naogong

I wouldn't have any concerns if I were you, and if you and your sweetheart feel that your love is true. My wife and I went the CR1 route, I went to China and married her the day after I arrived on my first visit when I stayed for a month living with her at her aunt's, after we had been writing for just 6 months. My wife's english was very good from the first, so we had no trouble communicating in english. I continued to visit, each time for a month, for a total of 3 visits for the approximately 1.5 years before her interview. Went over and spent another month, two weeks together getting ready for GZ, a week there for the interview, which was an easy pink slip. Then another week back home in Chengdu celebrating with family and friends, and she came home with me. We've been together in the US for a year and a half. We are both so happy together, it's been perfect with no problems, no great homesickness, though I did encourage her to go home for a month last fall without me and then I joined her for another month. She's gone to school here, but just got a job with United Airlines (wah-the flight benefits are so great!) and we are more in love with each other with each succeeding day. Our age difference is 25 years, and I feel younger and am healthier than I've ever been. I don't see any downsides especially with a CR1, the waiting made us stronger, the commitment we both showed added to our confidence in the marriage, and we hope to have a child together in the next year or so, even with my age. If you love her, and she loves you, it will work out! Best to you and her.

The original post by Xu Xing is really interesting and insightful. I first saw it on a web site run by UC Berkeley journalism students (I work at UC Berkeley) that often has very interesting posts on a wide variety of subjects of interest to those of us who have an interest in China, it's people and culture (which I'm sure includes every member of CFL). In case this site isn't widely known I thought I would give it's url for those who might want to explore it. It's called Culture: China Digital Times and can be found at the following url; http://chinadigitaltimes.net/culture/ I check it almost daily and rarely leave without having read something of interest from a wide variety of people on diverse subjects. Hope others might enjoy checking it out. Happy New Year!

The yak meat is packaged in shrinkwrap thick plastic and is available all over Chengdu, even in the Walmart near my wife's aunt and uncle's where we always stay. It's much like beef jerky, really quite delicious, and comes in spicy and normal soy sauce jerk type seasoning. They do raise them domestically in Sichuan, Yunnan, and Tibet, and I imagine elsewhere also. Thanks for the posts and advice, I will declare what I have in future and hope for the best, as it sounds like they are definitely not as restrictive as I had imagined. Xie, xie to all and next time you're in China do try to find the dried yak meat for a delicious treat, particularly good with a cold beer!

On all of my trips back from China, both when I was visiting my wife, and after she got her visa and on our recent trip home to visit family I've always brought back lots of food, even though I knew it was prohibited. I've never been caught, and while I've seen people who have and assumed that they would of course have the food taken away, I didn't know if there were any other consequences. Yesterday a friend from China came to visit with my wife and I and was amazed at all the food we had brought back. I asked her what happened besides losing the food if customs caught you with it and she told me that as well as losing the food that there were large fines assessed! Can anyone enlighten me on the risks I've been taking so I can judge if I want to push my luck in the future? I am talking about packaged, processed foods mainly. Yak meat, soy milk powder (China has better than any I've found in the US), teas, tea flavored plums and other fruits and even flowers, but also hua jiao, and other spices, and occasionally pickled vegetables from relatives. I never let my wife carry any of the items, she's still a conditional resident. What happens to a person if they're caught bringing back food? Xie, xie for any that can advise me!

I seem to have adopted the opposite adjustment from most of you. I found my wife's hard, thin mattress much better for my back than the bulky japanese futon I slept on at home. When laopo arrived we replaced the futon with a firm chinese style bed, and we both sleep, and enjoy other bedroom activities just fine on it. I've had back problems for the last 3 years, and the firmer mattress is helping me feel more comfortable. We've also adopted the no shoes, soft and bulky slippers in the house rule. She bought 3 pairs in Chengdu before we left, for us and my son. If he or I don't take off our shoes after entering the house, out comes the mop! I was used to slippers in the house and the no shoe rule from my time living in Hawaii when I was in my 20's, and it really keeps the house much cleaner and it's nice to get the shoes off after a hard day at work.

I gave my new baba $1000 in one hundred dollar bills when I officially asked for my laopo's hand in marriage, at my wife's suggestion, and after I asked her what was appropriate. She was living with her aunt and uncle all during the time when I met and married her, and I have always stayed with them during my 3 month long visits in China. I gave them $500 which they reluctantly took. I've received much more from her family than I ever gave however. We took in over $5000 USD in red bags from family at our marriage banquet, including a $2400 red bag from one of her uncle's who is a chinese millionaire. Her family also has paid for so many meals, gifts of jade, chinese medicine, a computer that another uncle gave to facilitate our communication when he found that I was planning on buying a new IMac. I have received far more from them than I've given (not to mention the hand of my dear wife) , my chinese family are so generous! I know that all they want from me is that I give Keke the best care and love I can, and that is and will always be my goal.

We live Chinese style in that, and most respects. Since I work from about 2 a.m. until 10 a.m., a nap in the afternoon is perfect for me. One of the helpful aspects of my odd sleep schedule (about 2 -3 hours tops at night) was that I was always up at 4:30 or 5:30 a.m. to IM with her after she got home from her work in Chengdu at about 8:30 p.m. her time. My wife is a world class sleeper, and we always took a nap when I was with her in China and her work schedule, or family obligations permitted. Now that we're together we try to fit in a nap every afternoon after I've returned from work, and her from school. I'm lucky to have both an unusual work schedule, and a flexible one. I'm done with work by 10 a.m. and have the day to spend with her, including a delicous and intimate shared nap!

The same warning can be posted for Berkeley, California. My wife passed this week on her first attempt! Her ESL classmates were amazed as some of them have taken the test as many as 9 times and still have yet to pass! Actually I wasn't surprised a bit that she passed, she is a smart, and determined person and succeeds at everything she tries. Congratulations to your wife.

We had 4 of the largest suitcases I had ever seen, carefully packed to meet United's weigh limit. We also shipped 6 of China Post's largest boxes which contained mostly clothing, and all arrived on time (about 6 weeks) and in good condition. We're both very glad she brought so much clothing from home (Chengdu) both because of the cost, the styles which she and I both think are nicer, and the difficulty she has in finding clothing that fits her here. She made me throw away lots of old clothes I had held on to way to long, and the things she bought me are much nicer and the clothes we brought from Chengdu should last until we return when we plan on loading up with enough to last until our next trip.

Living in the mild SF Bay area, we've already had tomatoes, serrano peppers, and lettuce in the ground for over two weeks. Last week the radishes, various types of "green beans", squash of several types were sprouted inside and once sprouted I put them into pots with planting soil to allow them to grow enough that any nibbling by slugs or snails won't doom them before they get a chance to be able to withstand small scale depradations. We're anxiously awaiting seeds from China that various friends of my wife who've immigrated brought with them, and her family is also going to send some of the vegetables available from Sichuan, my wife's home province. Laopo's a city girl and has never had a garden, and is enjoying the work we've done so far, and anticipating the fun and savings of having garden fresh vegetables.

After spending the last two Spring Festivals with my wife in her hometown of Chendgu (we married during Spring Festival 2005, on Feb. 3rd), we're celebrating our first Spring Festival in the SF Bay Area after our return from her successful CR1 interview on November 12th of last year. We're both going to miss the celebrating with her family in Chengdu, but we'll make jiaozi for my brother and his family, eat lots of delicious traditional Spring Festival foods since we're lucky enough to have access to almost any food we would eat in China here in Berkeley, thanks to the large chinese population in our area. SF has a big parade every year (on which it typically rains ) and though Keke doesn't like Chinatown, we'll go in for the parade. We sent lots of cards to her family, and I've sent her an ecard telling her how happy I am to have her with me at last, and wishing us both the best Spring Festival together ever. Xin nian kuai le to all on CFL!

My wife has been in the US with me a little over a month now, and we've eaten exactly one non-Sichuan type meal during a visit my parent's made two weeks ago from Oregon to finally meet meet Keke in person, when we went to a restaurant and at my suggestion she tried Gumbo since it was relatively spicy, which she liked very much. My wife also doesn't like cheese, but she doesn't care if I eat it. Her biggest food prohibition is one I ran into while visiting her in Chengdu. It was the issue of eating "cold" foods, during the winter. Banana's were a no no, no cold drinks, (even though she knows that the tap water is perfectly clean here, she still only drinks boiled water, and I've followed her example). The tea pot is put to the boil throughout the day, and we both often add honey to it for flavor and assumed energy. She has asked me to teach her how to cook some "west" food, but we intend to stick to our diet of almost entirely Sichuan cuisine, which I prefer to any american food anyway. Living in the SF Bay area we are blessed with an abundant choice of places to find everything we were used to eating in Chengdu, and at my office Christmas party this week she made "la zi ji" spicy chili chicken" loaded with hua jiao (Sichuan pepper corns") and dried red chili's. My co-worker's were a little hesitant to try it at first, but those that did enjoyed it and complimented her. This weekend we're attending a Multicultural potluck at my son's school, for which she will make one of our favorite dishes, "double fried pork" which is spicy, but not unbearably hot for those that don't take too well to chili and hua jiao laden dishes. Since we returned from Chengdu after our succesful interview in November, I've eaten better than at any time in my life. I'm waiting for her to wake up, when she'll make me one of my favorite breakfasts, rice flour dumplings with boiled eggs to which we add honey. (I never used to eat breakfast, except when I was with her in Chengdu), until she finally was able to join me in Berkeley. My 12 year old son has also become a big fan of her meals, and while he has a lower tolerance for spicy foods than Keke and I, he's surprised me with his willingness to try new foods, and is lavish with his praise for our wonderful meals. For a change and a treat, tomorrow I'll be making us a fried egg, bacon, and toast breakfast, so she can take a break from cooking and try some "west" food made by her laogong. She's been in touch with some other recently arrived women, and most have written or told her of their disappointment with the lack of available chinese food in their areas, or their husbands preference for "west" food. It makes her very happy that I prefer to eat the food she's most familiar and comfortable with, and I'm sure "west" food will always be an occasional exception to our diet of Sichuan cuisine, to my mind and taste buds, the best on the planet!

I got three # on my CR1 Visa as Paula does. When I later in Houston got my welcome letter, there were two important numbers: 1. Receipt#(or Tracking #) WAC-07-001-XXXXX. 2. Alien Registration #: A0xx-xxx-xxx, the "xx-xxx-xxx" in Alien Registration # is exactly same as the Registration Number on my CR1 Visa. So I suppose for CR1, at least the Registration Number assigned on your Visa is the Alien Registration Number (or so called "A" number). Correct me please! My wife is a CR1, and their was no A number on her visa. We first received her A number on the "Welcome to the U.S." letter she recieved about 3 weeks after she entered the country on Nov. 12th of this year. It was also on her I-551, the "green card", that we received at the same date, but it is definitely not on her visa, and these letters were the first time we ever saw it.

Experience shows that individual cases can vary a lot, but I understand your desire to have some idea of others wait times. In the case of my wife and I, we had an interview date within 3 weeks of GUZ acknowledging that they had our case in the system. This however was after an over 3 month wait after receiving notice that our case had been forwarded to GUZ. My wife was able to figure out the DHL shipping records and knew that our case had been sent, but had not yet been picked up, and languished in DHL's storage facility for almost 2.5 months. At that point I contacted my congresswoman, and her office wrote a letter to GUZ asking for information on our case, and urging them to move on it. I have no idea if this was what broke the logjam, but shortly after she sent the letter I called the DOS and was told that we had an interview date of Oct. 30th, and a week later my wife received the P4 packet at her home in Chengdu. I was advised by a few members that contacting congressmembers might be better left for bigger issues, or real problems, but I had already contacted her by then. It certainly didn't hurt (laopo passed her interview on Oct. 30th, and we're together now in SF Bay area since Nov. 12th). Hope you have a similar experience and you get an interview date and recieve the P4 packet soon.

Thanks for the confirmation, I can't believe we got it so quickly, the immigration official at the POE said 3 months, and if we didn't receive it in 10 months to start writing letters! We got it in less than 3 weeks after laopo entered, is this a record, or have others had the same experience? It's the 2 year conditional card, and as suggested we'll file for permenant status 90 days before the 2 year date. Thanks again for the confirmation that it's the coveted green card.