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

I can't agree more. Remember, Mark is still reading posts on this site, and to make degratory assumptions about his wife could very well make a painful situation for him even more painful - especially if he believes the assumptions to not be true. And we've got to admit, none of us know better than Mark what is really true here.

I've had the same question a couple of times, but instead of getting upset, I kind of laughed and thought to myself 'Ha...silly Americans'.....hmmm...wait...I'm a...oh never mind.

One thing always gets me thinking when I read mention of sending back to China in threads. It seems to be that once our SO gets here, and for some reason it doesn't work out, the assumption is that she would want to stay here. Well, that assumption certainly can not be made for everyone. I know for sure if my wife were to ever leave me, the first thing she would want to do is go back to China. No one would have to send her.

Before our baby was born, the Chinese calendar (along with a few other things) told her (and her family) that we were going to have a boy. After everyone was convinced we were having a boy, but of course we actually had a girl. My wife explained to me that the Chinese calendar prediction doesn't work when one of the parents isn't Chinese.

Excellent advice David, Lele. One thing I want to caution against the possibility of giving your wife an ultimatum. One thing you'll NEVER want to do is ask your wife to choose unilaterally between you and her father (i.e. giving up ties to her father/family). If she's anything like my wife, her ties with her family are substantial, and she simply could not, in effect, abandon her family. It doesn't at all lessen your importance to her. It only shows how important, also, her family is to her. The fact that she's here with you now shows how important you are...but don't let the situation become such that something else very important to her (her father/family) is abandoned. Don't give up on her, just as her father isn't giving her up, and just as she isn't giving up on both of you....this has got to be worked out through comprimise. Although, if I were in your situation, I think the best thing to do would be for both of you to live near her family in China for a while, I can understand how a new couple starting out may percieve this as a daunting task. But given the alternatives, this may be the best course in the long run. Again, good luck.

Read into this actual conversation between me and my wife and guess who's REALLY in charge... her: What's this? me: Root Beer. her: BEER???!!! me: It's not really beer...it's Root Beer... her: Then why does it say BEER?!!! me: I don't know.... me: ....try it! her: ...it tastes like beer! me: No it doesn't!?! Later that day: her: I checked with my friend's husband, and he said that Root Beer isn't really beer.

I thought that was wierd too...at first. I understood better when we switched places. We were in the airport at Guangzhou when I saw a huge display poster of a guy's face in a clothing store's window. I mentioned something about it, and my wife said 'That's Andy Lau' (she actually said his Chinese name, which I don't remember at the moment). When said 'Who's Andy Lau?' she gave me a kind of a strange look 'He's very famous' she said. I didn't even know who Wong Fay (or Faye Wong) was until I chose her CD from a Beijing CD store just because I liked the cover photo. My wife did know who Michael Jackson was, though.

Unfortunately, this is good advice. It's rather nerve-wracking that the future of our love-life hangs on a thread until we get that visa.... 146082[/snapback] Yes...excellent advice. While my SO was still in China, she was very excited about her future plans and told everyone about it. For the most part (about 99%), everyone was very happy for her and supportive of her. But there were a few people at her work she described as 'jealous', and gave her a hard time. She eventually quit that job. I just now put two and two together and realize it a big part of the reason she quit that job. It just shows that not everyone will be as happy as your SO about what he/she's doing. ...And then there's that cab driver...he really wasn't happy. If only I would have known what he was saying at the time!

Mife doesn't listen to much western music - she tends to stick with the the Chinese pop music. I remember when we first met - I asked her if she likes the Beatles...she said 'who?' The Chinese music I tend to listen to is Wong Faye, and some of the classical stuff.

I think the first time my wife tried cheese was a few years ago on a pizza in Shanghai. Since coming here she's found that she really does like cheese, but not as much as I do. I had a hard time finding cheese in China except for in the larger supermarkets. I remember reading in a thread a couple of years ago about fiancee's interview in China in which the interviewer, having noticied that her SO in US went to the University of Madison, asked the fiancee if she liked cheese. She said she didn't know, but she was sure she could learn how to cook it. However, just last week I went to the county fair and saw...yes...deep fried cheese curds.