US Consular Official's Attitude

[Guest fountainhall]

There have been a number of posts about the problems of getting visas for the USA. The experience so put off one of the world’s most prominent opera directors, 72 year old Peter Stein, that he simply refused to fly to New York for a new production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov scheduled for early October at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

 

Mr. Stein said he had pulled out because he felt offended by his treatment at the United States Consulate in Berlin when he applied for a work visa . . . In June he went to the consulate in Berlin for a work visa for the Met job and was forced, he said, to stand for hours in a stifling room with 50 other visa applicants. When he finally reached the consular official, “He said to me, ‘Why don’t you laugh?’ ” Mr. Stein recounted. “I said, ‘I stay here for two and a half hours standing and I am an old man.’”

 

The officer replied, “‘In this case you will not have a visa,’ and sent me away,” Mr. Stein said. Mr. Stein said the experience left him humiliated and deeply offended.

 

Several weeks later he returned and managed to gain the work visa, helped by a Met employee who had flown to Berlin. But the experience rankled, and Mr. Stein sent an e-mail to Mr. Gelb (General Director of the Met) saying he was “terrified and demotivated” out of fear that a similar incident could occur in the United States.

A small matter, perhaps, outside the rarified world of international opera. But the attitude of the Berlin consular official does seem to mirror that of at least some of those in Bangkok, if recent experiences in the Thai English press about tourist visas for Thai wives and others is to be believed.

[Guest GaySacGuy]

It is true that there are some really bad horror stories about visas for the US. It is nice that there are some exceptions, such as PattyaMale has related in the past regarding his boyfriend. I think my Boyfriend will be trying to get a tourist visa to the US this "winter", so hope he has some good luck.