Well, for those of us who live and work in Vietnam, we are now required to get our work permits. The process is much easier now but for me, it is taking a bit longer than expected.
Today, my local ward police signed two documents stating that I lived in my house over 6 months. I will need this form before the Judiciary Department would start my criminal background check. Normally you needed to provide copies of your housebook but we were told to get this documents as well so it could speed up the background check process.
Getting the necessary documents from my ward police was not easy. Since they never processed this request before, they asked us to create the document ourselves. Our first document, submitted by my landlord, was not approved. With their help, I edited the form, with the help of my Vietnamese IT students, with their inputs and submitted this form to the ward police yesterday afternoon. Before they would sign it, though, they wanted me to submit to them a labor contract from my company. I provided this today and they signed and stamped my document. It will be submitted with my criminal background check application by the end of this week.
In retrospect, if I had the original housebook, the process would have gone faster but the landlord, mistakenly, took it home with him. My landlord also provided another form which was supposed to convince the ward police to sign the documents. They just made a copy of it and gave me the original.
I did not pay a thing for these documents. The ward police were very helpful to me. I gave about one and a half hours of my time but if I had the housebook and my labor contract, it could have been completed in 30 minutes.
Now to get my criminal background check. Next week I will get my health check. When my criminal background check is complete, all the paperwork will be submitted in roughly 1-2 weeks. A service I am using will get my university degrees notarized in Vietnam since I actually have the originals here. The whole procedure should be completed in 2 months.
The process is not painful, yes a bit of a hassle, but still doable. Anyway, I have no choice if I want to remain and work in Vietnam.
Something that I heard that may also help and is oftentimes overlooked.
Before you LEAVE your current country of residence for Vietnam:
GET A CRIMINAL RECORD OF YOUR CURRENT COUNTRY.
I hope this helps!
Dylan Duong
follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dylanduong
And make sure the Secretary of State in your state notarizes it and then mail it to the Vietnam Consulate for another stamp as well.
Still, the process should not be that difficult here.
got mixed up with the comment… posted on the previous entry… oooops
@riina: No problem 🙂
just curious …. why do they need the criminal record for?
For obvious reasons. There are Expats who commit crimes and then move overseas. This is one way to keep them out.
Hey Kevin….mind sharing what service you are using to get your Uni Degree notarized?