New Life: Korea Lantinga Family: Getting a Korean Driver's License

I got my Korean driver's license last week (and Sam almost got his). And I did this without knowing Korean, taking a driver's education course, a driving test, a written test, or even a test of basic signs. Here's how that whole racket happens.

(1) Request an apostille. This is a legal verification of ... something about having a valid Iowa driver's license. What is seems to say is that some lawyer in Kentucky says some notary public in Kentucky said something about something. Between the Korean and legal-ese American, I have no idea what that's about, but it cost $75. Each. Happily, the Office of International Community Affairs (OICA) on campus arranges for this document and I'm happy to pay the fee. Then wait about 7-10 days.

(2) Gather your apostille, current driver's license, three passport-type pictures, passport, Alien Registration Card, and 20,000 won (about $18).

(3) Find a way to get to the driver's licensing place. Nick drove Sam and I and Yenni (a student translator provided by OICA) to said location, about 45 minutes away.

(4) Take a number. Wait. You are the only foreigners. Get a drink from the cooler; admire its quilted cozy. Browse the pictures in Korean magazines. Watch people failing their driving tests outside the window. Go to the car to get the rusty scissors to cut apart your passport picture sheet. Watch people. Take your picture with the driver's license bureau's friendly green mascot. Ponder the meaning of the bureau's motto.

(5) Hooray - your number comes up on the screen! Go to the counter (if you're a young female, run to the counter with small prancing steps). Nod and smile a lot while the translator talks to the clerk. Hand your documents to the translator, who hands the right ones to the clerk and gives you back the rest.

(6) Repeat steps 4 & 5 a few times - different paperwork and documents, glue your pictures in all the right places on the forms, answer questions about when you went to Canada last year and confirm that you left from the US and not from Canada when you traveled to Korea this May, etc. Go down the hall to get a Health Exam. Worry about what this means.

(7) When directed, sit in a chair by a cubicle. Put a stick thing in front of one eye. A white-coated man points to a number or picture on an eye chart - you say what it is. He appears to understand English. After three numbers/pictures for each eye, he pounds a stamp at least four times on your documents, then uses a different stamp and pounds at least four more times. It doesn't seem to matter if you answer the questions right - Sam called an umbrella a bird, and a horse he called a dog. Pay 4000 won each for this "health exam."

(8) Back to the main waiting area, turn in the health form, wait some more. Nick pulls out his own Korean license to show us, and a Korean man walking by stops to look, admire, smile, and move on. When called, prance (translator) or walk (me and Sam) back to the counter. I sign more forms, agreeing to exchange my Iowa license for a Korean one, but I have the option to do the opposite exchange when I leave Korea so I can legally drive in the US. Pay $12,000 won. I get my license.

(9) Uh-oh. Questions about Sam's age. It ends up that the legal driving age in Korea is 18, so he can't legally drive here until his birthday on October 4. To get a Korean license without taking any tests, etc., he must return with all of today's paperwork EXACTLY ON October 4; if he goes a day earlier, he's not old enough to get a Korean license; if he goes a day later, his Iowa license won't be valid as an exchange and he must take all the Korean driving tests. I do not relay to the translator that Sam will probably just continue to drive illegally for a few more months, and if pulled over he will easily feign ignorance of the Korean language and rules of the road.

(11) I have a license to drive in this country but don't know the rules and can't read many of the signs - they have unusual symbols or I can't read the Korean fast enough before we pass them. I ask Yenni about one of the signs and she wasn't sure what it meant, either. This explains a LOT about driving in Korea.