owenkrout

You are indeed most welcome here, Li. We need more input from the Chinese wives. The purpose of this forum is to share our experiences as we work to blend two sometimes very different cultures.

Actually there are only two internet "pipelines" into China, or at least that was the count a year ago. Both were undersea cables. The government controls both and does occassionally shut down access when they feel the need to do so. Satellite dishes are illegal for the Chinese citizens, sot that route is out unless they are well connected enough. They have an aggressive filtering policy and literally have internet police to monitor what people are accessing but the shear volume overwhelms the system and things still manage to get through, at least for a short time. I used to be able to get through to Western news sources that were not approved, but only for a short time before the proxy address would be discovered and blocked. Of course new ones constantly came back. Certain very popular sites where very aggressively blocked based on that sites address as it came into the country. The Voice of America for instance was particularly difficult to reach. Oddly enough, a few like the Kansas City Star newpaper where just as aggressively blocked. What is blocked or allowed can change overnight as the political winds change.

Learning Pinyin for Chinese is much the same, only in some ways even worse. The familiar letters now have unfamiliar pronunciations and sometimes swap pronunciations from one letter to another. That Pinyin looks even more familiar than the Russian but when you confidently try to pronounce it, nobody in either language has a clue what you are saying!

Great to hear from you again! Jump over to the Culture and Language discussion and make a few posts!

The real is not safety, it is control. They are just using the safety angle as an excuse for further controls on internet access. The internet parlors immediately became a roaring success and a huge headache for the government that wants to control what people are thinking and what they are discussing. Anyone who has lived in China can testify that safety is not a big issue in the minds of the government except in the realm of public order and conformity.

My understanding is that things have not improved. The Bank of America is in the process of laying off most of its Hong Kong employees and moving to Guangzhou as are many others. Back to the question though, my recommendation would be that since you are already living in Hong Kong and intend to stay for a few years, is to get married. Personally, having everything out of the way and my wife getting a green card upon arrival was the way to go. Having said that, your wife may not get permission to live in Hong Kong even after getting married. I know that there are Mainland Chinese couples that one of them has been able to get a work visa for Hong Kong but not the other. They either have to live in Guangdong and have the one working in Hong Kong cross the border everyday or they have to live apart. Couples living apart due to inability to get their residence changed to the same city is not uncommon in China still. I knew some Chinese teachers at an international school that only saw their spouses a couple of times a year because of that problem.

Reminds me of when my wife was waiting for me up east of Haerbin, Heilongjiang province.

One of the big differences. In much of the world the passport is permission to leave the country. China is one of these. A way of controlling emmigration. For the USA, the passport is permission to enter the country unrestricted. A control of immigration. People want to get out of most countries and want to get into the USA.

There is a link at the Links and Resources forum on this: http://candleforlove.com/forums/index....0bfb8ba64f96168 If anyone has some useful new information they can add it there.

At the international high school, I think that all the Chinese students were members of the Pioneers (Youth League). Red scarfs and all. It was basically something that they had to do to maintain face. The Koreans and Japanese students were pressured to be members, but some resisted. Attending certain cadre schools requires party affiliation or outright membership. The correct answer to get a visa is "No". The reason for the question is that membership in the Communist party is grounds for denial of a visa. Fortunately for most people here, myeagy is correct in that most people are not members.

At my first interview and before they knew me or realized that I was married, one of the foreign affairs officers at a college I talked to was offering such. He asked if I needed him to arraign for a live in "housekeeper", (elbow nudge / smile, elbow nudge / smile) "Know what I mean?" Must have had a lucrative side business going on as he asked me later several times if I wanted to go check out the Russian prostitutes.

The consulate makes copies and stamps them with a notice that they have seen the certified originals. I questioned it immediately when they handed the originals back to me at Shenyang. The staff there is cooperative enough that they took the time to explain it to me.

In most states roadkill requires a deer tag the same as if you shot it. The exception is that in many areas the state police can issue a permit on the spot if they are so inclined. I saw the woman in front of me nail a big buck one evening and I stopped to help. She was OK and I used my cell phone to call the police. It counts the same as any other accident and you are supposed to report it or your insurance company can refuse to pay up and technically you could be ticketed for leaving the scene of an accident, though I have never heard of that happening. The buck had a nice rack, which I used to drag him out of the middle of the road and just as I was finishing a guy with a pick-up with gun rack stopped. He stood there and discussed what a nice rack it was with me and just what had happened. Finally, he looks at my Gran Marquis and asks if I need any help tying it on the fender. I just laughed and said, "I was just getting it off the road! You can have it, man!" I then helped him load it in his pick-up. The local county deputy showed up about then and of course knew the pick-up driver. He scolded him for loading it up without a tag, lectured him on it being illegal and then told him to get it out of there before the game warden showed up. He then ticketed the gal that hit it for inattentive driving.

The way you did it is the way that the INS will do it anyway. I did the original paperwork with my wife's name as X as the last name and YZ as the first name with no middle name. From then on anything we got back had Y as a first name and Z as a middle name right through the visa itself, so now her legal first name is Chun which is actually the generation name for her and her siblings. We figured that she is eligable for citizenship in three years so she can change her name at that point if she wants to.

Actually, the satellite systems are not illegal for foreigners, only for Chinese. The general rule is that your wife, even though she is Chinese gets the same perks that you do, so it is ok to have a satellite system. Of course that is officially. What really matters is what the local authorities say. Chances are that they will ignore it for a foreigner. I was told by the foreign affairs officer at the last university that I taught at that they didn't care if I got a satellite system or what I looked at on the internet as long as I wasn't sharing it with the Chinese teachers or my neighbors. I had my eye on one of the satellite dishes that all the Koreans had, but never did find out who the supplier was.

Glad to hear that things are all going smoothly. We need to get by to see you two soon!

The Chinese from the North-East, Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin are definately taller than the rest. I am 5'8" and teaching in Liaoning I was constantly towered over by six foot girls. Average heights up there for the women seem to be at least US standards but the men average about my height. I have one neice who is about six foot and her husband and his brother I would both estimate at about 6'8" and built to go with it! Not a pair of stingbeans! Interesting thing is that despite the average person being considerably bigger, things like bus seats, doorways, chairs, etc. are still sized for the smaller southern Chinese sizes. Guess it is the same mentality that leads to the frozen Northeast not having the central heat turned on until the same time that is considered appropriate for Beijing, November 1st. If it is good enough for Beijing then it is good enough for everyone else!

Interesting.... Maybe I should file an amended return. H&R Block advised me that I could not claim my wife or her daughter that was living with us since they had to be Citizens or green card holders in order to be claimed as dependents.

Been several years ago, but my wife did not have to pay any tax on the ring I mailed to her.

Ditto. We also listed my wife's Chinese address and her last job in China. Abroad does indeed refer to outside of the US.

Much of the country went into a virtual lock-down mode eventually, but only after they could no longer just deny that anything was happening. Cities, Provinces and even villages set up blockaids to turn back anyone who was not a registered citizen of that area and to slap people coming from Beijing or other hot-spots into quarantine. Even the US Consulate had a lot of difficulty in getting permission for staff to come and go from Shenyang on official business. A Chinese source who is in a position to know told us that there were many more people dying in some rural areas than was ever admitted but they were listed as flu deaths. Those who were in the know had been ordered not to talk about the situation. True or not? I don't really know. When the government controls the media, the rumour mill tends to run in overdrive. I do know that on the train ride through the Guangdong Province I noted that there were very high numbers of fresh graves at some villages. (My wife tells me that officially the government requires cremation, but that those who are religious often ignore the regulation) Given all of that, I must say that I never felt at danger in Shenyang. The city government over reacted there after the Beijing mayor got fired but at least they did manage to limit it to only a few cases that were effectively isolated. One college president was fired in Shenyang for trying to cover up a handful of SARS cases in the student body.

You raise a very good point Brian. I know that when I lived in China I could have bought property there, at a somewhat inflated price and would have also needed to go through quite a bit of red tape. If a former Chinese citizen, who is now an American citizen, wants to buy property, I would suspect they would have to go through the same hoops as any other foreigner. Again, this is a good point and pertinent to those who may plan to return to China to live in the future. As far as extended visits are concerned, again I would expect they would be subject to the same laws as a natural born American. I could be wrong, however. Charlotte, any ideas on this? How about you Owen? The question of "ownership" of property in China is one point that might be of importance to some. First of all, no one really "owns" property in China. The government technically owns everything and you only lease it. (30 year lease last time I heard) The lease is supposed to be renewable, but who knows? Most buildings are torn down and something new rebuilt long before 30 years are up nowdays anyway. My wife was discussing that today and pointed out that many people in China are suspicious that if there is a change in leadership, the private ownership could go away again. Her family lost a large fortune and much property to the Communists. BTW, about the dual prices. Those of us Americans who have lived there can testify to there still being multiple prices for the same thing. The local Chinese price is the lowest, and the American price is the highest. The Russian price was only slightly more than Chinese as they are regarded as the poor laowei. Being mistaken for a Russian had some good consequences! We looked at apartments and if I was along it was up to four times the price of what they would quote our daughter if she checked later by herself. Except at the more and more common fixed price stores, the same held true when shopping. After being around enough, we had found vendors that would sell to me at the local price because they knew me and my wife. One word of caution is that even with being naturalized to US citizenship the Chinese government has a marked tendancy to consider them as Chinese and ignore the citizenship issue.

Split bottom pants. Allows them to take care of business wherever with no difficulty. Typically in China the child is never left without mother, grandmother, auntie, sister, cousin, etc (or all the above) in immediate attendance. They are acutely aware of watching for signs they need to relieve themselves and rush them to the sqatter or a bucket. At least most of the time. I commonly saw infants relieving themselves on or alongside the sidewalk. In fact one to the things that is an improvement in the Chinese system over the Western way of doing things is that like America, young parents often both must work to make it, but children normally have family members attending to them. They are not left to strangers and are not left to cry in the playpen. There is no playpen and they are scooped up by an auntie or grandma as soon as they wimper. Making good use of all those unemployed relatives. Our daughter was drafted to live with her cousin to take care of the cousin's newborn. The fact that grandmother and an auntie where there also was just considered normal.

"Have all you guys out there been totally confused by all the contradictory information on the web regarding Chinese attitudes, customs, and daily life??? " Mostly caused by the fact that different regions of China have different attitudes, customs, and daily life. Huge differences between the rural areas and the modern mega-cities. Even big differences between the mega-cities with common contact with the outside world and those that have little. "Three Cantonese language websites, same phrases or words said three different ways, whas up wi dat!" Different dialects. China is filled with mutually unintelligable dialects, most using the same characters to write with. Cantonese is not even the "official" language according to the national government, Mandarian or Putonghua is. "Chinese size 36=? American size?? (Ruwei is 5’3” and weighs 117lbs)" Ah, the problems of converting sizes!! Garment sizes in China may be anything from traditional Chinese system that I never figured out, to European, to American or some weird size that doesn't seem to work with any of those. The result of making clothing for all the rest of the world. "What does a “Traditional Wedding” entail?" All according to where your sweetheart is from and how much she wants to stick to ancient Chinese culture. Unless she chooses the simplicity of just registering with the government, (not likely) it is bound to be a real production and lots of fun.

Becoming a citizen is definately the best route. Changes in the way the political wind blows can always endanger the permanent residents with officials looking for excuses to deport them. Naturalized citizens are legally the same as natural born citizens except for being able to be President. They can only lose their citizenship for immigration fraud.