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After 4 Gruelling Hours....PINK!!!!!!!

plim

By plim,
in Interview Results

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plim

plim

Posted
Posted (edited)

first of all i just wanna say thank you to everyone! its been a journey indeed and I'm sure the results would not have been the same without CFL. I cannot express how grateful i am so in return ill try to be as detailed as possible in my write-up for the interview and hopefully it will be helpful to at least 1 other person if not more.

 

it all started with a flight from SF to LA. spending 12 hours in LA then leaving again to the airport the same day to fly out to guangzhou, but not without a stop over in seoul for 3 hours. with some work and scheduling we were able to meet at the airport in guangzhou, luckily the flights arrived only 1 hour apart so i didnt have to wait too long (she flew in from nanjing).

 

from the airport we took bus 6c to the first stop. we were greeted by our host who took us on the short walk to the apt we had rented. we stayed at the concordia apartments, really close to the consulate and clean/friendly hosts. for 220RMB/night we get a 1 bedroom with living room, tv, free laundry, mini kitchen with microwave and refrigerator. there's also a pool downstairs for those who want to take a dip. apparently we were in the lucky pink room, the person staying in our room before us also scored pink. if you want more info about this spot, send over a PM.

 

after a good rest, the next day was spent preparing/organizing/reviewing all our paperwork. after dinner we went over possible interview questions and were feeling pretty confident at this point. we spent the rest of the day relaxing and finding our way to the consulate to make sure we wouldn't get lost (difficult to get lost when you're only 2 minutes walking distance to the consulate, but just to be safe). we also had a little chat with pijie and another guest who just passed her interview the day before, it was nice to chat with them, made us feel a little better about our case, then off to bed for a nice rest before the big day.

 

our appointment was 7:30, we arrived there at 7:15 and the lines were already miles long, but no worries, we knew it had nothing to do w/ the interview order once inside. they let us into the building around 8:00, we made our way up to the 4th floor where we were separated, and at 8:15 i started the long wait at the cafe. during this time, i saw a few come down with tears, but most were pink that day. anyone else think the people on the 4th floor are hilarious? party A "exit is this way!" party B "no, its this way! its closer!" party C "do you need plane tickets?" made me realize i was back in China. Also, paying 49 for juice and peanuts/crackers was another highlight of the wait, the juice only lasted 5 minutes, the peanuts lasted the whole 4 hours and the crackers were taken to-go. most of my time was spent trying to pass time faster by playing games on my phone. finally sophia came out with a BIG smile, and thats all i needed to see, PINK PINK PINK! anyone else notice how 001 calls it the RED paper instead? I guess RED is more meaningful for them, which reminds me, i strongly encourage everyone to wear those red undies, it worked for us! hehehe.

 

so here's how it went down inside:

 

after an hour of waiting they called her up by name to a window. greeted by a chinese employee, they collected her medical package plus the i864 and accompanying tax return photocopy. at this point you give them the joint-sponsors forms as well. at this time they also asked her a few questions. "have you visited any other countries? are you part of the CCP? do you speak english?" she answered no, no, yes. then they gave her a slip to pay for the visa fee and return with the receipt to get a number to be called again.

 

another hour later, the second time she got called was for fingerprinting by a fancy machine. then she got another number and wait for the interview.

 

she met some others from the 001 board and had good company, im sure this helped her with her nerves a lot, instead of just waiting on her own.

 

finally at 12ish she got called up for the interview. her VO was a very nice tall, caucasian man. she made it an effort to greet him first, "hi, how are you?" "fine, and you" "im fine, thank you."

 

the VO asked her if she could speak english, no problem for my sophia, her english is great, so her english was conducted in english the whole time. she thinks the VO was tired from speaking chinese all day, she noticed almost all his interviews were in chinese.

 

"may i have your passport?"

handed over the passport

 

"what is your petitioners name?"

"my husband's name is ____"

 

"how did you meet each other?"

"we worked together as graphic designers at ____"

 

"he was born in switzerland? what's his background"

"what do you mean by background?"

"why was he born in switzerland?"

"because....blah blah......." (we think he was testing her knowledge about my family history, which is pretty complicated, she did great, she told him everything we went over because we had a suspicion that this might come up since my family also immigrated to the US from switzerland) she also offered a letter we had written about my family history but he didn't want to see it.

 

"so what is your husband doing now?"

"part time school/freelance graphic designer"

 

"do you have photos?"

"yea, i have two photo books, one is about me and my husband, another one is about our families and friends with us"

he looked at a few pages casually then returned them, no questions.

 

at this point he is already getting the pink paper out.

 

“ok, so where is he living now?"

"he is living in SF now"

"with his parents?'

"no, he lives by himself"

"so where do his parents live now?"

”they are living in xxxx"

 

"ok, your case is approved"

"thank you very much"

 

no questions about my brother (joint sponsor), which surprised us. after this she was sent to a window to make arrangements for delivery. we chose to pick up at the local guangzhou postal office for 20rmb.

 

after the pink, we haven't been able to stop smiling and just feeling a ton of weight fall off our shoulders. we had an awesome meal that night, but somehow i still couldn't feel totally at ease since we didn't have the visa in hand yet. our interview was on the 24th so we knew at the earliest we'd have it by the 26th. on the 25th around 8pm we checked our EMS package at: http://www2.183gz.com.cn/company/ems/ems_ptyf.php?from=home and it showed delivered at 5:44pm that day! we were syked, woke up early to pick up the package on the 26th and everything was in order. we couldn't have asked for a smoother process, we really feel blessed and lucky.

 

now we're off to her hometown to get ready for the big move. we just wanna say thank you again CFL, without you we couldn't have done it.

Edited by plim (see edit history)
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bob&haiqing

bob&haiqing

Posted
Posted

:cheering: CONGRATULATIONS :cheering:

Peter and Sophia, way to go! Haiqing and I are happy to hear your results were PINK.

 

Haiqing's interview yesterday wasn't until 12:00 pm, what time was Sophia's? ... made me a little crazy :cheering: wondering what was happening while waiting in the coffee shop from 8:00 am until she finally came down at about 12:45 pm ... make you a little crazy too? :cheering:

 

We hope you both have a wonderful future!

Bob & Haiqing

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