Joanne

Of course, I don't think the lady you see is a scam, Dennis. She is working hard trying to support herself and her baby. Your help would be very much appreciated. You have a "good heart"!

I hate professional beggars, particularly the organizers of professional beggars. I would like to offer help to people who really need it. (When professional beggars is common) I would rather buying 10 yuan worth of tissue paper which I don't need than giving 1 yuan to the person who come begging.

The streets were pretty empty that morning. This man saw me give this woman money. I assumed that we was deriding her because of it. But, that's only a guess. I do recall seeing severly crippled persons pushing themselves on wheeled boards. I don't recall seeing any begging, however. I don't believe this woman was scamming me, as she didn't even know that I was coming up behind her. And, the filth on her and her garments, certainly looked like someone who was living on the streets. In one of CFL member's China journals, she writes how she came to realize the small value that the Chinese seem to put on human life. It seemed to her that it does not matter if someone dies. Maybe, because there are so many people? This seemingly complete lack of compassion is just mind boggling to me. I suppose, I'm just learning about the world outside the USA. 164533[/snapback] My best guess is that the man felt ashamed that the lady was seen digging through trash by a foreigner. It is quite common that one Chinese did something shameful in front a foreigner, and other Chinese people feel losing face.

Joanne - So, your baby has a chinese citizenship at this time ? You plan to give her the choice to do as she wishes at 18 -- so your baby does not need a permit at this time correct ? I guess we could do something similar. We could register for chinese citizenship at first, and then apply for US citizenship at a later time. The other way is to apply for a visa for her mom to come here to help her. My wife, Joanna, wants to go out to get more education at our local college here. So, she needs some help with the child caring. Thanks for your input. I don't really know how to hanlde it at this time. 164316[/snapback] I got my tense wrong in my original message, so caused some confusion. I corrected it now. My baby is a US citizen now, no longer a Chinese citizen. I do not suggest that you apply for Chinese citizenship first, US citizen later. It would be too much trouble.

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I am a Chinese. Our baby was born in China. She is a US citizen because her dad is one. At the beginning we wished to leave the choice to her own when she reaches age 18. We even applied a Shanghai Hu Kou for her, and she made her first international travel to Tailand with a Chinese passport. However, when it was time to visit US, (I needed to apply for a tourist visa, so planed to do the same for her), the consular officer told us, she would not be allowed entering US with a non-US passport. So we gave up her Chinese citizenship, and obtained a US passport for her. So as to say, US citizenship is not an issue according to our own experience. Being a US citizen, your baby will need a resident permit to stay in China. You may consult the Visa Section of Chinese Police Bureau for that process. However, I don't think it is a good idea to let grandparents raise your baby.

If you do medical in Shanghai, you either go to a CITIZ branch to pay this non-immigrant visa fee and let the doctor to seal into the envelop, or pay it later. Your SO just need to hand the receipt over to VO at the interview.

Scary I could have done that myself, just out of pure ignorance.

I am in the crowds waiting for your good news, too.

I hear you, Jesse. Let's stop it here.

Our country president's name is Hu (Pronounced "Who"). Have you heard the the classic joke of Who is Hu? I have friends named He (Pronounciation close to British "her").

Christianity is a hot topic these days on CFL. Even though I don't agree that people should be divided up into two distinct categories, but I can see from the previous posts that such a division does exist. Thus, as a non-christian Chinese woman, and not-likely-going-to-be-one, I am curious to know what is your opinion upon us non-christians.

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I would like to share my experience with you, but if I do, I will reveal my private information. I haven't gone through interview yet.

Congratulations

Good information, Thanks!

I don't know how difficult it is to convert your Chinese SO to a devout Christian. However, in my (a Chinese woman's) opinion, it will not be nearly as difficult as you imagined to get her to attend your Church activities with you.

We understand, Jim. No hard feelings.

We always changed into "house-cloth" at home. Washing hands right after getting in from outside is a must. During SARS, I "made" my husband wash his face after got home, before picking up our baby, wash his hair every night before get in bed.

I prefer not to walk on the floor bare foot, because I can imagine stinky sweat. I can also see peeled-off dead skin. Do I have OCD£¿I would rather my guests put on some cotton socks or wear some slippers, particularly when my baby was at her crawling-on-floor stage. I understand that different people view things differently. For example, my guest might suspect that the slippers I provided are not clean for their feet or socks. So I usually don't persue the issue.

good progress!

Here is GUZ website: http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/guangzhou/iv/contact.html Good luck!

Carl, have you tried contacting GUZ directly via email? If you haven't, do so, using their webmail form. Keep your message as straight forward as possible, so the person who read the message knows instantly what information you want from them. Show your concern of lost mail. (Keep in mind, don't write more emails before you receive a reply from them) Reading your timeline, I estimate your interview should be somewhere in Nov or Dec. I don't know if you applied for K3 along with CR1/IR1, if you did, you should have already received interview date for K3. I checked other member's timeline and got an impression that GUZ's schedule is fairly consistent.

Let me do a rough figuring: Assume each representative (the person who receives the calls) spend 5 hour per day talking to callers, it will be 5x60x20=6000 minutes per month. We are paying 4.5RMB per minutes, 6000x4.5=27000 RMB Each representative will make 27000RMB sales per month. Besides labour cost, the company need to spend some on telecommunication services, on computers and desks. But they don't need much office space, so rent will not be very much per capita. This is quite a lucrative business! I would say, this company should spend more on hiring skilled knowledge workers and provide enough training, assuming they get adequate support and information from GUZ.

I guess that US consulate outsourced this function to some local company, and this company is not able to provide satisfactory service yet.