leejcandle

ahhming888, Which box was checked of the items on the 3rd page? In Julia's case, it was the box specifically indicating the unmarried certificate. Besides returning the form, the only extra evidence they got (besides what she took to GZ) was the letters from myself and my lawyer.

Only and hour would be nice. I told her to be prepared for a long wait. So I booked tickets after 10:00 PM, just in case. I think this will be her first international flight. So she would have not expected the sort of lines we see at immigration; especially after a full flight arrives. I plan for us to go to a customer service counter after she gets out to see if we can jump on an earlier flight out. But when I came back in September, I had to wait until after 1:00 AM the next morning to leave. Thanks for the input. I'll cross my fingers for an hour or less.

I'd like her to re-check her backage with me, because we'll be coming here on the same flight. I want to first check for availability on an earlier flight out of there; I bought reservations on the 00:30 flight on the 7th. She has only two full size suitcases (none of the big trunks, etc). Now that I think of it; she won't be able to re-check her bags on her own, because I'll have the domestic tickets. Studying the map (Thanks ): We'll be departing from Terminal 4; not a long walk from Terminal 5. I gave her a cell phone. Hopefully she'll be able to use it to locate me after they release her from customs. (I may have sent it too early; the batteries may not last.) I think a lot depends on where the security checkpoint is; since I have tickets. I came back on the same scheduled flight after my visit in September. The passengers will be 99% Chinese. Knowing her personality, she'll have made a handful of friends during the flight. I'll be there at least 3 hours before she arrives. But I want to tell her what to expect. We'll be out of contact after Sunday at around 7:00 AM CST (her flight leaves Guangzhou at 9:15 PM their time.)

For those familiar with LAX (I've been a passenger through there only 3 times): My Julia is coming in on China Southern Sunday evening. I'm going to fly to LAX to wait for her, and fly her to Austin. The last time I made the same flight, it took 12 hours to finally get back to Austin (late departing flights tend to fill up; I had to get something a little after midnight; stopover in DFW.) Where can I wait for her? Is the exit from customs where you get your bags inside the secured area? I don't remember my steps to re-check my bags in for the domestic leg(s). Also, is it possible (or even necessary) for me to give my contact information to the immigration folks?

oregonknl, I'm going to carrying her around the house beginning next week. She arrives in LAX Sunday afternoon. I'm going to meet her there, and we'll fly back here together. Talking about communication speed; we had a very speedy real-time dialog on Yahoo Messenger last night. She was on the phone with a travel agent, telling me what was being said; me adding comments or making points she need to emphasize with the agent. Our fingers were burning up the keyboard(s) It's interesting how far we've gone with messenging since her first baby steps with a computer. As her English improves; there will be times when we get on Yahoo right here in the house when we have something important to discuss.

Thanks everyone. She has her visa; and her flight is probably halfway to Nanning at this time. Hopefully she'll be here early next week. Thanks again.

Thanks guys and gals. This ordeal has brought us closer as a couple as the weeks pass. After her initial blue slip last week, I and her family spent days trying to get her spirits back in the fight. I advised her that inspite of what happened, the best response is to rush back in the consulate (with the corrected paperwork) is quickly as possible. I even suggested she watch a Kung Fu movie to help get her fighting spirit back. I also assured her that if she had another setback, I'd be in China the next week. I think the fact that we would be together soon, no matter what, helped her be more fearless. Then yesterday, it was I; pacing and having knots in my stomach as if I were waiting for a baby to be born. When afterwards she told me she had to sit and watch as 6 people in front of her were rejected, I gained even more respect for her ability to stand in the face of adversity; especially after she was so dispirited last week. She's walking 6 inches over the ground now. (At least I get that impression on the web cam.) Thanks again folks.

Congratulations!!!

Wow!! You guys are on the ball; I just now hit the button on the post, and there are two responses! I'm going to congratulate some other folks.

But she had a frightening time...6 people ahead of her were rejected. So she had to sit through that, in mounting fear She was very relieved to be successful. She just a few minutes ago waved the paper to show me on the web cam; big grin quite evident.

Some of these people tried to snag my Julia after she got her blue slip. They told her their fee was $1000 to "fix her problem". I told her "no way"; I would spend $1000 on a plane ticket than pay those sheisters; and didn't need them anyway. ... I'll reveal the reason in a new topic

There is another aspect to the tape (two of us in my case) that I like. Another person unfamiliar with the relationship can see how you behave together; body language, facial expressions, etc. My niece looked at our tape and said "She really does love you." I trust that any others looking at our interaction would draw the same conclusion.

Congratulations!!! I hope we have the same result.

We're going through a similar situation. My SO got a blue slip because she doesn't speak English. (She also had an expired unmarried cert.) Hang in there. Don't give up.

I think one problem was that once she got flustered, she couldn't think on her feet. Maybe the consulate wants to test her, to make sure she's sincere (I know she's sincere.) I told her the best thing to do is get her unmarried certificate updated, and go back to Guangzhou and face them as soon as possible. She's better now, emotionally. We now just need to execute.

My fiancee got the "insufficient evidence of relationship" slip yesterday. The VO asked if she could speak English. My SO said no. The translator comes, then asked if she could speak English. My SO got confused and emotional, and the interview went downhill from there. So it can cause a problem. I wrote a long email letter to the consulate explaining that she and I use Mandarin to communicate, and that the evidence she had with her (including emails and chat logs in Chinese, and a video tape) should be sufficient. I want her to go back next Monday. Needless to say, she's very discouraged.

Congratulations!!

Congratulations!!

that is almost impossible to do, i tried that but no ssn no signature sorry...can i get another atm? no sorry. So i opened one for my son and gave her that ATM card. I created a sub-account on my account. I can have a Visa-Check-ATM card; she can have a simple ATM card; I gave her that. I just transfer money into the account when necessary. But there are transaction fees: $1.50 per withdrawal.

It seems worse the last few days. The power is staying off during the dark hours. Yesterday, my fiancee tried going to a friend's house so we could chat, but her friends power was off too. She just sent me a text message describing how bad she feels alone in the dark, watching the candles melt. In September, the noise from the streets, and the fact that we were together made it bearable. But now (it's too cold to open the windows) she's having to bear it alone in silence. This has really been a drag for her. The little cell phone for text messaging has been more of a lifeline than we thought. I replied with sweet words about our happy future; hopefully to help downplay some of the inconvenience and loneliness so she can sleep. This has really become a drag for her the last few days.

I'll look around online today. I saw some things on YesAsia.com, but I'm afraid they'll be from Hong Kong, thus be written in Traditional text and Cantonese collquial style. I'm hoping to read Simplified text in Mandarin colloquial flavor. I'm waiting for an idioms book I bought from Amazon.com. Maybe once that's here, I'll have something to bite into.

When I was studying Japanese, it was often suggested to me to use Japanese comics (Manga) as an aid to studying the language. Manga can come in age-appropriate titles, so us grown guys could find material meant for grownups, not children or adolescents. I'm wondering if the same can be said for Chinese comics. It had occured to me to try finding Chinese language novels, but graphic novels or comics might be easier to follow for a student of the language. Is it possible to find comics from the Mainland (for simplified script) that are interesting and useful as an aid for studying Mandarin?

I had my SO get a cell phone early in our relationship; so that we could use text messaging, and not be dependent on paid translators. So when her electricity goes out (did again this evening, no surprise), we trade SMS messages as our fall-back.

My fiancee lives in the Northern part of Nanning. I think it's older, and maybe the infrastructure is outdated. I thought maybe they have substations that have breakdowns. Or maybe in fact they were having planned outages for construction. This wasn't always a problem. We've known each other since October 2003. I stayed in a hotel in December-January; never a problem. I was there in her apartment in March, and there was only an occassional problem. She got her computer in May. The power problems seems to have becoming annoying sometime during the summer. I initially (from my seat in Texas) attributed that to overloading due to air conditioning. But having been there in her apartment for a few weeks in September, the regularity of power outages in her district was very inconvenient. (I could see lights on in neighboring districts during the night outages.) Certainly, she can have power outages for days in succession (not continuous; off in the morning, on again in the afternoon). I remember at least twice the power being off into the late evening darkness. So depending on where the young lady in question lives; the power can be on all the time, or cut off regulary.

When I was in Nanning for 3 weeks in September, the power went off routinely. It seemed to go out at the same time in the morning, be out until the afternoon. I figured there was some sort of construction going on. One time the power was still off when we returned to the apartment after dark. The water was out once or twice. I found that my sweetie had already developed a routine for dealing with the power problems; especially on hot afternoons. She would either nap on the cool concrete floor with a tatami mat; or go out shopping. (I initially didn't understand why someone would want to get on a concrete floor with only a thin mat; but the coolness of the concrete helps when the AC is unavailable. Neat coping tactic.) Sometimes even now the power will be cut off while we're chatting. If she doesn't come online at her usual time; I'll send her a text message and inquire about the power. Today she went to a friends house to chat with me; because the power was out in her district. So if anyone in Nanning tells you they often have power outages; I can vouch for it from personal experience.