Tom

:roller:

I can relate well (except for the smelling of the bathrooms part - I'm trying to not think about that so much). The rest is good, though.

I heard they'll take either as proof, but they request that it placed in a plain brown paper envelope.

Ha! I never realized! There were 22 items I actually agreed with. I got a kick out of the one 'When your girlfriend is talking to you, you respond with "HMMMM" or "UHH-HHUUUUH" and believe that those are intelligible answers'. At first, whenever my wife replied with the kind of 'uuuhhh' sound, I always had to think 'did that mean yes?', but now I find myself doing it - but not just with her - it's with everyone else too. And I DO have those little Chinese health balls at my desk. Except, I don't like chicken feet - I tend to stay out of the house when they are being cooked - terrible smell. It seems sometimes when my wife does things for her friends, she gets the chicken feet as a kind of gift of gratitude. All I can think of is "gee - thanks "

I was at a tube station in London once when I noticed a queue of about 40 to 50 Japanese visitors snaking its way out of the doorway of the station and around the corner. They were queued up to purchase their underground tickets from an automated ticket dispensing machine at the station. By my example of walking past them and purchasing my own ticket, I showed them there were an additional two machines directly next to the machine they were standing in line to use that dispensed exactly the same tickets, thereby causing a mass exodus to the other two machines.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story...1593217,00.html

Wow...I can't wait to see the looks I get from my female friends when I tell them we're friends because I want to have sex with them... I'll bet they didn't know that... Heck...I didn't even know that until just now...

My wife uses different names depending on who she's talking to. For the Westerners in the US, she goes by Jinny (the name given to her in her English class by a Western teacher in China). For the Chinese people in the US, she goes by her Chinese 'Gao Jing Li'. In China, she goes by her Chinese name. Our daughter has somewhat of the same scenario. For the Westerners in the US, she is called Lily. For the Chines People in the US, she is called her Chinese name 'Gao Li Li'. In China, she is called her Chinese name. In China I'm called Tomu, or Gao Mung Li, or sometimes Da Pi Gu.

I added my wife as co-owner when I refinanced.

Good idea Jesse - done. (Yours will go much faster than mine - I was stuck in the original name check black hole. For some reason my wife's name check had to be done twice). Looking back now, it seems like the time went by very quickly - but at the time it seemed VERY slow. But the waiting time most assuredly will end. And the result will most definitely be worth the wait.

Welcome Greg!

GREAT NEWS LEE!!!

Great points! I see all these traits in my wife. (1) Food: My wife eats 90% Chinese food. Of that, she prepares almost all of it herself (she doesn't like the food in our 'Chinese' restaurants). I eatChinese food for 90% of my meals (and that's ok - she's a great cook). (2) Entertainment: She ONLY watches Chinese movies and TV series. (3) Living: "A lot of Chinese husbands share the bulk of the housework and are expert cook." - I'm in trouble here (4) Finance: "cannot understand why Americans have such high credit card debt." - In trouble here too (4) Communications: "Deep and mutual understanding of each other's feeling is much more than the language itself" - Great point! I'd like to stress "getting to know the Chinese culture might help her transition period once she arrives". This isn't a one way street - it's not just your SO assimilating to your culture. To understand her, you've got to understand his/her culture. If you respect your SO, have a respect and understanding for his/her culture and be open to accepting new ideas and new ways of looking at things and doing things.

Wecome Back! Now the fun really begins!

Hi Lee, One thing that helped my wife with the adjustment was my enabling and encouraging her to become surrounded with all those little things from her culture that give her a kind of comfort factor. As an example, I knew that while she was still in China, she liked watching these sort of mini-series shows on CCTV. I knew that was something she would miss, so I hooked her up with 17 channels of Chinese satellite television she can watch here. She thinks it's great, and catches up with the news in China and those mini-series shows every evening. Another example is food. This is probably one of the biggest things my wife misses about China. As we all know, the food in the Chinese restaurants here isn't really even close to what it is in China. My wife prefers her own cooking to the food in the Chinese restaurants. To do this, she'll need to stock up on everything she needs to do cooking just like she did back home. We end up going to the Chinese market at least once a week or more. Another thing that has helped my wife out with the transition is developing friendships with many of the Chinese people in the area. She really enjoys being able to talk with people in Chinese whenever she can. We've got a circle of about 30 friends from China that we visit or talk with on an almost daily basis. She also calls home to talk with family or friends back in China a few times a week. It's important to be cognizant of your wife's culture. She'll be delighted that you know about and recognize such things as Chinese holidays, traditions, history, etc. Beyond that, what would make her very happy is for you to learn her language (or, as in my case, at least show effort in trying to learn the language). One thing that always helps me to try to understand what she's going through is for me to imagine what it would be like for me if I were to have been the one to leave home. Although I didn't live in China as long as some of you, I have been there long enough at times to have 'settled in' and feel as if I had indeed moved there. Although the Chinese food was great, I couldn't help but to wish for a pizza or taco at times (we were living in an area where such foods were just not available). And although the Chinese television was 'ok', I missed some of my favorite shows I used to watch. I know these type of things are small in the greater context of what was going on, but it's the accumulation of these small things that give us our comfort level, and ultimately get us over the bigger hurtles of culture shock. Don't expect her to become 'Americanized', and don't expect her to remain 'Chinese'. She'll adjust in her own way, at her own pace. The adjustment can't be rushed, and it can't be held back. For her to be comfortable in the process, she has to do it her own way. The most you can do is to be understanding and try to be as helpful as possible to her during the adjustment process. Best Wishes, Tom