jemmyell

Congratulations! -James

Congratulations! -James

I'll add my two cents here. Rather than uprooting her daughter, she is giving her the opportunity for an American College education. These degrees are highly prized worldwide. My 17 year old step daughter is VERY MUCH looking forward to this. In the USA she has had many freedoms and opportunites she has not had in China. She is an A+ student who won 3 awards right out of the gate in a new high school and a new country. Coming to America is probably viewed by your SO as a BIG BENEFIT for her daughter, and I do believe that it is. -James

#130... -James

Actually, it can seldom be said to be the country's fault. In the latest toy recalls, Mattel also shares part of the blame, though, IMO, not the majority of the blame. They should never trust suppliers and need to check to make sure the products were made to specs. Ultimately what Mattel sells to American consumers is mattel's responsibility should anything happen. It isn't actually difficult for them to analyze each batch produced. Mattel should take the blame. Mattel can blame its suppliers and do whatever to penalize the suppliers if they didn't conform to Mattel's design and specified quality standard. However, Mattel is still responsible to its own customers in US. OK,so if Mattel discovers a problem,and they notify the Chinese factory of the problem,won't they be blamed of "complaining" and "pointing the finger" and playing a blame game? Even if its Mattel's fault,they should not accept any more shipments from the Chinese factory. Waiter,theres a fly in my soup. Thread, there is SOMETHING in your soup. I hope it isn't a toy from China!! I think you are missing the point. Mattel is passing the buck. It is MATTEL'S fault that they accepted and marketed the toys in the U.S. If they didn't specify what they wanted, and, if they didn't inspect the goods before accepting and marketing them, THEY are to blame. They should simply quit pointing the finger. End of story. I really agree with this. One of the biggest aspects of quality assurance is receiving inspection. It is definitely up to the buyer to insure the seller is delivering what was ordered. -James

After I found out my wife was working about 15 hours a week extra to make about $50 (sometimes) I started sending her an 'allowance' so she could concentrate on the task at hand. In addition I paid all signifcant expenses of the visa process and my visits. She did insist on taking me to dinner every night and she paid for that on my first trip. I paid all expenses on my second trip which was for her and her daughter's visa interview. Now we are buying an apartment in her home town. Now that we are married we are investing 50 / 50. Not monetarily but percentage wise. She has allocated 50% of her Chinese savings and I allocated 50% of a CD we had here. I believe it is the USC's obligation to pay all costs until your SO is here and you are married. Our wives take such incredible risk to join us here, we should at least pay their way... JMHO... -James

Microsoft existed long before then... Gates moved it back to Seattle after Gary Kildall (Digital Research) decided to fly his private plane instead of meet with the IBM people about their new PC. IBM really wanted CP/M-86. Microsoft started in Gate's apartment at Harvard and was named Micro-Soft at the time. He moved the company to Albuquerque to work with MITS (Altair 8800) until he made the deal with Radio Shack for the TRS-80 basic interpreter. Radio Shack royalties were the real engine of Microsoft's early growth, giving Gates the cash to purchase Seattle DOS at a critical time. This article is pretty close to correct... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800 -James

1983 was a good year. DOS 2.0 on a 5.25" disk that could either be 180kB or 360kB DOS 2.0 actually had externally run programs that were stored in the C:\DOS directory. It wasn't until late 1984 that 3.1 was released. You are all SO nerdy!! ... My favorite type of people but okay, so you can show off your DOS credentials, how about before that? I worked on a z-80 running cpm, and one called a "commador pet" but Iit could only be programmed in its rom basic, and the programs recorded onto a cassett tape recorder. If you remember these, what language did you use? I have to admit being a lazy programmer in that I used C, the z-80 assembler was too much trouble for my weak mind. Oh, right when DOS became popular on the IBM-pc I had huge political battles with a guy who wanted the company to adopt the heath/zenith pc. It ran cpm, and the guy swore that DOS and the IBM-pc were junk and would never surpass the zenith. Later, I had to argue with more people when I told them this new computer from a company named Apple was the best thing for desktop publishing. You see they had basically stolen the o/s and interface from the xerox (ooh memory lost maybe xerox star?) and put it into the apple lisa (remember that one?) Later this little company made a small compact version of their lisa and named it Macintosh. Fun memories ) My first computer was a S-100 bus CP/M system running a Z80B at 4Mhz. It had 64k of static ram, a Soroc terminal and dual 8" Persci voice coil drive floppy disks. Quite the little hot rod. I designed the mother board in conjunction with the engineer from the second computer store in Orange County (Anaheim) CA. I was a hardware cat then, but I caught the software 'bug' BIG TIME and it turned into a career. This was 1976-1977. Then I ended up giving Bill Gates the finger at Comdex 1982, but that is another story... -James

C: changes to the C drive F: changes to the F drive CD changes directories. I.E. C:\ cd temp makes the current directory C:\temp -James

Hi, We are proceeding with the purchase of the apartment in Jilin province. We are waiting for the owner to pay off a mortgage taken by his wife before she died. My question is, does the fact that this property was mortgaged by a bank for a loan imply that there is indeed a true and clear title? -James

Thanks Roger, I am trying to get my wire transfer going now. So much conflicting information and nobody in the bank branches knows what they are talking about apparently... -James

Congratulations! -James and Loving Candle and Chinese Daughter

Congratulations! -James

Jim, I respect your position and ways of doing things. BUT both my girls are immersed in the English Language and American culture constantly. They value the small amount of time they are able to watch Chinese TV (Dish Network, Great Wall package). I personally love Chinese food so having it daily is a treat for me. I can get anything American I need for lunch at work, and I have been cooking on weekends to show my daughter more American things. Chili and Cornbread will definitely be staples. BTW the Chinese TV we get here IS NOT what they get in China! MUCH more variety and freedom for export! It is wise not to 'cocoon' totally, but to have home comforts available can sometimes be golden. When we visited the Shenyang Home Style restauarnt it was home for my girls. -James

Bill, thank you so much! I hope we can get a number of datapoints from different regions and different experiences. -James

I would be very interested in having a dialog about buying property in China, with and without a mortgage, obtaining the the title, the kind of title obtained and any cases of resale for full value or for degraded value for lack of clear title. I believe this is a vital issue for us here on CFL as many of us have a 'China retirement' gleam in our eye, if only part time. GZBILL has very graciously started the topic, but it has been stated that thing differ regionally. So, it would be VERY GOOD to capture data from as many regions as possible based on actual experience. I am in the process of buying a home in Jilin province, NE China. My Wife owns property in Liaoning province but has only a city government title. Those are the data points I can share publically. -James and Loving Candle and Daughter

Congratulatons! What a relief this must be. -James

Unless the seller has an actual title in the form of either a red or green A4-sized book which is stamped by the provincial land bureau, they cannot legally pass title, period. There are scores of verified reports of people who have other forms of titles issued by local or city governments that, in the end, have their property paved over for a parking lot and get zero compensation. Even if you are lucky and the government doesn't try to take the property away from you because you don't legally own it, noone elese would be foolish enough to buy it from you should you later want to sell it. Even in big cities like Guangzhou, there are complexes on the fringes of the city where they haven't legal title to pass to owners and when these people try to sell their homes nobody will pay them even 1/2 of the original purchase price -- if even that. Golden Rule #1: If there is no title in the form of an A4 sized green or red book sealed by the provincial land bureau, you are going to get screwed. I will scan one of mine and maybe Don can post it so people know what they must have in order to actually own the property. Now, getting a mortgage will ensure you don't get taken. The bank will never approve a mortgage where they cannot perfect a lien on the property through the provincial land bureau. I'm not sure what you mean by the cost of a mortgage, but I assume you mean closing costs. Getting a mortgage in China is nothing near the nightmare of getting one in the States. The only costs involved are the bank's lawyer's fees (the bank's lawyer also acts as your lawyer) and these will be no more than $200 (US) and usually just slightly more than $100. You must, however, have property insurance that lasts for the life of the mortgage and that depends on the mortgage amount. The insurance coverage may cost you about 10k RMB or likely less. There are no other costs associated with obtaining a mortgage. Thanks, this helps a lot. My wife is unsure about what the story on the title is. The bottom line is I can afford to buy one house in China and we can't afford to lose our money. What is the property insurance? If we pay the mortgage early will the insurance still persist for the original term? -James

For conversion of US$ to RMB you can transfer in and convert a virtually unlimited amount. The problem arises when you want to convert US$ to RMB. When the issue is exchanging RMB to US$, you have several options. One is that a Chinese citizen or Chinese permanent resident can freely convert up to $50k per year for virtually any reason simply upon producing their ID card. All others have to jump through hoops and face many restrictions. A new rule allows any foreigner to convert RMB to up to $500 per day -- definitely a hassle for large amounts. However, when converting the RMB realized from the sale of a property which was your principal place of residence, there is no limit. You first need to apply to SAFE (State Administration of Foreign Exchange) for approval though, which is not very difficult. You do know that an expat can only purchase one property and that property must be your principal place of residence, right? One way around this is by purchasing the property jointly with a Chinese citizen or PR. Thanks Bill. This house will be a retirement home or I might possibly go to live there sooner. I will let my wife do all of the transactions so I see it as a fairly simple deal. I assume I can wire the money to the seller of the house without much problem now. It will be less than 50000 USD. One thing I'd suggest is to have your name listed on the title as well. Not that you shouldn't trust your wife, but there is an extremely practical reason for having your name on the title. Should you ever decide to apply for permanent residency, having your name on the title of the home is prima facie evidence of meeting the requirement of "stable" residence. Yes this has already been agreed on. It was her idea to put my name on it. This is good. It is an almost sure way to meet the "stable residence" requirement when you apply for PR. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it is a definite plus if you should need credit from local banks. One thing to be careful about when purchasing a home is whether or not the seller has the ability to pass clear, legal title. Title is something that can be pretty tricky as there are several forms of what they call "title," but there is only one form which is 100% kosher and guarantees you actually own the home and not lose it on a whim of some low-level government bureaucrat. Basically speaking, there are about 3 main types of "title": 1. The government deeds the land to a farmer for agricultural purposes. Many times the farmers endorse this deed and "sell" the land for housing development. This is not kosher and people often lose their home so easily it can make your head spin. 2. Government land bureaus below the provincial level deed the land to housing developers who then construct housing units. Purchasers are given either collective deeds (one deed covering all the "owners" in the building) or else even individual deeds. These deeds have the seal of the local land bureau office below provincial level. These are also not kosher. This type of thing happens quite a bit, actually, and in addition to the often happening worst-case scenario of losing the home, there is a best-case scenario where you can never sell the home because nobody is crazy enough to accept the deed you have as clear title. 3. Provincial level land bureaus issue direct title to individual home purchasers. This is the only sceario you should accept. These titles are A4-sized books, either green or red in color, and have the seal and revenue stamp of the provincial government. Sometimes it is difficult to actually know what is going on and you can't always trust or rely on the seller (or even lawyers you may hire) to know or even tell you the truth should they actually know. One fool-proof way of being sure you'll get the provincial land deed is to obtain a mortgage to purchase the house. A mortgage is extremely easy, cheap and quick to obtain and a bank will never allow a mortgage unless the bank itself has ascertained that the house transaction will result in the issuance of a provincial title. You don't have to get a mortgage for the whole amount of the home. You can obtain a mortgage for, say, 10% and then once the title has been issued to you and your wife and you have them in your hands, you pay off the balance on the mortgage early. Oh, and it can take up to a year or so before the government actually issues the title. You don't get that A4-sized book right away after buying the house, so don't worry. This is because there are a lot of hoops to jump through at the various land bureau offices and, as anybody knows, efficiency isn't the name of the game here. But if the bank has let you obtain a mortgage, you know that you will get the title eventually. My wife and I want to buy an apartment in her home town where her family lives. The sellers have just finished the inside of a new apartment and are living in it while they wait for it to be sold. My wife says they have NOT 'registered the title' since this costs 'extra money' and we can register the title together after we pay them. Any idea if this is at all normal? Will getting a mortgage guarantee this sort of deal also? What does a mortgage usually cost (we will be in NE China, Jilin province). -James

Congratulations! A little late, but good news indeed. -James

I don't have a clue what you mean ... LA to see the smog ??? Jim, we went to Los Angeles for other reasons (Science Center, Exposition Park, Getty Museum). In both cases the air was visibly MUCH dirtier than in Buena Park. BUT, she said it was not NEARLY as bad as home in China or Guangzhou. No big deal! -James You should see LA the day after a good rain. I could see the skyline from the balcony of the condo I lived in. A perfect day for Griffith Park to watch sunsets with a bottle of wine. Yes, in SoCal a moderate rain will clean the air completely. When I was in Guangzhou for LC's interview, it took 5 DAYS of rain before we saw a blue sky. It also cooled off enough that we had to close the window at night!!! I asked our hosts how often that happened (September interview) they said 'Never'. -James

I don't have a clue what you mean ... LA to see the smog ??? Jim, we went to Los Angeles for other reasons (Science Center, Exposition Park, Getty Museum). In both cases the air was visibly MUCH dirtier than in Buena Park. BUT, she said it was not NEARLY as bad as home in China or Guangzhou. No big deal! -James

What a difference! Check out the news article on the 'most polluted town in the USA' Notice the blue sky behind the jogger... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070809/ap_on_...mxZnfsQJ1EXIr0F -James

Both my girls LOVE the blue sky and moderate weather here. I have taken my daughter to LA 3 times now, and she could see the smog, but was NOT impressed... -James

My wife is back in China for an all-summer visit to get her new ID card, something she was unable to complete before coming here on the K1. My step-daughter, who is really my daughter is going to summer school to get her english classes up to level for college. She is a wonderful girl, gets great grades in school and is highly motivated in all things. She is now taking an online drivers education course so she can get her learner's permit. We have been to a couple of free outdoor concerts on Saturday nights. I introduced her to 'off' mosquito repellant and she was VERY impressed! She has type B blood and mosquitos come from MILES around for dinner! With the 'off' she did not get a single bite so she knows she can do things outside in the evening here also. She has dinner ready every night when I come home (Monday-Thursday). On Fridays I am taking her to a different restaurant for a different cuisine. She has had Italian (Macaroni Grill) and we going tonight to the best Persian restaurant I know (Ferdussi, by South Coast Plaza). I cook on weekends, I made Quiche for breakfast last week. We have been to the California Science Center (Exposition Park) to see an iMAX movie and the Science Center. We went to the Norton Simon Art museum in Pasadena and she was stunned by European Old Masters. We will go back when my wife comes back and the 'Titus' is back from New York. She did get to see all the other Rembrandts, Degas and others in the collection. She was NOT impressed by the Asian collection since it is mostly Indian Statuary. We are going to the Getty Museum tomorrow, she bought some prints at the Norton Simon (!2x12 - $3.00 each!) and we are going to mat and frame them together. Life is good. -James