SirLancelot

I think Jeikun is completely on the mark here. This has been discussed before and I solidly believe it's important to understand and accept the fact that your SO can't possibly understand everything she said she'll be or do while in China because she simply doesn't understand what day to day life in the US will be like. She can promise the sky to you while she's in China but once she gets here, she may think completely differently. You need to keep this in mind. If she's everything she said she'd be when she gets here: GREAT! You truly lucked out. But don't try to hold her to everything she said in China, as really she's committing to a type of un-informed consent. She's consenting or agreeing to things that she has no real understanding of and certainly that kind of consent wouldn't hold up in a court of law. So try to be understanding. Of course that doesn't mean to let her walk all over you like a power mower either.

It's all good. Good luck with your home purchase.

Lou, this is a bit confusing. Are you asking for the direct translation of "lose face" into Chinese? Or are you asking for someone who writes Chinese to actually give you a dictionary definition of the Chinese word, all written in Chinese?

Chilton, you best be careful with the use of "these people". Ross Perot got in some serious trouble for calling African Americans "these people" during his campaign run for the Pres of the US.

Ok, so it is possible to do that. That's what I wanted to make sure as I never did this before in China either. To be safe, bring ATM card & bank passbook and passport. For the destination account, need to know the exact name of the person of the destination account and their account number. There's no "routing" number I need to know, correct? I just tell my bank that it needs to transfer over to China Construction Bank and they'll know, correct? Thanks for your comments. I don't think anyone likes to pay bank fees, but for a bigger amount, I feel incredibly unsafe walking around with the cash. I'd rather pay a fee to have the bank send it bank-to-bank.

Hi Bill, how do you go about transferring funds from one bank to another within China? For example, say you have an account with China Construction Bank and I have my account at Bank of China. If I needed to pay you 100,000RBM without having to withdraw that amount in cash and carry it over to your bank, is there a way to transfer it to your bank? Do I bring my BoC ATM/DEBIT card to your China Construction Bank and they can process the transfer? Or does it need to be a wire transfer between the bank? I'd appreciate your comments. Thanks.

Steve, which government, Chinese or American?

That is true.

Haha.. too bad. I was hoping you didn't have to do that and that you'd tell me how to get around having to go through this verification process. I had always hoped the filing of a G-28 would negate the need to do this verification with our spouses, but I recall Curt posting one time that even after filing a G-28, his calls to USCIS still required that his wife be verified first. This makes calling from work during business hours practically impossible. Hank, Congrats again! You guys must be so happy now! Cool beans! BTW, I just read about your wife's success on getting her driver's license a while back. I must have missed your second thread. Congrats to her on passing her exam!

Carlos. Remind me. What part of The Constitution guarantees you or any of us the right to bring a foreign born spouse or fiancee to this country? Or even to do it in a timely manner? This is the government we're dealing with. As others have said, they hold ALL the cards. You sue, they say "This is a homeland security issue", end of story/you lose. Or, they'll just decide that they suspect fraud. Who do you think a judge is going to listen to, you or them? Now if these posts are just you blowing off steam then,by all means, blow away. Lots of people like to vent here to sympathetic ears. But if you're really serious then you're kidding yourself big time, not to mention wasting valuable time and energy better devoted to things you can actually control. The members who've offered their advice/opinions to you so far are as knowledgable about this process as you'll find anywhere. Do yourself a favor and use it. Good luck. DavidZ, TY99, and I-Dave: I hear ya all and must agree with what you've all said, but there is another part of me that really wishes more US petitioners would indeed file lawsuits. DoS/GUZ really does need to be challenged more often. They get very little legal challenges as is, mostly based on the reasons you've all given. But I would like to see more legal challenges brought their way. They may prevail in the end, but wouldn't it be nice to let them know once in a while that we (the petitioners) are not all supplicants who must kow-tow to them all the time? I'd support Carlos filing some kind of a lawsuit.

Hey TY99, I'm not trying to debate against your position above, as in fact I tend to agree with your position, but I have had problems when contacting USCIS over the phone. They've insisted each time to talk to my wife first, and only after asking all the prerequisite questions and asking if she gives permission for her case to be discussed by me then am I allowed to ask the questions to USCIS. Have you encountered that? Or are you able to directly speak to USCIS about your wife's case over the phone, without your wife present to verify her info and give consent?

Smart move Hank. Playing the doting idiot yourself rather than confront his lack of knowledge. Congrats on your wife passing! Nicely done! How sweet that letter and stamp look! Awesome!

You have a happy festival, too! Next year, make some moon cakes with your wife. They are easy and fun, and they taste good. Hahah.. Happy Moon Cake Day to everyone. (I call today Moon Cake Day, as I call Thanksgiving: Turkey Day. ) We purchased some red bean with egg yolk moon cake from SF Chinatown last Thursday. We made sure to save one for tonight. In fact, I think it's time to cut the cake and eat it under the moonlight now. Hope everyone had a great Moon Cake Day!

Hi there. I take it you're not in GZ with your SO? Unless they changed the procedure, I don't think you have the procedure correct in your mind. Your SO will NOT go to GUZ to pick up her visa. She will go to a nearby China Post Office to pick up her visa. The visa is "shipped" in from GUZ to the Post Office where the visa applicants pick up their processed visa. Most of the time the visa is ready for pickup in two business days, but sometimes it's taken longer than two days. It's possible that your SO may have her visa approval rescinded--that has happened before--but the chances are extremely low, almost non-existent. I don't think you should worry about that possibility. Most likely your SO will receive her visa the next business day. Good luck!

It is not speculation. GUZ certainly does keep count. Statistically, GUZ sees a lot more cases suspected of fraud from Fujian and GuangXi province than other provinces. Now that doesn't mean every case from FuJian or GuangXi province is fraudulent. But the numbers show that more fraud cases come through there and thus applicants from these two provinces, especially FuJian, get a lot more scrutiny. It really does suck for the innocent applicants from FuJian and GuangXi. Can't comment on SuZhou as I haven't looked into it, but I don't recall JiangSu province getting extra scrutiny.

As long as you're content, nothing else matters. Happy to see you happy. Don't forget to mark your calendar for the Removal of Conditions.

Congrats on your SO's interview success. Have a safe flight back to the US. As my wife (SO at the time) is from Shanghai as well, I looked into this in depth (with DavidZ's help) and it seems there are VERY FEW--perhaps only one case on CFL--where a Shanghai SO was issued a blue slip. Almost everyone's SO from Shanghai has passed very easily and received PINK on their first try. In our case, my then-SO didn't even get to give my I-134 to her VO. He asked 8 quick questions, looked over some of our photos and asked for my taxes and then issued her PINK. All told, it took less than 5 minutes for the entire interview. It does royally suck for some SOs from other parts of China who have to endure much greater scrutiny, but there is good evidence from CFL that SH SOs have a very easy time at the GUZ interview.

Joshua, where (what province/city) are you thinking of teaching? It will be an experience indeed. The students will be great, but the admin will be a pain in the ass to deal with, as others have said.

Ah... so many thoughts.. where to begin... Jesse, I'm a little surprised at your response above. I wouldn't have figured you'd take this position. This is a TV show. It's voluntary. No one forced any of the religious right to join the cast, nor forced any of them to go to China. This is not the US government, nor the Chinese government, forcing someone to bow down to Buddhism. It was all for the pomp and pageantry of the show. Frankly, I think that lady who came out of the Temple during the ceremony should have been categorically ejected from the game right then and there. That's great she can't bow in front of a Buddha statue and I respect her desire to not do so, but equally she should be kicked out of the game for not participating based on the rules of the show. Now, having said that, I think they never should have had this temple ceremony to begin with, not because of anything to do with Buddhism, but because Survivor has NEVER began the show by having any kind of ceremony. They've always just dumped all the contestants somewhere isolated and immediately began the game. To the best of my knowledge, this was the very first time Survivor has done it this way. Completely inconsistent with how the show has always been and it's on this inconsistency that I think Survivor should not have started with this temple ceremony. Carl, I agree with you that the NYC waitress was a complete bitch, but not only because she was so disrespectful during a solemn ceremony, but because she was a complete bitch to everyone else. Recall her remark about how she wouldn't be hanging around these kinds of people in NYC? She needs to get over herself and fast! I predict she'll be the first one canned from her group. Regarding Chicken or the she-male wrestler, I'm saddened to see Chicken get kicked off because he was a pretty hard worker and the wrestler was just a lazy butt. It doesn't surprise me they didn't immediately kick off the lazy butt, but I suspect she'll go next. PG was portrayed as being pretty bossy. Just like last seasons Survivor, another Chinese American--an architect I believe--was booted off because she was portrayed as being too bossy. What's up with Survivor portraying these older Chinese ladies as being so bossy? I like the gravedigger. He seems like the strong, gentle type. I hope he goes far, but somehow I don't think he will. His inability to socially interact with the rest of his group will be his Achilles heel, I feel. For this upcoming show, I really hope the bitchy NYC waitress is ejected. She's such a haughty bitch. So she's from NYC, big fracking deal! Did she forget she's just a waitress? She's not a fracking movie star or supermodel. I'd like to hear more predictions of whose going to be canned on next episode or whose going to ultimately win. BTW: I had my wife watch the first EP with me, but she wasn't very interested in the show either. She did say some of the scenery were very beautiful but overall wasn't interested much in the show.

I would bet it's going to get pretty interesting in most of our households during the Olympics next summer. Obie Indeed!

B) This is also where I think many of the CFL members will be in for a rude awakening once their SOs arrive to the US. Once the romantic honeymoon period is over and day to day marriage life manifests itself in the US, the same CFL members will probably see some of the behavior they consider rude and uncivilized in their own SOs. It's very difficult to immediately change someone's cultural behavior after having lived in that said culture for many, many years. To assume or imagine that only other Chinese people are rude, and that one's own SO is an angel, is to ask for trouble IMO. SheLikesME had written some very honest posts about his observations of his wife once she came to the US. All people are products of their environment. It's reasonable to assume that any SO will, in general, by like the general Chinese population. I think it's unreasonable to assume or expect any SO to be much better than the general Chinese population.

This is fair. I would have to agree that Chinese to Chinese relations (amongst strangers) on the Mainland is not something I would like other countries to model themselves after. A lot has to do with the sheer number of people. As a Californian, I'm shocked at the behavior of New Yorkers (NYC). Absolutely appalling from what I've seen. But I don't directly blame them as I realize it's the number of people that's densely packed into NYC which attribute to their rude behavior. Likewise with China. Not all their behavior is justified by massively over population but a lot of it is. In all honest, I was equally appalled and judgmental while living in China. It angered and frustrated me to no end seeing how the Chinese treated each other--again amongst stranger. I just felt very sad for the general population and the circumstances under which they've had to live. Still, this is our interpretation here. Most Chinese accept it as a matter of course and don't think much of it.

Good for you Joanne! I think you've been rather mild in your defense. You should bring out the big guns and charge on the offensive!

Jeukin, if ILS used an example of a Chinese person being stricken over by a car and left to die, I wouldn't have said much as I agree with your position and ILS regarding the Chinese apathy towards another Chinese in distress. But ILS used an example of an American being hit and left to die on the road. That is so unheard of. It's completely isolated and anecdotal. It goes contrary to everything I've witnessed in China while living there--especially since this supposedly took place in Shanghai, where there are tons of Americans living and working there. The sad and pathetic truth is that a Chinese person in China is much more apt to help a laowei in distress than a fellow Chinese citizen in distress. And this is completely taken for granted by laoweis because most laoweis don't even realize they've been accorded special treatment. The special treatment they receive is still viewed by many laoweis as uncivilized and rude. That's pure irony. As for sensationalism, I'd say the way the story is told in the original post is pretty sensational. I'd actually like to read an actual journalistic account of this story. Any links would be appreciated, whether in Chinese or English.

A very astute and prophetic observation. Sounds to me like the person FC is referring to is shopping for a product. These are women, gentlemen. Maybe future spouses not used or pre-owned cars. Would it have been better if I blew Ying off because she was from Fuzhou? Maybe find me a "better" and "easier" new and improved model in a "Good" city. Sorry, first thing in the morning and I'm not a morning person. I hear ya Steve. Some odd comments in this thread. It read as if FC is shopping for meat from different Chinese cities. I sure hope the goal is to find someone to fall in love witg first, not looking specifically for a "wife" from a specific city in China to bring home to do the cooking and cleaning. Too independent and business minded? What era are we in? 1950s?