visa run
n.— «Many people who have come to work in Taiwan have had to undertake the inglorious journey of what is commonly called a “visa run,” in order to acquire the necessary status to work here legally. The phrase instantly brings to mind English teachers working here under shady circumstances, but the reality is that economic immigrants to Taiwan in an array of industries find it necessary, at some point, to change their visa status.» —“’Visa run’ on a shoestring” by Mac William Bishop Taipei Times (Taiwan) June 5, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...