Consular Corner Creative Writing Contest Winners!

April 2, 2010 By in Consular Work, Foreign Service, Functional Bureaus, Funnies, Poetry, Visas
Remember the Consular Corner’s Consul General, Pig, Monkey Creative Writing Contest  last month?  Well, CC has some winners, including Diplopundit’s “A Day in a Life of Pig, Consul General and Monkey King” as Grand Champion for the “Poetry | Other” category. That’s cool, huh?!

 “Consul General Linda Donahue shows Monkey and Pig
how easy it is to use the new DS-160 online visa application form.”
Photo from US Embassy Beijing
Pig once visited a popular consular-magical window
Full of spring moon charm and sadness and sorrow
Nobody, but nobody knew if she was from Kyoto.
The Consul General, the almost Brigadier General
Politely sat without a grumble, listening, listening
To Pig’s enchanting oink and ever expanding gamble:
The piglets, the piglets are all alone in the castle!
Monkey King, the one great sage of consular corner
Gave Pig a glance that clacked and clattered like an anchor
And quiet innocently asked the gentle Consul General,
If these piglets are all weaned and marvelous as chow chow,
Why, why would Pig wail about their being alone just now?
Thank you judges! Diplopundit is in fantastic company.  There is the top winner, “K-Visa Delight” (set to the tune of “Afternoon Delight“) by Paul Mayer, the Consular Section Chief of US Consulate General Montreal.  We have previously posted Paul here in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake when he blogged about his experience at DipNote.  His KV Delight is absolutely wonderful! Verse 1 below; see if you can sing it along with the tune.  Now, we just need somebody to sing and record this for YouTube.  Perhaps the guys in London who did the Lonely Hearts Scam Division video would take this on?

Gonna get your K-visa, baby hold on tight

Gonna do your DS-160 tonight
We meet while gaming online, we both love to fight
Playing World of Warcraft online each and every night.

Another winner is “Chicken Little and the DS-160” in the allegory category (aka “laughter as antidote to extreme frustration” category) submitted by an anonymous immigration attorney. Excerpt below. Read on, I think you’ll see why its anonymous: 

“The system is falling? How do you know the system is falling?” the Consul General asked.

“Well, Pig Wig told me,” said Goosey Loosey.

“Monkey Bunkey told me,” said Pig Wig.

“Chicken Little told me,” said Monkey Bunkey.

“I tried to save my data but things were so slow that my form timed out!” said Chicken Little.

The Consul General turned to his email inbox and glanced at an update from Consular Affairs.

“Chicken Little, the system isn’t falling. The connectivity issues with the DS-160 have been resolved.”

All the animals laughed, and the Consul General laughed, too. Then CA held a press conference announcing that there would be no more problems with the DS-160 and the world laughed, too.

The Grand Champion in the Haiku category is Angela Pan of U.S. Embassy, Beijing.  The Grand Champion for the Limerick category is Brian Bolton, a former Foreign Service Officer.  I did not have time to request reprint permission but you can read the full text for all the winners here.

Thank you, Liam! That was fun!