The Jeff

I think most restaurants wait to give new employees the W-4. With such a high turnover rate, it makes sense to see if they will stay with the job and are worth the paperwork.

if she has a green card, no need to renew the visa. If her Chinese passport has expired, she needs to get it renewed at the nearest Chinese consulate or embassy. US passports are only issued to US citizens. She may apply for a US passport after she has become a naturalized US citizen.

No - anyone with an American passport - Chinese, American, or anywhere else - will need a visa. Some Chinese-Americans have (originally) Chinese passports, and do not need visas, unless they have become American citizens. A child born in the US to Chinese citizen parent(s) may get a Chinese (or American) passport. Anyone born in the US is an American citizen by birth and may get an American passport. Regardless, Chinese Americans are still just Americans, right? So a Chinese American Child would have to provide a birth certificate to obtain a visa whereas a non Chinese American would not?

http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/hzqz/zgqz/t84246.htm http://www.oasischinavisa.com/tourist_visa.html I'm not quite sure I understand. A Chinese child born in the US will have to provide an original and a copy of a birth certificate in order to obtain a Chinese visa? Wouldn't that make him or her an American Child? Chinese children need Chinese passports, not visas right?

How can people complain that it was faked when the producers of the event admitted that the flyover was computer generated imagery? You might as well blame Stephen Spielberg for making fake sharks and dinosaurs.

I agree. Do your first two years at a community college. It's not only cheaper, but it gives you time to find out what the best major for you would be. Community colleges offer the same classes in general education that universities offer. They also tend to be easier (at least in California), with no +- grade qualifications. This basically means that an A- is the same as an A+. In the long run, it can improve your GPA by quite a margin, which increases your chances for getting into a good University. During those first two years, take some business classes that fulfill general education requirements (Economics, Statistics, etc). A business major is a good general degree if you don't know exactly what you want to get into. And when you eventually transfer to a university, you still have a year to declare a major.

The first job my lady had here was as a private Chinese tutor. She posted some ads on Craigslist and replied to some ads in her College's job board. We are both students, and now she works part time as a hostess at a Chinese Buffet. To get that job, she went to all the Chinese joints in town. She applied to those that were the most popular and seemed to be busy.

hmmm...separate bank accounts, eh? Well, I suppose it all depends on your culture and background. If you want her to share, why not just put all your money into her bank account. That way she'll have more money to use. You might also get her to do all the bills, that way she'll know more about American life. You could then have more time to pursue your hobbies. When you give her all of your money, it also serves to build trust and evidence for if/when you decide to file for citizenship. Anyway, good luck to whatever you decide.

Say my wife and I adopt our little cousin (he's 5). Could he gain US citizenship immediately? And once he is 18 and a citizen, could he sponsor his birth parents to immigrate to the US? ...It isn't visa fraud when its a family member, right?

That has to be the best movie ever. Try emule. They got tons.

If you have a laptop that was made in the 2000s, then yes it will be able to be used in China. You just have to buy a cord in any electronic mall in China that will fit the outlets.

Right now it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain tourist visas in Hong Kong because of the upcoming Olympics. The best thing to do would be to just get your business visa extended. If you are in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou, you can hire agencies that will do all the work for you.

Just do nothing. The same thing happened to us as well. Your wife is already here on a K3 visa, so there is nothing else that needs to be done besides the AOS.

Chest X-Rays! Those are so great! I've made dozens of copies of my wife's after the border guys didn't take 'em. It seemed like the only sensible thing to do. It would have been a waste to just let them sit around.

I bought my copy at Safeway. I liked the map and the articles about architecture.

...uh...no. We've always liked soft mattresses. Hard mattresses are difficult. Though I can understand. Humans like to sleep in a familiar place. If your familiar place is a hard rock, it could be trying to change to softer places.

That is totally true. Every person is different in what they can use. My wife is only comfortable with pinyin input, while most of her friends like (wu bi). For this reason, I only know how to use pinyin input as well.

Just pack it with you in your bags. I've done it. No problems.

My wife is taking a class in US Government as part of her college classes. It is a required class for her major, so hopefully it will help when she has the test...sometime next summer hopefully.

Have you ever seen that movie "Far and Away?" Now that's a good naturalization process. They just get off the boat and are registered to vote.

I know, so would I. Let's start a collection.

I think that "cited" means having a citation. So having a traffic citation would fall into that category. I would list it just to be safe.

So how do you get these special tax transcripts? We've ordered the standard tax transcripts for college financial aid before, but this seems very different.

Also FYI, remember to have them date it with letters for the month of the date that it is notarized. For example, 5/2/2008 should be May 2nd, 2008. I had a problem when I was married because the local marriage office interpreted the date as February 5th, and told me to get a new paper because it had expired. This was of course untrue, but it involved flying to Guangzhou and spending about $800 anyway. Good luck and congratulations on your new life!

I don't understand. So for the citizenship interview, they need your tax transcripts? I thought that income was not a factor in determining the application for citizenship. Why do they need this?