weiaijiayou

Based on my own experiences and perspective, I'd suggest: 1 Since you use Chinese to communicate with your fiancee, you should write your letter in both Chinese and English. 2 Hand-write it and have it notarized, at ACS if possible. 3 For content: Your current letter has too much detail in some places and not enough in others. Where you talk about how you met is fantastic. Focus on that, and develop in more detail how your feelings toward your fiancee grew over time. For me, where your letter goes off-track is that you sometimes lose focus of your relationship (e.g., you say something to the effect of you went back "in part" to be with her), tell the VO things he or she will already know (we are applying for a K1, and the applicant is Yun, my fiancee), and talk too much about what you could/should have done instead of what you did (e.g., you could have married her, you took too long to have an engagement banquet). I'd post the EOR I used, but since it's handwritten I'd have to type it all in, and I'm not sure you would be interested. If you are, let me know and I can post it, and perhaps it could be useful for you or others. BTW, in my opinion there is nothing wrong with being sentimental, as long as it is expressing your real feelings and situation. Below is what I sent in as my "intent to marry" document to USCIS: Dear USCIS officer, In 2005 I was outside the United States for the first time in my life, and I found myself in Beijing, China, on what might have been a different planet from the small American town where I grew up. Only later would I discover that Jing, too, was far away from her home, in a place where the dialect was challenging and where even her closest relationships were only recently formed. I met Jing in Beijing by chance, through a mutual acquaintance, and our friendship became a refuge for me while abroad ¨C a place where language problems melted away with a smile, where cultural differences became moot in the face of the universalities of warm friendship and genuine, mutual interest and engagement. I knew from the start that Jing was someone I wanted to know for a long time, but, even then, I never could have imagined how important she would become to me. Only two and a half years after meeting, Jing has become my most trusted confidante, my closest friend, my lover and companion. Her patience, her beauty, her resilience, her caring attitude for not just me but for all those around her ¨C these are some of Jing¡¯s qualities that make me certain that she is the woman I will spend the rest of my life with. These are some of Jing¡¯s qualities that transcend space and make me feel blessed, even when we¡¯re apart. These are some of Jing¡¯s qualities that allow me to wait for her, a smile on my face and my arms open, no matter for how long. I, ¡°WeiAiJiayou,¡± hereby declare that I am legally able and willing to marry ¡°Jing¡± and will do so within 90 days of her arrival in the United States using the K-1 visa.

Hmm, sounds just like what we said... Looking forward to seeing some pictures.

Unless you have a specific issue that needs to be addressed at ACH, you don't need to go.

Great. I¡¯d just suggest that 1) the letter be from the school (not just the boss) and include the school¡¯s stamp and 2) it should be clear in your application that you met your girlfriend/fiancee spontaneously. Generally it¡¯s good to avoid giving the appearance that you were set up by somebody.

Hearing about all of this, I guess we got lucky with our civil surgeon. She just forgot to sign off on one of the required vaccinations, causing us to get an RFE (updated medical info was requested within 30 days, I believe). I'd take carelessness on the forms over these kinds of insults any day of the week. Who is he to scare your wife based on a news story he saw?

I realize the passport says nothing about the relationship, but everyone keeps telling me I need to have copies of plane tickets, receipts, hotel reservations, etc. Those don't prove a relationship, either, so why is it necessary to keep all of that? The residence permits at least show that, for 18 months, I lived in the same city she lives in. Wouldn't that have more weight than a plane ticket? I've only been back in the US for a few months, so I don't have a terribly long Skype call history or e-mail archive. What I do have is about 20 pictures of us together in different seasons, but they aren't date-stamped. I have this sinking feeling that this isn't a good portfolio. I didn't know the K1 process was so demanding, otherwise I would have been keeping everything and taking three times as many photos. Since your relationship is genuine, I¡¯m sure you have enough to make a great case. Include a sample of whatever call/email logs you have since you¡¯ve been back in the US; they¡¯ll understand that you weren¡¯t calling and emailing each other while you lived together. Twenty good pictures is plenty. Our pictures didn¡¯t have date stamps either. What I did was neatly staple them on computer paper, two pictures per page. Under each picture, I wrote who was in it and where and when it was taken. The different seasons (and possibly your fiancee¡¯s changing hairstyles, as in our case) will help corroborate the timeframe. One other thing I did was looked around for ¡°evidence¡± from trips we took together: for example, old train tickets and pamphlets/maps from parks we visited together. I put these with their corresponding pictures. If you haven¡¯t saved any of this type of stuff, perhaps your fianc¨¦e has, or, if you look around in your ¡°junk drawer¡± and the bags you only use for traveling, perhaps you¡¯ll find some useful stuff there. Look for whatever evidence you might have available, including things unique to your own case/experience that wouldn¡¯t necessarily be discussed or expected. For example, my wife worked at a kindergarten in China. One of the months I was with her, I volunteered there (which saved them a good deal of money on a waijiao laoshi and allowed their kids to get 5 times more lessons that month). To help our case, we then asked the kindergarten to write and stamp a short document saying that my wife worked there and I volunteered there during x period of time. They agreed and even allowed us to write the document, so all they had to do was stamp it and agree to be available in case the consulate had any questions. (Of course, according to the letter, my wife and I both had amazing work ethic and were a fantastic team.) This is just to give you some ideas about the range of stuff you could possibly use to corroborate your relationship and lessen any doubts in the VO¡¯s mind that this could all be some sort of immigration scam. Having lived together for some time, you may be able to put together this kind of evidence which is perhaps more unorthodox for a K1 application.

As Randy said, everything that painted a picture of a loving relationship. With the initial petition: pics together over several years' time in different places, pics together with family and friends, evidence of email communication over time when apart, copies of letters when apart, a letter about our relationship history and feelings (usually people here call this an "Evolution of Relationship" letter, but I just included this information in my "Letter of Intent to Marry" document). The important thing to do is think about the potential "red flags" in your personal case and include evidence and explanations for these in your original petition. For example, one important thing in my case was to demonstrate proficiency in Chinese because my wife's English was not very good and all of our communications were in Chinese. Keep in mind that anything you send in now will definitely be in the VO's hands prior to and during the interview. Things your wife/fiancee brings to the interview will only have a chance of being asked for or accepted by the VO. This is part of the rationale for "front loading" the initial petition with everything you deem important or relevant to red flags.

also, this mistake is not so much about not understanding hukou household registration system but rather expecting the general info on US government websites to apply to China, which it often doesn¡¯t. I believe the general guideline is for a police certificate from every city resided in for at least six months since age 16. But for China, there is only one certificate covering the whole country, and that¡¯s obtained in the place of a person's hukou. It's possible that the OP's wife was working off of this general information.

If I remember correctly, this is what my wife and I originally thought. It turned out that we had to get her certificate from the place of her hukou (Nanyang). We just had her brother (who still lives in Nanyang) request them and mail them to us in Beijing.

I think you could be onto something with front-loading the petition with pictures with her family. The other good thing about taking another trip first is that you can talk to her family about your plans. Depending on how old she is and whether or not she has been married before, it might be a considerate thing to do to let them meet you first before embarking on this course which is going to have her moving to another country and getting married.

Sam, I think we all have wives who think the way Fen does. My wife and I often gripe about something or other in China, however there is no doubt we both want to go back to China in the future .. but ... My wife is back in China for 2 months after living in America for 2 years. She told me that now that she has lived in America for a while, she can see some things she likes better in America than in China. From my view, this is a huge step as I know many things are bad in America, but I also know good things. Same for China, there are bad things and good things about living in China. Being able to look at each, and appreciate the good parts takes time, but I think most of our wives will get there. As for our wives defending China, well that is just expected. You can talk bad about your own family/country/whatever, but if someone ELSE says something bad about those same things, you defend them to the end.. It is just human nature. All very well said, Credzba, and especially the last part about it being natural to defend the people/place you come from. It's just a lot easier to recognize and perceive this as irrational in others. (not that this is what Sam is doing at all, though!) And it's harder to take when you know how little direct experience such generalizations are often coming from. I think over time Fen will become less defensive about China with Sam. I think this comes with building mutual understanding, shared experiences, and trust.

Yes, thanks for the different perspectives on Chinese students. I don't think they invalidate the point of the original article, though, since it seemed to me that it was mainly talking about where the young talent (e.g., fresh MBAs) are now seeing the brightest business and professional opportunities. One interesting thing is that, perhaps consistent with what chengdu4me is saying, China is still barely even on the radar screen for young people going into academia. From what I've seen, most Chinese people earning PhDs in the US who want to go into academia generally want to stay in the US. This obviously is related to funding opportunities and salary, but it may also have to do with the general climate of Chinese education, which does seem to focus less on innovation and discovering hot new ideas...

http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/wubi/xing.html If they would compare high school students against high school students with a similar level of education, I'll bet the picture would be much different. Thanks for the info on this other type of input system, which I honestly had never heard of before. It seems like it would require a ton of memorization and practice, but once internalized it would save a lot of time. This would especially be true for typing characters that are uncommon, since a pinyin input system will require you to click through several lists before getting to the one you want. I asked my wife about these -- she looked confused at first until her face suddenly lit up. She said some of her older cousins know how to use these kinds, so it could be a generational thing (not saying you're old! ). Thanks for the very interesting info, though. It's good to know even though I personally could not use this kind of input system; when I type, I can read the characters in order to use pinyin input but I wouldn't be able to type all the components for many of them...

Hopefully the reason isn't something that would have put his students in danger...

Any class in China usually has one student (called °à³¤ "banzhang", which I would translate roughly to something like "class leader") who mediates between teacher and students. When other students need something (e.g., they miss class and need to know what happened) they often just contact the banzhang.

Hehe, I agree ¨C it¡¯s not a matter of what you or I have to say about it. The English writing system has 26 letters. The Chinese character system has a few hundred semantic and over a thousand phonetic radicals. Moreover, the reliability and usefulness of these components for giving info on pronunciation and meaning could scarcely be compared to that of letters in English. Analyses of characters suggest that in 39% of modern characters the phonetic radical provides reliable information about pronunciation, in 26% it seems to provide a hint (i.e., the same radical can indicate sounds as different as, e.g., tao2 and zhao4), and in 15% it provides no information. The other 20% have no identifiable phonetic component. As for meaning, 58% of characters taught in elementary schools contain a radical that tells an astute learner what general category the character is in (e.g., the Å® in Âè suggests something female), 30% have a radical that gives a tangential hint (e.g., the left part of ÁÔ correctly suggests the word has something to do with animals), and in 9% the radical gives no information about meaning. All of this is to say that pattern recognition ¡°works¡± a lot differently in reading Chinese and reading English. In Chinese, it sometimes gives a hint about meaning; it sometimes tells you or gives you a hint about pronunciation. In English, written words tell you the answer for both. The pronunciation is read phonetically using our memorized/internalized 26 letters and rules for combination, and the association between written symbols and meaning follows naturally given our verbal language abilities. This doesn¡¯t even get into the problem of remembering how to write Chinese characters, which should be obvious¡­ The difference in the difficulty of the two writing systems is also illustrated in heritage learners. Heritage learners are people who speak a second language at home but lack either formal skills in the language or, as is very common with overseas Chinese, reading and writing skills. For languages with Romanized alphabets like English, heritage learners have a very strong advantage over non-heritage learners in learning to read and write. This is because the heritage learners already have many sound-meaning links, and, with a simple script, they can use this knowledge to very quickly acquire symbol-sound and symbol-meaning links. With Chinese, on the other hand, heritage students have little if any advantage over non-heritage students in learning to read and write. Even though they have much more background knowledge and verbal abilities in Chinese, the heritage students are held back just as much as non-heritage students by the sheer complexity of the character system and the demands it makes on anyone learning it: http://www.international.ucla.edu/language...?parentid=52483 From the article: ¡°¡­this study found that heritage learners did significantly better than their non-heritage counterparts in speaking, listening, grammar, and sentence constructions, but not in reading comprehension, vocabulary learning, and Chinese character writing. These results suggest that heritage learners¡¯ oral exposure to their home language does not necessarily lead them to acquire reading and writing skills more quickly than non-heritage learners. Home background knowledge of Chinese, a language with notoriously difficult orthography, may not support reading comprehension or vocabulary learning if that knowledge does not include sufficient exposure to the script system.¡± ¡±The findings of the present two studies seem to run counter to other background studies from different perspectives, which claim that background knowledge facilitates reading and writing. The likely reason for the discrepancy between this study and others is that many studies focus on the reading skills of fluent readers, including L1 speakers, or heritage speakers of languages with alphabetic orthographies. However, some orthographies such as Chinese characters, which are logographic in nature, are notoriously difficult to learn. The results of these two studies show that, in foreign language learning, a lack of sufficient knowledge about the target orthography system would block the learners, heritage and non-heritage alike, from tapping their background knowledge for reading and writing.¡± If you think Chinese people and English people react the same way to learning the two writing systems in L2, just think about how quickly your wife was able to learn to ¡°read¡± (i.e., look at and pronounce) English writing. Try and get to the same level of reading ability in Chinese (e.g., go through the newspaper and pronounce, with minor errors, every word). With hard work, I¡¯d estimate about a month for the English learner and at least 5 years or so for a learner of Chinese¡­ I don¡¯t get this part. The only Chinese input methods I¡¯ve ever seen anyone use is a keyboard with pinyin input (which is a Romanized script, hence the name: literally, ¡°spelling sounds¡±) or a touch screen in which characters are written. I¡¯m not sure what these ¡°touch typist entry systems¡± are or who uses them, but it¡¯s not most Chinese people today. Most Chinese people learn a Romanized script in which sounds are spelled phonetically and then the desired character(s) is selected from a list ¨C it¡¯s just as fast and efficient as writing in English language, but it is a Romanized script learned in addition to their own system of Chinese characters¡­

Not if they are going to attempt to get into a top. or even bottom, university in China...lil' Bubba Jr. can count his childhood in minutes, not years. He'll think he died and went to heaven if he and his mom are allowed to come to America....well, on second thought maybe I should take that back, he's too ingrained in actually working in school. tsap seui I hear that bubba and agree with it to an extend but do you really think that studying 10-14 a day is good for a young kid? I know. I know that is the way it is in China in order to get ahead. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that it takes a lot of them so long to mature as all and I mean all of their time is devoted to studying. I have a little nephew that is in the same boat. I actually feel sorry for him. Never having any time to play. I guess he has less than 4-6 hours of play time a week. Can we actually say that this is a good thing? Larry Very good point... In my opinion those two things are definitely connected. It's interesting to me how these things all seem to fit together. This system, the years of preparation and nightmarish work, is in some ways needed just because of the shear amount of material that Chinese people need to share (e.g., the tens of thousands of characters). The fact that the work is all directed toward the gaokao is then itself a kind of socialization -- it keeps kids focused, conscientious, and also very, very innocent. I totally understand your point, though, as my wife sometimes talks about how in her middle school she would work all day but still secretly sneak into the bathroom at night to study as this was the only place that was lit... Tsap, by the time the visa goes through, at least your boy will have a fantastic work ethic that will pay off as he finishes high school and goes to college in the US... My understanding of this is that around 2000 characters represents a newspaper-level vocabulary, and 20,000 or so is pretty much an unabridged dictionary. I¡¯d say you're right on the second part. My writing ¡°tens of thousands of characters¡± was a bit over the top. (Even though there are in fact tens of thousands of characters (with different estimates of up to like 50,000), obviously many of them are not in common use or used at all...) But as for 2000 characters being a newspaper-level vocabulary, this is way too low. To my knowledge, claims like this (I¡¯ve also heard people say 900 and 3000) are based on analyses of character frequencies in newspapers. The assumption is that, if most of the characters in most articles are among the most commonly used 2000, shouldn¡¯t someone who knows those 2000 characters be able to read the newspaper? Unfortunately, what this doesn¡¯t take into account is that most of the meaning in an article comes from the minority of characters that are unique in the article. If you don't believe me, just spend several years learning the most common 2000 characters and a corresponding understanding of grammar and see how much you get out of a random Chinese newspaper!! I just can¡¯t believe anyone living in China who presumably interacts with Chinese people could think this. In terms of difficulty, the Chinese writing system is in a different galaxy from almost any other language on Earth. Kids need 7 or 8 years to learn to read and write their first 3000 characters. Even very highly educated Chinese people regularly forget how to write characters for common words. Assuming you have seriously tried at all to learn to read Chinese (and even more so if you have learned to write anything), I'm surprised (incredulous?) to hear anything except how different the two writing systems are in terms of the time, effort, and frustration needed to learn them. As for keyboard usage, not sure why you would mention this as it¡¯s totally separate, requiring Chinese people to learn a complete system of Romanized script (like ours) in addition to their own written language! Chinese students can pretty much keep pace in reading and writing, but it¡¯s because of the ridiculously long hours of rote memorization and practice demanded by the writing and education system¡­

Not if they are going to attempt to get into a top. or even bottom, university in China...lil' Bubba Jr. can count his childhood in minutes, not years. He'll think he died and went to heaven if he and his mom are allowed to come to America....well, on second thought maybe I should take that back, he's too ingrained in actually working in school. tsap seui I hear that bubba and agree with it to an extend but do you really think that studying 10-14 a day is good for a young kid? I know. I know that is the way it is in China in order to get ahead. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that it takes a lot of them so long to mature as all and I mean all of their time is devoted to studying. I have a little nephew that is in the same boat. I actually feel sorry for him. Never having any time to play. I guess he has less than 4-6 hours of play time a week. Can we actually say that this is a good thing? Larry Very good point... In my opinion those two things are definitely connected. It's interesting to me how these things all seem to fit together. This system, the years of preparation and nightmarish work, is in some ways needed just because of the shear amount of material that Chinese people need to share (e.g., the tens of thousands of characters). The fact that the work is all directed toward the gaokao is then itself a kind of socialization -- it keeps kids focused, conscientious, and also very, very innocent. I totally understand your point, though, as my wife sometimes talks about how in her middle school she would work all day but still secretly sneak into the bathroom at night to study as this was the only place that was lit... Tsap, by the time the visa goes through, at least your boy will have a fantastic work ethic that will pay off as he finishes high school and goes to college in the US...

I agree -- these comments sound very familiar. As Ben Hamper said, "the grass is always greener on the other side, until you have to hop the fence and cut that shit down." There are better and worse fits, but I believe the search for the "perfect wife" is a fool's errand. My wife and I were just watching the movie "Heaven and Earth" which dramatizes the life of a Vietnamese woman who met an American soldier and came to the US (pretty good movie). I think the course of that relationship, although it certainly had its distinct characteristics, is pretty representative of what tends to happen with these "matches made in heaven." One of my Korean friends paid a few thousand dollars to join a dating service in Korea with unlimited dates until he either marries or dies. He's obviously dated women from both Korea and China but just hasn't found that match. Perhaps I'll suggest looking in Vietnam...

Your income situation sounds good then. Two things seem to apply generally. First, will your tax transcripts show that your annual income for the past three years has exceeded 125% of the poverty line for the size of your household (including expected spouse)? Second, do you make a very large salary that would further ease a VO’s concerns that your wife could become a public charge? You seem like you’re easily good on the first count and could possibly gain points on the second. The main reason I wanted to stress the point about being consistent for the past three years is that recently I’ve seen some weird posts; in one, the petitioner got a new job and then tried to extrapolate his income from the first month or two on the job to calculate an annual income. His wife got a blue slip for financials, and he was somehow confused about why, even though he seemed to have done research on this site while preparing for the interview. You need to have either tax information documenting income (or assets if you're using those), or a co-sponsor. As for marrying, I believe that if you marry in China then your wife would be ineligible for a K-1 visa. As you're preparing for the interview, you'll see that you need a notarized booklet certifying that your wife is single. To the best of my knowledge, getting married would force you to start over in a new "spouse" visa process. I don't see any problems with including pictures from your engagement banquet. If they are the only pictures of you with her family then I’d definitely include them in the material your fiancee will take to the interview. Include notes with your pictures that identify them as your engagement party. If they are clearly labeled then a VO should not have a hard time understanding what it is. Make sure your fiancee understands that you are not married, never had a wedding, and that she and the VO should always refer to you as 'fiance' not 'husband.' In general I think you have a good attitude about (1) being proactive in figuring out what parts of your relationship history might create problems and (2) wanting your fiancee to always, first and foremost, be honest at the interview.

As a general rule, the more trips to see her, the better. Also, showing family members' approval of the relationship, and growing bonds between step-parent and step-child, I believe, would help. Depending on when the interview is, maybe you could take a third trip with your daughter at the beginning of her summer vacation? In addition to producing more relationship evidence, it could be a tremendous experience for your daughter and could help communicate to her that you want her by your side in this new part of your life. For finances, the consulate usually expects 3 years of tax transcripts and W2s showing your ability to provide stable and ample support for your spouse, so, depending on when and how long you were unemployed, this could potentially hurt your case. On the other hand, as a senior executive, if your salary is high enough, you may have no problems whatsoever. The consulate process is nowhere near transparent, so we can only offer educated guesses and advice based on our own experiences. In choosing pictures to include in your petition and interview materials, I would suggest choosing ones where you and your fiancee appear to be well matched. At one point several years ago, someone posted a link to an article written by a visa officer who worked at a consulate in Europe (I believe). In it, the VO seemed to confirm the expectation that cases where the petitioner and beneficiary looked wildly mismatched in attractiveness and age drew his attention and suspicion. To me, this seems logical, and I wouldn't doubt that VOs at GUZ, also being human beings, may be subject to the same bias (they think they are protecting you from being scammed). I'm not saying that you are mismatched at all, but just suggesting that, if you're concerned about the age difference, it may be useful to select photos that downplay rather than exaggerate it... And again, as with the income, this is just general advice and not a rule -- many people here had similar or larger age differences and had easy interviews.

It's a very important problem... Before, people used to come to the US for an education and then stay, and the ones who went back were the selfless people who mainly wanted to give back to their country. Now, it's turning into the most motivated and business-oriented who come to the US solely for education and then return home for the opportunities. Sad to say, but this is basically the model my wife and I are following...

I think A Mafan and some other people were saying a while back about how their wives would never let their bodies come into contact with a second-hand garment. But my wife doesn't mind at all. Some of her favorite shirts and also a pair of pants that she bought in America were from second-hand stores. Anywhere you put her, she'll find at least one or two pieces of clothing she likes. If my wife knows where they come from: no problem. Hand-me-downs are great. But if it is second-hand from a store...did the previous owner die? Were they sick? Did they have cancer? Did they bathe regularly? I think most Americans would not feel comfortable buying used underwear. At least, I wouldn't. It just seems icky. That is very similar to how my wife feels about 2nd-hand clothes when she doesn't know the previous wearer. Yeah, underwear is over a line that few would dare to cross if they didn't need to... All the questions about death, cancer, etc. I personally find very easy to forget about. I wouldn't bring them up to my wife, though, as I'm pretty sure it would affect her. She's a little more superstitious than I am...

I think A Mafan and some other people were saying a while back about how their wives would never let their bodies come into contact with a second-hand garment. But my wife doesn't mind at all. Some of her favorite shirts and also a pair of pants that she bought in America were from second-hand stores. Anywhere you put her, she'll find at least one or two pieces of clothing she likes.

Not sure why the doctor wouldn't understand -- instead of trying to translate the name of the medicine, just tell him or her you have high blood pressure (analogous to English, Ѫѹ¸ß) and see what the available drugs are. Translate these drug names to English to find one that you've used or heard enough about to know you can use. You could also do the same thing at the pharmacy. Tell them "high blood pressure" and go look at the different medicines. Maybe I'm missing something?