IllinoisDave

CONGRATS!

GOOD LUCK! Bring home the pink!

We just left it blank.

This is basically what my SO said when I asked her about it. I guess I can take that one off the calender.

Welcome to Candle. And what they said.

That's great Michael! Congrats on both accounts. On to P4.

According to this chart it looks like a 6. http://www.eshishang.com/ringsize.html

Good luck and welcome to CFL. If you add your timeline to your signature it would give us all a better reference.

Only a year?

Nice find Lance. Man, some desk-jockey filled a whole lot of time putting this stuff together.

Yeah, I use Annie's as well. Sent them on the 18th in case there were any snags.

Thanks for being so frank Chilton. Your honesty could be of benefit to someone else in the future. Best of luck overcoming the white slip.

What's the consensus among members as far as using this option? My SO lives in Shenzhen. Is it that much faster to just have it mailed to the normal place in GUZ or does it make sense to have it mailed to her in Shenzhen? Especially if we end up not staying overnight in GUZ because of the Canton Fair or other issues.

Thanks for the great info tsap. I'm copying it and taking it with me to GUZ for interview day. Under the circumstances, it's incredibly unselfish of you to take the time to write up your experience. You both have shown great character and sense of humor throughout this ordeal. I look forward to your write-ups about a successful overcome and your wonderful SO's inevitable arrival in the US. Best of luck and thanks again.

Did this come from Carl? Why does it sound like exactly what DavidZ would say? For those who actually have their wives/fiancees in the US, I will accept their posts at face value. Some have been quite lucky to have Chinese women who have adapted relatively quickly and easily. For the rest who still have their wives/fiancees in China, I would strongly urge you NOT to believe everything that is said over the phone or webcam and take that to be set in stone. Or try to set into stone what you heard over the phone/webcam. I believe you'll be very disappointed if you do. As Tony pointed out, people change. It's a given. I believe 100% that most of the Chinese SOs have no idea what life will really be like in the US. No matter if they've seen 1000 photos of your home town and hundreds of videos of life in the US, they'll have no idea until they've actually lived it. Especially for the folks who live in more rural areas in the US where there's little to no Asians, there is no way you can or should believe your SO that it won't bother them not to see other Asian people. That's just ridiculous. For a race of people who are not use to seeing any laoweis and seeing 100% Chinese all day every day to suddenly be dropped into a strange place where there are no Asians, that will be bewildering to say the least. America will be as strange to your SOs as China was strange to you the first time you went there. I rarely talk about my wife because I like to keep our personal lives private but on this issue, I will disclose somethings, to use as a personal example. My wife is from Shanghai, born and bred. She's relatively cosmopolitan compared with the rest of China. She lived with me for a while when I was in China and I had exposed her to a lot of western food. She worked at an education company which recruited foreigners to teach English in Shanghai. She was exposed to (and in fact managed) a group of loweis on a day to day basis. She was plenty exposed to the behavior of Americans. She embraced most things Western like so many of the urban youths in China today. She thought she would have no adjustment period to the US at all. She told me plenty of times in China not to be concerned and that she'd embrace the US easily and quickly. Well, that was then, and this is now. After having been here 5 months, she's really starting to miss SH. We eat Chinese a lot at home, but she is still extremely hungry for real street food from SH. She's always talking about food from China. Even though she loves pizza, filet mignon and green salads, she's always talking about real Chinese food lately. I can sense how she's missing SH/China more and more. Additionally, she's talking more and more about going home for a visit sooner, rather than later. She's really starting to miss her parents--and her twin nieces. This has even surprised herself. She never thought she'd miss her parents as much as she does now. Speaking with her nieces on the phone can bring tears to her eyes. All of this is hitting her like she'd never have imagined. She admits she never thought she'd feel like this, but she does now. I've disclosed all this for no other reason than to convey that Chinese people have no idea what life will be like prior to getting here. No matter how much you try to tell them, they really have no idea. It's only after they get here and have been here a month or two when reality will really sink in. Too many CFL members have complained on here "But that's not what she told me when she was in China." "That's not what she said she wanted before." I've always hated reading those posts because how can you expect the Chinese ladies to foretell how their lives will be in the US when they really have no conception of what life will be like in the US. Even if she believes she knows, she really doesn't. It's like asking an American if he really understands what living in China for several years would be like if he's never been to China before. He can't! One can't sincerely expect our SOs to 100% keep to what they said back in China. If you do, you do at your own peril. We've read stories such as Rak's and Jim's. I don't dispute their happy stories. Their ladies seem to have had a very easy adjustment, but there are plenty of stories which are either not told, or are only told on 001/002, where the adjustments have been miserable. For all the folks advocating aggressive integration into the US culture, just imagine if you were to go live in China and had to always watch Chinese TV, always eat Chinese food, only befriend Chinese friends, and always conduct yourself with Chinese mannerism and etiquette. I think everyone, including myself, will utterly fail. So don't try to push this onto your SOs. While I respect Jim_J very much and I hold his posts in high regards, I don't think his success with his wife will directly translate to everyone else. I support what he suggests in moderation, but I honestly believe the Chinese SO will be much happier to see a lot of Chinese things at home. Sawadee, being a Chinese SO, so eloquently described what it meant to her, even to have one Chinese newspaper or magazine. These kinds of small connections with the home country are truly priceless. They mean a great deal more than their actual cost in dollar amounts. With all due respect to Sino and his lovely fiancee, I do find it very ironic that a Chinese lady who has been living in the US for three years being disregarded for giving--what I believe to be--wise advice. While it may indeed turn out that Sino's lovely fiancee won't need any of the things suggested by her friend in OR, I think what the friend suggested was very apropos. I would urge many of you to seriously consider what that Chinese lady said. Yes, people are all different. But with all due respect, I certainly would take the advice of someone whose been living here for three years over someone who has not lived in the US for one day. Just my two cents. Y'all are free to disagree. As someone who's SO hasn't arrived yet, I find this post extremely enlightening. Not that those of others like JimJ aren't, they are. But whenever I've read a post about someone's SO who says she doesn't want much to do with anything Chinese when she gets here, I"ve always thought to myself that it sounds like she is saying what she thinks her SO wants to hear. Lance's example of contrasting her coming here to live as opposed to us going there to do the same really makes the most sense to me. I've thought to myself after two visits that I could live in China easily. But when you really think about it in the terms Lance lays out, maybe not so easy. And the same goes for our SOs I think. So I'll do as much as I can to prepare for her with her input and be ready to change ANYTHING after she's actually here.

CONGRATULATIONS!

My heart breaks for you and especially your SO when I read this. Having someone you care about so much have to go through that seems so unfair and unnecessary. What a proud brave woman you have there tsap. She really is a rock. If only some of the VOs would see the human being in front on them from the beginning. Best of luck again. You WILL get pink.

Glad to hear it. Congrats! Hopefully things will go alot smoother from here on in. And welcome to Chicago!

Congrats on the "out" letter. A small step but a step nonetheless. As far as the copies, I believe they can ask for originals for anything. If you're going for the interview, I'd take everything.

I've seen this story now on multiple media outlets, in China and the US, all reporting the same set of facts. Do have some info the rest of us aren't privy to? Maybe it was the fact that he was in financial ruin? and a disgrace in his eyes and he did what he thought was the honorable thing to do? I have no doubt that those factors played a role as well. But his best friend supplying the bad paint was the catalyst for it, and I haven't seen any evidence that that wasn't the case. I'm refering to the part about him not knowing that his best friend was supplying bad paint. I kinda find thay hard to believe. It might be a good story for his family to save face. Gotcha. That could very well be the case.

For those who haven't found it, tsap seui has posted his results in the tsap seui thread. It's easy to miss it so I thought I would give everyone a heads-up here since so many have been curious about him. I hope he doesn't mind.

I saw this mentioned in another thread as well. I don't remember hearing anything about it before now. Is it really that simple? My SO lives in Shenzhen and it would have been much more convenient, not to mention quicker, for us to do it in HK in the beginning. What are the downsides that we're not seeing?

I've seen this story now on multiple media outlets, in China and the US, all reporting the same set of facts. Do have some info the rest of us aren't privy to? Maybe it was the fact that he was in financial ruin? and a disgrace in his eyes and he did what he thought was the honorable thing to do? I have no doubt that those factors played a role as well. But his best friend supplying the bad paint was the catalyst for it, and I haven't seen any evidence that that wasn't the case.

Man tsap I'm really sorry to hear that. It really seems unfair to basically tell someone that "We like your case, we just want you to wait awhile longer." Seems so arbitrary. You've got a great attitude about the whole thing, better than I think I would have in your place. That's very commendable. It does sound like you'll get the pink next time. Can't understand why they just couldn't do it now. I'll be in your shoes in a couple of months and my biggest fear is getting the same treatment. If I do I hope I handle as well as you are. Best of luck and welcome home.

I've seen this story now on multiple media outlets, in China and the US, all reporting the same set of facts. Do have some info the rest of us aren't privy to?