Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing visas in a general context. Every once in a while I like to try to do a general piece just on Immigration, just my thoughts strange as it sounds, philosophically on Immigration.

I was recently reading a biography of Chiang Kai-shek and there was a statement in the book or I should say there was a sentence in the book talking about General Chiang Kai-shek and they were talking about how at many points during his time during the Chinese Civil War, he had to “trade space for time” and I thought that was really interesting. In a modern context, his situation was viewed very much as a loss and I definitely see why it was viewed that way but if you view things as he was fighting a rear guard action the whole time, you can look at his situation a little bit differently. There is a little bit more nuance there where he was “trading space for time” in order to accomplish certain goals on and off the battlefield in order to consolidate his position.  

I bring this up because oftentimes folks when they are talking about visas, I think sometimes folks have a little bit of the wrong attitude about visas because I think people view them as, there is a kind of a misconception that visas are a formality and that therefore they don't really need to be viewed as overly important. I do think that that paradigm has shifted a lot especially in the last year where Immigration to Thailand, to the United States, to really any place in the world has become fundamentally more complicated than it was say in the 4th quarter of 2019. 

That stated, and the reason for this video is I think people would benefit by viewing visas as an exchange of money and in certain ways resources in the sense of having to prove up one's eligibility for a Visa, “money and resources in exchange for time” because that is what you are getting. When you ask for a Visa, you are seeking time in a certain place. If you wish to be in the United States and perhaps you are going to gain Permanent Residence, yes there can be some money involved in that and there can be some expensive resources including but not limited to needing to get documentation, needing to get certain things translated. A number of things can go into gaining an Immigrant Visa to the United States. At the same time, standard non-immigrant Visas to Thailand, for example Business Visas and the ability to work in Thailand, yes it can cost some money and cost some resources to go ahead and get that kind of status. So, in a very real sense it is kind of a Value for Value trade, a barter if you will, in the sense of something intangible in the form of money and in the form of resources expended to prove up eligibility and something kind of intangible in terms of time. 

So, I hope this video makes sense to folks and again I don't wish to make something that is relatively routine or for lack of a better term kind of mundane, into something seemingly esoterically or philosophically complex, but I was thinking about it the other day and I just decided to go ahead and make this video.