and into the building (no problem there, the guards are very polite and nice). I immediately make a beeline for the passport photo machines some licensed company has put up in the place - you have to know that there are specific requirements on the format of the photo to submit with the visa application, and it needs to be new. The photos coming out of the machine don’t conform to the specified format, but the machines are there by permission of the consulate, so their output is accepted anyway. My photo turns out borderline, the top of my head touching the upper boundary of the photo (too tall! I should have slouched more.) This makes it hard for the computer to produce the biometric data they are later going to compare to that produced from the photo taken when you enter the country.

After that, I wait until my number comes up the first time - turn in the application forms, the proof of payment of the application fee, the photo. The waiting area could be at an office of the social security administration, or the DMV: standard rows of chairs, bathrooms, counters behind bullet-proof glass. More waiting, and I’m called for the interview. First, the technical stuff has to be done: press the left index finger here. Now the right index finger.

For the kind of visa I was applying for - J-1, “academic exchange” - the actual interview is a fairly perfunctory affair. I think the general purpose is just to find out if you actually are going to engage in academic pursuits or merely getting the visa so you can enter the US and then overstay. Since Germany is part of the visa waiver program anyway, this consulate is treating applicants nicely.

Still, as I said, I’m nervous. With every question, I wonder what the official - a woman in her twenties - really wants to know. “What is the purpose of your stay in the US?” - easy. “Do you like the US?” - careful now, I’m supposed to credibly convince her I’ll leave the US after my temporary position is finished, even though we both know that’s not how it works. On the other hand, you don’t want to lie (or claim that you hate it here) - so I’m honest and say “yes” enthusiastically, hoping I didn’t make a mistake. “What are your duties at the University of Illinois going to be?” “What kind of research do you do?” - the usual, I just need to show I’m not faking it, that I know what I’m doing. If I was a biologist or chemist or nuclear physicist, this might be different - I’d have to let them know on the application that I have knowledge relevant to the production of WMD.

“Well then, have a good trip home!” she says - and I realize she knows quite well I’m likely to stay in the US, and is just being nice, trying to have a conversation. No nefarious interview techniques. It was her position of power over me that had made normal conversation impossible on my end, no matter how nice a person she was.

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Got an “Encounter with Strangers” you’d like to share? Go to the Submit a Post link at the top of the page and tell your story to the Minister of Justice.

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Responses to “Encounters with Strangers (#3): Have a good trip home”

  1. on 13 Jun 2007 at 8:44 am 1. black dog barking said …

    Back in the day when we read aloud from the History or Citizenship text “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses…” everyone in the classroom, lecturer and lectur-ee, took Ms Lazurus’ sentiment as fact. Boring, clinical fact.

    There was probably some measure of delusion in our blasé acceptance of the official narrative, that the will to succeed and a few coppers were sufficient for flourishing success, but there was also a simple directness and comfort in believing that we all had access. After all, we were Americans, irony free.

    I certainly like the old myth better than the new reality—that America is open to those capable of maneuvering a process of winks and sly nods, irony institutionalized all the way down to the immigration factory floor.

    Fix that foto-machine!! (Or change the regulations.)

  2. on 13 Jun 2007 at 9:07 am 2. Oaktown Girl said …

    Black Dog - I’m at work so I can’t Google it now, but I know that studies have been done recently showing that the U.S. has moved way, way, way down on the list among Western countries in terms of the possibility for upward economic mobility.

    There are a lot of factors contributing to that, but one of the most common denominators is the ongoing process of rigging the system to benefit the very rich. And I really can’t stand seeing the corporate media, especially, Faux news, keep pumping the narrative that everyone here has an equal opportunity for success and anyone who says otherwise just hates America.

    It’s fine to COMMIT class warfare, it’s just not OK to TALK about it.

  3. on 13 Jun 2007 at 12:44 pm 3. Seattle said …

    Reminds me of my year in Japan when I was in high school. At that time, and maybe now for all I know, you had to be finger-printed if you were going to be staying longer than some set tourist time that I no longer remember. One of my high school English teachers in the town took me to some official building and he was quite flustered by the process. There I was, the clueless American, just intrigued by my first experience being finger printed, but he was intensely embarrassed. He thought it was terrible and that I was being treated like a criminal. An interesting micro-study on perception and internal orientation. I knew I wasn’t a criminal, so the experience rolled off my back like water, but for him, just the suggestion of criminality caused a loss of face.

  4. on 13 Jun 2007 at 1:18 pm 4. Oaktown Girl said …

    [Lunch time]
    There’s a very distinct difference in the way I interact with “authority figures” depending on whether I need something from them or not. In general, I treat people the same way, regardless of rank or social status. I don’t go out of my way to do that, it’s just the way I am personality-wise. Besides, I feel deference for deference’s sake (just because it’s expected) is a waste of time and energy. This should not be confused with being rude. I always do try to be polite.

    If I need something from someone, like christian did in the above story, then I’m as quiet and reserved and as deferential as I need to be (playing the game as best I can) to get the job done. No jokes, no observations about my disgust for system, etc. Well, usually. Sometimes if I’m really ticked off at the useless hoops we have to jump through, even if I need something I can’t keep my pie hole shut.

    But if I don’t need anything, all bets are off, and it’s just Oaktown Girl in all her unreserved glory, for better or worse.

  5. on 13 Jun 2007 at 1:31 pm 5. black dog barking said …

    Madame MOJ, the Google isn’t needed to make your case. There is evidence everywhere. For instance, in my hometown, a high-plains state capital city, there has been little construction downtown for a decade or more except for parking garages and movie theaters. (Rent a place to park your car while you park your ass in a darkened room and consume stuff that’s not especially good for you.) Our banks are full to the brim with loanable capital. No capital ideas.

    When was the last time you heard someone say “Yankee Ingenuity”?

    This “christian h.” sounds like quite a catch if we can land him—he’s educated, writes without a hint of foreign accent, gives to charity, knows how to hold his tongue in the presence of authority. I hope he stays.

  6. on 13 Jun 2007 at 2:55 pm 6. Kiera PSI said …

    I can remember OTG treating a minor celebrity we encountered just like anyone else. The look on his face was priceless. The minor celeb just couldn’t get over himself and while I’d like to be able to say he learned a lesson from it, I’d be lying.

    She did, however, succeed on being VERY polite to him…the normally hyperactive pie hole was very much in control. He just wasn’t as “all that” as he thought and was treated accordingly.

    The world would be a better place if everyone treated everyone else with equal deference (like OTG does). The general public makes too much of the privileged and it just feeds their egos and results in situations like the (insert cringe here) Paris Hilton Fiasco.

  7. on 13 Jun 2007 at 2:59 pm 7. christian h. said …

    [break from work]

    knows how to hold his tongue in the presence of authority.

    Hah! Are you trying to offend me, sir?

    I wasn’t, by the way, trying to complain about the system as it affects me - as white protestant Western European male, I’m not likely to get into trouble.

    Oaktown Girl, I’m with you - it can be very hard indeed to shut up and fill out form 314 in triplicate, especially in cases when you know it’s off to the circular file with copies 1 and two…

  8. on 13 Jun 2007 at 3:45 pm 8. Oaktown Girl said …

    This “christian h.” sounds like quite a catch if we can land him—he’s educated, writes without a hint of foreign accent, gives to charity, knows how to hold his tongue in the presence of authority.

    Nicely observed, Black Dog. And the MOJ’s keen eye spotted this talent and immediately brought him into Her our High Council fold. He’s also very humble: hardly ever mentions the fact that he’s a WAAGNFNP High Council Officer - Tribunus Laticlavius of the Ministry of Offense and Defense - except for official business.

    And the MOJ has noticed you too as well, Black Dog Barking.
    (That’s not ominous, by the way. It’s a good thing!)

  9. on 13 Jun 2007 at 11:14 pm 9. Oaktown Girl said …

    Oops…we forgot to put our usual “Encounters With Strangers” postscript at the end of this post. (I just put it in now). So in case any of you missed it, here it is:

    Got an “Encounter with Strangers” you’d like to share? Go to the Submit a Post link at the top of the page and tell your story to the Minister of Justice.

    Hint, hint.
    Nice entryway for those of you who’d like to venture contributing a post but don’t know what to write about, or just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Remember - for a community blog, participation is life.

  10. on 14 Jun 2007 at 3:08 pm 10. JP Stormcrow said …

    I will say that it is probably a “feature” of my relatively well-entitled white American Male world that there are relatively few times (so far) when I grow concerned that things of great importance to me are truly at the mercy of some anonymous bureaucracy.

    A relative of mine gave a vivid description of how his 9/11 experience brought that into focus. Living practically next door to the World Trade Center, he and his companion became ash-covered wanderers. At some point while trying to get back to their apartment, they were instead ordered to get on a boat to New Jersey or face arrest (.. they studied on it for a while…) He described how he imagined that was what it must feel like to be a true refugee - no one really cares, you are just one more pain in someone’s ass that they are trying to make go away by whatever means necessary. Of course by the next day they were well on their way to recovering status (although getting home took some more time and dealing with much faceless bureaucracy - but that is another story altogether).

  11. on 14 Jun 2007 at 9:52 pm 11. Col K L said …

    “I can remember OTG treating a minor celebrity we encountered just like anyone else. The look on his face was priceless. The minor celeb just couldn’t get over himself and while I’d like to be able to say he learned a lesson from it, I’d be lying.” Kiera? Betcha I know who that was. :)

    De Colonel has been a bit absent from overactive typing syndrome for a bit due to enjoying her time and space. Her two favorite Werebeasts who have been off making things safer or more dangerous depending upon which side of the good v evil equation one finds oneself.

    Encounters with Strangers? Trying to pick one from a lifetime of warward and at times purposeful wandering would be hard.

    What comes to mind after reading the beforementioned 911 day ‘adventures’ is a memory of standing in Sandy Hook, NJ more than a month after 911, looking northward. Big black plumes of smoke stil sluggishly headed upwards.

    A sudden quirk led me to thinking that if one believes in Heaven, perhaps the smoke was still taking souls to their destination.

    It came to mind that the hijackers figured they were going to Heaven for some serious partying and right hand time.

    This solitary redhead standing there wondered what those who perished due to the hijackers actions might have to say about that if they could/would care to comment.

    I said as much to a seagull who was sharing my wharf. His comment was to take flight and take a dump right then and there.