Rakkasan
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Posts posted by Rakkasan
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Welcome back RWS. I really like the photos that you provide in your reviews. You definitely have an eye for the odd. Whenever I am in China I seem to be so busy with family or touring that I forget to take photos of the odd items I see and usually only take the normal touristy type photos.
One photo I wish I would have taken was in Guilin where the department of parks had signs posted for various sites, but whoever designed the signs did not have access to a space bar on their keyboard. The signs would be written as
"Guilinparksdepa
rtmenttourofth
emysterycave."
No spaces and no breaking of words at the syllables.
I hope you and your fiance' get your interview soon. It will be interesting to see how things work in Cambodia. I would like to know if the line in the morning in Cambodia is anything like the big crowd that gathers in Guangzhou.
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Well today Zhen received her temporary permits for work and travel. We still have no word on an interview date for her two year green card, but at least she will be able to travel home to help her mother care for two of her sisters who are pregnant and both due in January / February.
We filed for the AOS around mid-September. Does anyone know approximately how long it takes before we get notification of an interview date?
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I tried to explain US finances to Zhen when I was in China but it didn't seem to register. After Zhen arrived and saw how expensive thing were in the US she began to understand. One Saturday I sat down with her at the computer and we went through all the recurring fixed monthly expenses as well as the variable and other monthly expenses in relation to my monthly income. She now fully understands our finances and is more eager than ever to begin work so she can help pay our bills. Suprisingly my electric and water bills have not increased since her arrival and there has only been a minor increase in food expenses. I guess I was paying a mandatory minimum on water and with her arrival we have not exceeded the minimum, the electric remains the same because she is good about turning off lights when we leave a room. I guess we are doing the same number of loads of laundry, the loads are just bigger now, so the electric wouldn't increase because of laundry. I don't understand the food bill though. I eat my regular food that I have always eaten and she prepares Chinese food to her liking. With to separate menus you would think the food bill would increase significantly but it hasn't. I still have a difficult time getting her to buy whatever food she wants without worrying about the price. I have told her that her food is important and to never do without because of cost, but she still refuses to buy some items because she feels they are to expensive.
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Here is a link to the New Miss Teen USA making a pathetic fool of herself to a basic question asked during the pageant the other day:
You know, I get rather obsessive when it comes to education and believe that fundamental rules must be followed to get a good education; of those:
1. Quality educators. This is the root. There are far too many wishy washy teachers today who couldn't teach their way out of a paper bag.
A good number of teachers today attended college in the late ¡®60¡¯s. Most of the time that should have been spent in the classroom was spent outside protesting. The college professors were sympathetic and would give passing grades regardless of the students¡¯ attendance or grades. As a result we have many with teaching degrees who do not know the material they are trying to teach. Unfortunately this gives a bad name to those teachers who know their subject and are passionate about teaching.
2. Discipline; for both the student and the teacher. No, not beatings, but just about everything required up to and touching it. Complete all work, arrive on time, dress properly, and behave courteously to your fellow students and teaching staff.
I think the problem with discipline is twofold. The first is that there are too many female teachers and administrators. Women in general take a more touchy feely approach to discipline than man. Students, boys especially, need a firm hand they need to clearly understand who is the boss and that failing to obey the rules will have dire consequences. The touchy feely approach lacks this. Male administrators had no problem with firm discipline and this has now been lost. The other problem I think is the result of a high divorce rate with women getting primary custody more than 95% of the time. Mothers, I think, spend too much time trying to be the best friend and confidant to their children and not enough time being a parent. This is especially true for mother with daughters. Mothers with sons are clueless as to how to handle a teenage boy and are usually run over by their sons with no way to reel them in. Although the father could control the sons, mom will not concede this and if Dad tries discipline it is usually met accusations of abuse. Teachers are then left with boys and girls who are out of control and a parent who sides with the child over the teacher because the daughter is her best friend or a feeble attempt to win her sons respect by taking his side over the teachers. Teachers are stuck with unruly students and no hope of support from home.
3. A quality teaching curriculum. If the teachers are required to teach crap, then what our children learn is...
It always amazes me to hear reports of teachers trying new ways to engage students in order to get them to learn even the most basic subjects. Dig through the file boxes in the basements and pull out the curriculum from the 1950¡¯s and 60¡¯s. It worked before and it will work again. Of course another part of this is some basic discipline in the classroom. Assign seats to the students. Require work to be completed on time or punishment will follow. Don¡¯t try to be creative and engaging, just teach. This is the lesson and this is your assignment, period. I think teachers spend to much time trying to win over the students, the teachers I had the most respect for were the ones who didn¡¯t screw around they explained to lesson, gave the assignment and were there to help when you got stuck, but didn¡¯t coddle you.
Movie Subject Rating
The Patriot.........................War for Independence...........R
Glory.................................Civil War.............................R
Dances with Wolves.............Native Americans/Western Movement
................................................................................PG-13
Far and Away.....................Immigration/ Land Rush..........PG-13
Legends of the Fall..............WWI...................................R
Band of Brothers.................WWII..................................R
Saving Private Ryan.............WWII/D-day........................R
Schindler's List....................Holocaust...........................R
Mississippi Burning................Segregation/Civil Rights.........R
Platoon..............................Vietnam.............................R
Apollo 13............................Space Race........................PG
Forrest Gump......................Satirical View of Post WWII....PG-13
A quick calculation on this list would take up about 36 hours of class time. While I think both The Patriot and Band of Brothers are excellent choices and would encourage any student to watch these selections, nothing can take the place of reading about an event. This generation does very little in the way of reading and teachers should encourage or require reading whenever possible. There are many excellent books that deal with each of these periods in American history. Anyone who has ever read a book and then followed up by watching the movie adaptation knows that the movie doesn¡¯t even come close in detail to the book. I would prefer the teacher assign the book for the students to read and then follow up with the movie to show the students that books are far superior to movies.
I agree with Trigg on teachers pay, even with grading tests at home, etc. Teachers work 9 months out of the year with numerous days of during the school year for holidays, conferences and meetings. Teachers I knew when I lived in Kentucky could have their pay spread out over 12 months if they wished, so they had 3 months of vacation during the summer with a steady income. Most took a summer job bartending or working at fitness clubs to earn extra money. Teachers know going into the profession what the pay is going to be, complaining about low pay after entering the field I think is just an NEA requirement.
As far as how to deal with your daughters teachers is concerned, I would take the approach proposed by SinoTexas. When my son entered junior high I met with his counselor. She gave me the standard chick song and dance about zero tolerance for violence and fighting and explained how they encouraged conflict resolution instead. I told her that two boys fighting after school was conflict resolution and that I became good friends with every guy I ever fought. She also fed me the line about how weapons were not allowed in the school. My son would be expelled even if he brought a plastic knife in lunch box, so be careful when packing his lunch. She was not pleased when I told her that I could easily kill someone with a pen or a book and was the school planning on banning those items too.
I hope I didn't make to many grammatical errors in this post. I don¡¯t want to get attacked by those of you with real educations.
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I have always sent flowers for both Valentines days. Using AnnieFlowers is inexpensive and to be able to make Zhen happy and win favor with her family it is well worth the $40 or $50 it costs to recognize the second Valentines day.
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Ling doesn't like cold water or anything cold any time of the month.
Zhen is not a big fan of cold liquids either. She says cold milk upsets her stomach. I get home from work at 5:00 am and pour her a glass of milk and leave it on the counter so when she wakes up at 7:30 it is the right temperature.
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I did find the web site I was looking for. It is called yesasia.com
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In the past there was a web site posted (which I have since lost) where asian clothing, videos, household items, etc could be found. Does anyone remember what the web address is for this site? All I remember is it was Asia____ .com Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
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Amazing how a simple question about does your wife watch the TV show Cops and what was her reaction has evolved into a thread about good cops/ bad cops / revenue chasing / jack booted thugs / fear of police / police funding and taxation. Go figure!!!!
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in the "communications" pinned topic is a link to make your computer chinese like... Installing chinese on Win XP.. something like that.
Thanks for the info, David. I followed it to the "T" but now I don't know where to take it from there. I had to reboot, then I went to "Word" and it still types English. I'll keep trying. Ron
Look at the bottom right of your desktop, you should see a button with the letters "EN". Click on this and a menu will pop up giving you the choice of English or Chinese. To switch back simply click on the button again.
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In another vein, I have a similar topic regarding tipping in restaurants. Is it required to tip in a Chinese buffet, or any buffet for that matter? I say no, my other half says yes.
so who's right?
Typically tipping at a buffet is $1.00 US per person at the table. This covers the tipping of the waitress who brings your drinks and clears the table of dirty plates during your stay. After all it's only a buck and its a job I would not want to do.
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China is where the U.S. was 40+ year ago. Until Lady Bird Johnson started her Keep America Beautiful program we though nothing of throwing trash on the ground and polluting the air. China is just now starting to address these issues as its ecomomy begins to grow. It will not happen over night, just as our clean up didn't happen over night. There was a time when Lake Michigan was seriously polluted as well as many rivers, expecially in the northeast.
The U.S. is the pollution fallguy because we listen to the news nitwits telling us we are the bad guys. They know that if they did the same thing to China or some other countries they would be thrown out. Here we give them airtime and accept what they say without question and the government then get tougher on businesses because it is what is expected politically.
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I am not a big fan of increased government surveillance on the citizen of the US and do not consider this to be a plus. The costs involved in such a system including the monitoring, tracking of violators and ticketing would be prohibitive. Even if the money was available to pay for something of this nature, wouldn't the money be better spent on something like border security.
As far as gamers, in China most of the gamers are in computer cafes and the kids are skipping school to play games. How about in the US the childrens parents turn the damn thing off and tell the kid to go outside and take not of the sunshine.
China may have some medicines that have been around for 1000's of years, but they also have a health care system that is for the most part archaic and unsanitary. What I have learned from observing hospitals in China is to not get sick there.
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I just spoke with Zhen about her recent stay at Mr. Yangs for her interview. Her response was that the hotel was very clean and Mr. Mr Yang was "enthusiastic to help". I think the OP was shanghai'd into some other rooming facility.
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Congratulations!!!!!
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Here is the latest from Zhen.
Her interview lasted about 10 minutes. They asked about my health, how we met, how we communicated and about my visits. She did say that some of the interviews were lasting almost 40 minutes. Apparently nothing unusual was covered other than the questions about my health which didn't seem to be a sticking point.
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That stuff is edited for television and the cases shown are for ratings. Introduce your spouse/fiance(e) to your local law enforcement folks so that she can see that they a real people. In most cases, they will be happy to talk to you and show the human side of them.
As aye,
Jim
I guess i must not have made myself clear in the OP. I understand her need to know that police in the US are much different from those in China and I have friends on the police force that she will meet at some point. I also know that COPs is edited for TV and the much needed ratings. My inquiry was as to how your SO reacted to watching such a program and did she think this was what an everyday encounter with the police in the US was like, such as does she think the police in the US are abusive or does she think the suspects are knotheads? Perhaps I should have put this in TC so it wouldn't be taken to seriously. My mistake.
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I think most Chinese are suspisious of police in general, from some previous posts men have had to convince their fiance's / wives that in the US they can trust the police to help in times of trouble. My question for this thread came as the result of watching TV this weekend. Has your fiance' / wife ever watched the TC show Cops and what was her reaction? I watch the show and think most of the people (suspects) on the show are knotheads and am amazed at how stupid this group of people can be, feeling the police are just doing the job we pay them to do. Does your fiance'/ wife view it this way or does she think the police are being abusive?
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Well I had hoped to have a list of questions from Zhens interview for you to review. Unfortunately, just as Zhen and I begn talking online this morning, the power went out here at home because of a local storm.
The only thing I know for sure is they did ask her about my health. She answered these questions honestly and managed to pass to interview.
When I know more, you'll know more.
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Since I know the question is going to come up from Zhen I should probably have some sort of answer ready. She is eager to work to contribute to the household so I better be prepared. Personally I would prefer she just study her english and not worry about work, but she is Chinese and you can't tell her what to do.
I think I read that she can get her SSN shortly after her arrival. And if I understand correctly she will be able to apply for a greencard after we are married and apply for the AOS. Will she be able to work at any time prior to applying for the greencard and its arrival?
Thanks in advance,
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Zhen is currently staying in a shared room at Mr. Yangs. We have had some trouble with her cell phone not working in Guangzhou, I called his wife this morning and within a few minutes I received a call from Zhen and her roommate. Her roommate spoke excellent english and was able to brief me on the interview and picking up the visas, etc. I do not know the details of cleanliness of the rooms, but I was pleased that within a few minutes of my call this morning Mrs. Yang was able to have Zhen contact me. To me that was service that I am very pleased with.
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I just found out that Zhen passed her interview on June 21st. She will pick up her visa on June 23rd before returning to Nanning. If all goes well she will be here on July 1st.
No specifics on the interview since we are having telephone problems. I will know more after we talk on Sunday.
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Great photos. Your son looks like he had a good time as well. Four trips in 8 months should make the interview process a piece of cake if your documentation is in order. Sorry to hear about the other attorney. High end attorneys are not always the best. I have had both high end and low end and the low end seem to fight harder and know the ins and outs or the system. The one I currently use is also the states court appointed death row appeals attorney. Cheap suits, cheap car, smokes like a chimney and smart as a whip. Good luck with the process. When is the next trip to Cambodia? I may need you to pick up an MP3 player for me, although I have no idea how to get MP3s or what to do with them once I have them.
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if i was you ,i would go down to walmart, and get one that will work on a stove, and too, they like a big pan with a lid ,we have one of those electric woks, wen never use it,maybe you will have better luck with your so
I have a wok shaped frying pan that I use on the stove top.
I avoid Wal-mart at all costs. Hate the place. Would rather pay more for something than darken their doorway.
China Shuts Down 44,000 Porn Sites....
in The Middle Kingdom - 中国
Posted
I have no problem eliminating porn since it does nothing for me anyway. I have a beautiful wife, good job and a nice home, I don't need porn to get me through the day.
I wasn't aware that looking at porn was a "right" under Chinese rule. In the U.S. being able to watch porn is protected as a right under our Constitution, China is not required to abide by our constitution when setting policy for their country or people. One of the things I like about China is the innocence I see when there. This innocence is the result of China prohibiting access to things like porn.
I think Americans tend to travel to other countries and expect everything to be just like it is back home, wanting to impose our ideals and values, instead of accepting that other countries have their own ideas about what is acceptable and best for their people and what is not.
When you get back home you can look at all the porn you want if that's what makes you happy, but when in China accept that they are doing what they think is best for their people (right or wrong).