Mark and I have been married for over 29 years. We don’t worry much about the legal aspects of marriage except during tax season. Spiritually, marriage is a lasting commitment of energy, love, and friendship between a man, a woman, and God. The legal parts are really just the undertone. In fact, we were so unconcerned about the legalese, that after going through the proper channels to get our marriage license and have it filed with the appropriate governmental official, we never even bothered to get a certified copy of said document. We never needed it. People took us at our word that we were married. After a number of years and children, we didn’t even have to give our word, we just looked married…to each other.

Well that all changed with our moving to Taipei. In order to receive alien residence status, and Mark and I have always wanted to be designated as aliens, we had to prove that we were in fact married. It is a law designed to keep young women from other Asian countries from being imported as maids, sex slaves or whatever. There are also other indignities to be suffered through, but none so fun as proving that we were married.

Step one: We realized that we had never acquired an official notarized copy of our license, so we had to obtain one from Marshall County, Iowa. A few days and a few dollars, later, the beautifully designed government certificate arrived with all its official stamps and seals.

Step two: After arriving in Taipei, we had to present ourselves to the American Interest Center. What happens here is not a knock on the Taiwanese people; it is a US government facility. We got there about 11:45 in the morning. We turned over our cell phones and laptops to security and then went through the metal detector. It took a while since I made the mistake of wearing a blouse with metal buttons. When we cleared security, the guard apologized to us about the long wait we would have. We got upstairs to the room we were directed to. Chairs lined the walls and every one was occupied. It was 11:55. The solitary American clerk ignored us until noon then cheerfully announced that it was lunch time and we would just have to wait until 1:30. Take a seat. We waited.

Step three: Lunch was finally over. We were in a line now that snaked into the hall. Fortunately we were at the front. The clerk asked what we wanted. We said that we needed to get the documents to prove we were married. We had to go to another line to pay $30 American before we could proceed. We paid, we waited. A few minutes later we were called to another window. Mark had to raise his right hand and affirm that he was married to me. Then they stamped the form and sent us away. The wait was over two hours but watching Mark swear that he was married to me was priceless. As we left I told him that this was even better that a ceremony to reaffirm our vows.