Rob and WeiLing
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Posts posted by Rob and WeiLing
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dnoblett, thanks for the advice and breaking down the costs on both the K-1 and CR-1; and as you said it definitely does look economically like a better idea to do the latter, but there are other factors that make the K-1 the best option for us.
Do you mind if I ask what some of those other factors are? I don't really see advantages to the K-1:
- K-1 is much more expensive than DCF
- K-1 is generally more restrictive when entering the US and your fiancee will--for all intents and purposes--be considered an illegal. There's a whole section of this form for post-entry K-1 troubles. CR-1 (through DCF) grants immediate green card status and social security card application is automatic upon entry. You don't have to do anything extra.
- Trends seem to show that DCF is considerably faster; again, each case is different.
The only advantage I'm seeing is that your marriage certificate will be issued in the US instead of China. If you get the marriage certificate in China, nothing would stop you from having the ceremony in the US later...
Again, I'd be very interested to know the factors that make K-1 better---but only if you're willing to share.
- K-1 is much more expensive than DCF
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- If you are going to provide one, is BEST to include it in the initial petition filing either I-129F or I-130 filing, this way it is seen by USCIS, and if USCIS approves petition knowing what is in the letter, the consulate should also see it too.
I dropped mine off with the I-130 DCF in Beijing. I also had a ton of other junk, including things like ticket stubs of tourist places we went together and Chinese train tickets. The guy at USCIS in Beijing told me that I didn't need all that, but took my packet of pictures, phone records, and my EOR. He didn't look strangely at it at all, so I'm sure he'd seen plenty of them.
My EOR was 4 pages and described in detail the significant parts of my relationship with WeiLing including dates, locations, and my feelings. I detailed how we met (online), the circumstances of our first face-to-face meeting, when I knew she was the woman I wanted to marry, meeting in China a second time, the proposal, time spent with her family (included getting the approval of her father), the wedding ceremony, my family's interaction with hers, and hopes for the future. Double-spaced, it was 1 paragraph more than 3 pages.
I got a pink, but I can't say if my EOR had any effect. A lot of people get by fine without one. If you want to do it then I'd recommend, as Dan did, to include it with the initial petition. And if you do write an EOR, you'll have to come up with it yourself. I doubt you can apply anyone else's experiences and feelings to your own situation, not that you'd want to anyway. The EOR is as unique as your relationship, so just write what you feel. Some people avoid emotion, but my feeling is that this is the one place the VO can read your own thoughts and should be cherished as such. The dry facts can be found from other places in the application, and just listing them again is redundant in my opinion. Just be sure not to use too casual of a style and then have someone proof-read it when you think it's ready.
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I was told they were way more expensive in china (at least the area I was going to), so that was the reason I was asked to bring some.
The only issue I see so far is that Cydia (the application used for jailbroken phones to be able to install and run applications) does not seem to work. I am guessing that maybe the internet is blocked for some of the sources.
When I was in China, Cydia worked some weeks and didn't work on others. the Rock App (RockYourPhone) seemed to handle it a little better but doesn't always install as consistently as Cydia. If you can find a L2TP VPN to work with, that was how I got my Cydia to work more consistently...
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Congratulations! Take your time resting and be sure to let us know the details!
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ON this same topic..... My LP got her mom prepped for the consulate interview in Shenyang and she apparently got approval for the visitor's visa. However, LP is telling me that the VO did not tell her mother the duration of the visa. She says they give you the duration when you arrive in the US for entry....but I thought you were required to show a round trip booking back to China?? - How do you do that if you don't know how long your visa stay is beforehand?
Am I losing something in translation here?
Roger
No. You aren't. The visa is valid for entry and doesn't specify visit duration. That's one of the duties at the POE. In fact, if the visa expires tomorrow, she can still enter today and legally stay as long as the officer grants her. If you have a return ticket that's within 6 months or so, you shouldn't have any kind of problem.
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We're hoping all goes well. As Randy has stated a few times, tax problems are with the IRS and not with GUZ. GUZ is just looking that your wife will be supported.
When they give your daughter IVs, is it in her head? WeiLing was telling me that children here get IVs in the head because their arms and legs move around too much. That just sounds awful and borderline cruel... Could just be a Hubei thing.
Anyway, best of luck!
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Okay, so visa would be required. That site is pretty unclear (and when I view it, multiple clauses are left unfinished--I'm not sure if that's my connection or just the site being strange), so would we have to follow with a tour group as most mainland Chinese are required to? Or would we be able to get tourist visas and do our own thing? I did notice that the site says exit tickets (continuing on a journey or returning) are required...
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I know that a US Green Card holder can visit Canada without a visa, but I'm curious if holding a green card (and flying from the US) would loosen the restrictions for a mainland Chinese visiting Taiwan. There's no near-term plans, but WeiLing is hoping that she can visit Taiwan some time in the future (and probably before citizenship). Anyone have experience with this?
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Rob,
Yep listening to Chinese logic regard to chickens, cows, cats, dogs, etc, is an eye opening experience Just watching their logic unfold is to say
And you are absolutely correct. My wife wanted me hang the chickens upside down, cut their throats with a razor, so blood could be collected. This is to be 1) Done outside in a tree. 2) Swimming Pool not more than 50 meters away. 3) While kids are running around, and would be watching me! 4) In the middle of a condo complex with 25 units!
The SPCA would have turned my butt every which way but loose! Tried to explain this to the wife, but you imagine how far that got? I believe the words were "Stupid Laws!"
This aside it does make for an interesting and not a dull marriage!
Oh yeah. Interesting is a word for it. Even with my in-laws, I learn new things about Chinese logic every day. (And I never quite understood how logic was subjective before I married WeiLing.) I've got another quick story, not about WeiLing, but about my dear mother-in-law...
We had just moved everything back to Hubei from Zhejiang. Classes finished and now we're hanging out until the flight to the US. I normally use a large towel when I'm done showering. Chinese use things smaller than what I'd call a "hand towel", and expect me to use the same. I do, of course, because Hubei is so damn hot that I'm soaked in sweat as soon as I "dry off". But in any case, I was getting ready for the shower, and Mom ran to grab me a small sized towel, stating that it would be easier to wash. As soon as she brought it in, she took it straight to the sink and got it all soaked. I was just thinking "WTF? I wanted to DRY off with that, or at least TRY with something so small." It turns out, she was worried about the dust that would be on it from being out in the sun all day.
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I don't quite have the same touch for theater that Dave does, but I'm just remembering a story that happened the other day. WeiLing is really looking forward to the States; she doesn't entirely know what to expect, she just knows that it's totally different from the country she's lived 25-years in. Oh, and she likes oatmeal, breakfast cereal, Western salads, and steak. Of course, not as much as she loves Chinese food though.
In any case, we were discussing pets that our future children might raise:
WeiLing: I don't want to raise a dog. American's don't like the idea of eating dog, so why would we raise one?
Rob: Because they're like a friend. We could also raise a cat, they aren't as dependent on humans as dogs are, but can be very sweet and sit on your lap more easily.
WeiLing: No. We need to raise something else. When our kids are still young, we'll give them a chicken as a pet. Then, when it's grown fat, we'll all eat it together!
Rob: No! That's traumatizing to kids. A pet is a pet, and you can't eat it.
WeiLing: So when the kids are away, we'll secretly kill it, and then serve it for dinner when they return!
Rob: No! Do you really think that our kids are going to be stupid? Am I stupid? (Yes) Are you stupid? (Angry look) Then why would our kids be stupid? They wouldn't fall for such a transparent trick.
WeiLing: Okay. Fine, since it would be their friend we couldn't eat a Chicken. How about a Cow? We don't have to kill the cow right away, and it will still give us milk we can drink!
Rob: Where in hell are we going to keep a cow? And you would probably STILL want to eat it.
WeiLing: You're right. We could keep the cow for milk until the kids are teenagers, and then we'll all eat it together. American's like beef, right?
Rob: Why are you only concerned with eating the animals? They're raised as friends for the children.
WeiLing: Better question: Why shouldn't we eat the animals? They're delicious!
Rob: We don't live on a farm. City people don't eat animals they raised themselves.
WeiLing: Then we need to live in the country-side.
Rob: ...Sigh... We'll talk about this later.
Of course, this was all in Chinese, and I've added a bit of flourish to the story in translation. But that was the general idea. I'm sure we'll probably raise a dog... And NOT eat it. I do wish she was more keen on the cat idea, though. She does sometimes defer to me, but only if I've been "right" multiple times in the past. Multiple. I just won't let her read Dave's story with the free-range chickens. Especially not that man-chickens just walk around and party, drink, and do a lot of nothing. Man, I was chuckling at that...
Before I end, I've gotta say that I've come to like eating chicken feet when I'm drinking with Dad-in-law at the nearby SaoKao. Part of it is that I'm drunk, part of it is that I'm stuffing my mouth so he's not telling me that I'm not full yet, and part of it is that I'm pretending it's lamb (which isn't served in summer
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Tim and other CFL BM's,
I want to add a bit onto Credzba's comments.
My wife was a former PRC Agriculture Bureau clerk. That is one thing that she demanded from me early on in our relationship; DO NOT send things to her workplace. 1) All the other girls/women became jealous, and would gossip incessantly regards to her. 2) My wife was never a CCP member; but her cell-supervisors were, and she could be fired at the drop of a hat. All gifts which I did send, were sent to her home. BTW! Most expecially since I was a laowei in the first place. 3) My wife wouldn't even wear her engagement ring in her workplace, in fear of starting rumors. She would wear the ring at home, or shopping, etc. But NEVER in her workplace. A 1.5 carat diamond center placed diamond, with two.5 carat side diamonds, will do nothing but bring trouble and rumors. Again; this is up to the individual couple, which is an issue to be talked about between themselves. Far be from me, to dictate what is right and wrong. Just beware of the consequences on both the woman and the man's parts.
This choice is entirely up to the couple of what you can and can get away with. Personally, I would suggest checking with the fiancee/fiance before any gifts are sent to the workplace. Getting fired in China, is no laughing matter.
However! Credzba's comments regard to flowers are dead on target. It really does depend on the woman.
I will add one item, and attempt not to throw a bucket water on your parade. How the woman receives the gifts, accepts them, etc, etc; Can be a redflag warning for you. You are intelligent, and can fill in the blanks. If they are received glibly, and wants better presents, than you had better walk away, or at least do some serious hard-thinking. It can and often time does get worse. Credzba's and my ass-chewing's, simply reflect the nature of our wives. DO NOT waste the family money. Save it for the final plane ticket, hotels in GUZ for her interview, save it for furniture which she chooses in the US.
I would agree with Dave that each woman is different; however, he's talking about "wasting family money" from the standpoint of a married man. I just talked with WeiLing about this and she knew immediately (without me telling) that Dave is already married. She said that during courtship, gifts are more appreciated as it shows that the man isn't just whispering sweet nothings. She gave the hypothetical response of her mother receiving flowers from her father: "Éñ¾²¡£¡ÄãÂò»¨¸ÉÂïѽ£¿"--or, Retard! What the hell are you doing buying flowers (for me)?
When I got my wife's (still girlfriend at that point) address, I only told her it was to send a letter--which I did send. I never told her I'd be later sending flowers, chocolate, or gifts. The address she had me mail to was her office, so that's what I used. She was always excited beyond belief (WeiLing gets that way, it's really cute). The first time I sent flowers in a vase, the second time I sent flowers and chocolate, and the third time I sent flowers and a stuffed bear. All were from a Chinese website and delivered the same day I ordered--even on weekends. (I could have ordered to be delivered at specific times on specific days; pretty flexible). I could look it up if you'd like.
In fact, the first time I met WeiLing in person, I gave a box of See's Candies chocolates. She ate three and gave the rest to family during Spring Festival. I was appalled, I gave her a 2lb box to enjoy herself over time. It turns out, she's not a big chocolate-eater, and it's Chinese custom to share gifts like that with people around. (Then again, some things she says are Chinese custom appear to only be local to her hometown, or that area. China is as big as the States, and probably has a set of unique customs for each dialect in the PRC!) Months later, when she joked around that she wanted to share chocolate with her friend at work, I surprised her by actually sending flowers and chocolate that day. She still mentions the Dove chocolate from time to time. The stuffed bear that I sent her is still propped up by the couch at her parent's house.
Dave is onto something with surprises and with keeping track of Chinese holidays. I'll give a hint that one is coming up. Aug 16th is this year's Chinese Valentine's day. (It's lunar-calendar based; 7th day of 7th month). Your fiancee may know you're planning something for her birthday, but a small token on that day may win some surprise brownie-points.
Perhaps it's somewhat relevant to mention that when Chinese receive gifts in person, they hold them and take them home to open in privacy... When my family brought gifts to her family for the wedding, my parents were mystified that the presents sat still-wrapped and everyone was just staring excitedly at nothing happening. I had to explain that American custom is to rip off the packaging ASAP to show enthusiasm and appreciation for receiving the gifts. My sister-in-law told me that she felt naughty/disrespectful by opening them right away--even though we told her to! Oh, how customs differ...
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Well I wouldn't worry about taking them with you. They're for you personal use - specifically gifts. I've carried some strange things in my luggage and carry on - ($5000.00 worth of American Prescription Drugs to last me a year, Three IPODS (long time ago), one time I took quite a chunk of $100.00 bills - (the first time I moved to China) - so the bottom line is I wouldn't worry about it.
Now I have a question - I don't even know if this makes sense - but can an IPhone 4 be "unlocked" from the network, ala buying a China cell phone that you just swap out sims/add money at will vice a plan?
I think iPhone 4 is also sold to Verizon customers now. I just know that iPhone 4 has been having a hell of a time with reception problems. Something to the effect of holding it in the left hand will get calls dropped.
Unofficial unlocking would require jailbreak (which the Library of Congress recently ruled is LEGAL), but I met a woman who said her son took his iPhone to AT&T and said he was going to be in China for a while. I think she said they unlocked it for him. I could be wrong.
And no need to buy a whole cell phone in China, you can usually buy SIM cards individually, just have a passport or Chinese ID card ready.
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I've been an active reader but not a writer and just want to share our experience in case it helps someone else. Our's was perhaps not a difficult case since I've lived in China for almost 10 years and known my wife almost that long but I did learn a few things along the way. We received the "pink" on Wednesday. Of course I went to Guangzhou also. On Monday I went to ACH and had a nice chat with one of the officers. This was a suggestion I received here and I think it was quite worthwhile. She was very nice and offered a number of suggestions. I had a couple of other questions about some documents and those questions were all answered. I made a point of telling her that I'd been in China for 9 years and spoke Chinese fluently and saw her taking notes on the screen. My wife's English is OK but I knew she was very nervous going into the interview and was afraid her English would leave her at a critical moment. On the interview day itself, I made sure to give my wife my passport as well so they knew that her husband was there supporting her. There was a preliminary interview by a lady that collected paperwork. There were very long waits before and after the paperwork collection. My wife was at the end of the line. Seemed like some interviewees had issues and they were at the window a long time. My wife said she was impressed that the interviewers were willing to spend so much time explaining things. After the long wait the actual interview for us was pretty short with just a few questions. I think the key is preparation. Include as much as you can with the I130. And for the interview have everything prepared, labeled, highlighted, etc. And be sure that your wife knows what everything is and where. Check and check again that everything that is required is included. For documents such as birth certificate, marriage certificate, police report - you must have the official notarized white booklets from the Gong Zheng Chu. But I did learn that they do not have to be from the Hukou hometown Gong Zheng Chu. Any will do, but of course they must be the "white booklets" from the official notary offices. For us the process went from March filing to July "pink". So in summary I'd say that being nervous is understandable but following the process and attention to detail will win out.
Welcome to CFL!
I've told you before, but congratulations! I'm glad that a recommendation found here helped out. We'll be in touch in the States 
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Not to start anything, your comment inspired a thought. (Hey c'mon it happens!)
But Why is it stupid to process for CCP members?
I agree with the do not lie.
Well, my thoughts are that policy-makers in China are going to be welcomed to America regardless of CCP membership. Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, etc commonly visit China. Are we worried about Hu Jintao visiting the US? And for those that aren't big names or policy makers, for example the little people like University professors: is it necessary to do some extra processing for them? What are we worried about? Even the word "Communist" is a bad word in America, I highly doubt they'd be successful in any kind of attempt to overthrow our government. As such, I think it's a waste of time.
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For birth certificate and police report, WeiLing and I paid only 600-something. That included 2 copies of each book with included translation, etc. That was from the "small" city of 1-million in Hubei. For the marriage notarization in Wuhan, it was 400rmb for 2 books.
I think that since the people in the smaller public notary offices are in a position of power over you, they just say whatever price they think you'll pay. You're going to America? You must be rich; price gets jacked up a bit. You need these documents and they know that. What are your options if their quote is expensive?
It reminds me of what someone told me about Customs officials in China: If they don't make over 1,000,000/year in bribes (can't remember if it was RMB or USD), they "aren't doing their jobs". I only wonder what companies are getting hit by them...
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Yes, the right amount of paranoia can work wonders by self-censorship. This is a LOT more productive than throwing away computer power and talent by trying to analyze content in real-time.
But they need to have a system to back the paranoia. Sure, it's not going to be perfect, but it's sophisticated in its efforts to be transparent. Not transparent in the sense that anyone can see its internals and how it works, but transparent in the sense that nobody knows exactly where it is or what catches it. Users know that going to www.google.com and searching for that religion will get the connection dropped, but posting it once in a while on a forum goes through. The actual triggers, in my experience, are pretty simple and don't always fire. Once they reach a certain threshold or pattern, they'll fire. I've had various sites blocked for about 15 minutes at a time when I've tried to post about certain subjects. During that time I VPNed and was fine. So I do have first-hand experience with some of the real-time content blocking and can tell you it's there. I don't have experience with any notifications from the government or knocking on the door from police, but I've heard a few stories. I wouldn't be surprised at all if certain sites get flagged for human review even without direct block. Even that first link I posted wasn't working from Chinese internet earlier today. I had to use my VPN to access it. Working fine now...
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He just seems to fall to victim to he himself pointed out.
If they're as sophisticated as he claims, they can look inside proxied messages and get the same information as if it were direct to the site.
Access to a particular site (to me) seems to be a LOT more consistent than what he says - it's the load factors which seem the most variable.
Of course things may be different where you (and he) are, but for the most part the heaviest principle seems to be, " the PRC has less to do as citizens and sites heavily self-censor, erring on the safe side" - which is to say that I don't concern myself with whether a site (or VPN's) is censored or illegal, but then, I'm not here to research pornography, Tibet, Tiananmen Square or the Falun Gong.
If the censorship were anywhere near as sophisticated as he suggests, you can bet there would be MASSIVE bottlenecks at the censor sites.
I'm not buying it.
I wouldn't say so with the bottlenecks. The transparent proxies they run only cover HTML content, things like images and videos can pass through with <1ms delay even under heavy load. Then, filtering only text is pretty simple. A couple years ago, I setup a Pentium Pro 166mhz to not only share a single internet connection (IP masquerade), but to monitor traffic and bandwidth usage for a personal network. Even with 10~15 computers running over it there was no perceived latency and the processor load was near idle. Most consumer grade WiFi routers have processors with just as much power as that had. Throw together a number of business-grade servers with recent multi-core processors and put them at various ISP sites, and I don't think there'd be much bottleneck. Rerouting traffic takes minimal more computing power than standard routing. And yes, direct connections to proxy servers would get content blocked the same as regular internet-- all that direct proxies will avoid is DNS hijacks and IP blacklisting.
What becomes more difficult are VPNs. The very nature of VPNs are to imitate a private network--no snooping from parties outside the network. I've setup both IPSec/L2TP and OpenVPN servers on a machine back in the states. These both work with public/private digital key pairs. Basically, data encrypted with a "private key" can only be decrypted by a matching "public key". To "break" the data, one basically needs a quantum computer with as many qubits as in the key. For my personal VPNs, I use 2048bits; the most qubits in an active working quantum computer is 4, as far as I know. Even if the Chinese government stored the encrypted data, I don't think they'd break it in my lifetime (not that I think they even care to store it). Most VPNs also set the local computer's routing policies to direct all data over the VPN, so internet will act as if you were at the site of the VPN server, plus the latency between you and that server.
As stated in that article,
So 2% is probably blocked. That's after the fact that Chinese search engines don't even display results for sensitive topics. When they do happen upon an inaccessible website, the average computer user doesn't know why. I'd say it's about as common as domain names and websites that expired in the states. I had a classmate that thought Facebook went down entirely--not that it was censored in China, so I expect that's the variability that the article is talking about.Probably 98 percent of what they're searching for is not going to be blocked.One of my friends here is an English teacher like you. He said that on one assignment he encouraged students to write about any topic they wanted, and not to worry about anything. He told me that one of the students came to his office to confirm that he meant "anything". Then, when the paper was submitted, the student gave a USB stick and asked the teacher to disconnect from all networks when reading the paper, and to delete it before connecting to the internet again.
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Here's another from CNet News:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20001212-245.html
If the traffic is blocked at the domain name system level, users may get a "site not found" message; if the IP address is blocked the message may say "site unreachable;" and if the URL is blocked or a page contains sensitive content a "connection reset error" message may be displayed, according to Lih."China's Great Firewall system is so sophisticated and massive, it can tailor blocking for each individual Web surfer because it monitors a person's surfing activity to sites outside of China's domestic Internet, right down to what's contained inside the web page," Lih explains on his Web site (PDF).
"In the case of someone doing a Google search, each search engine results page (SERP) being sent back to a PRC user is being analyzed for sensitive keywords, and the user's Internet traffic to Google can be blocked within seconds. This is happening every day, constantly, regardless of whether the search engine is Google, Bing, or something else," Lih writes.
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Here's an interesting blog post that is somewhat related:
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/02/22/internet-freedom-beyond-circumvention/
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Even so, you seem to be saying that because something is censored, that means it is illegal. And also extending that to ways of getting around the censorship.
I'll let the Chinese interpret their own laws, thank you. So far, I see no indication of any active censoring. I doubt that there would be anyone who cares what I look at. But then, I won't feel any need to try to explore the limits of that, either.
Pornography is censored and arrests have been made for publishing, distributing, buying, and viewing. The other day, my brother-in-law told me a story of a man who was watching porn on the computer. He was alone and curtains drawn, etc. A short while, he got a knock on his door from the police. My brother-in-law said that after this, all the local people know that the police watch what they do online. Porn is censored and illegal, I don't see why other censored topics or websites wouldn't also be illegal. It'd seem pretty inconsistent.
As for allowing Chinese to interpret their own laws--I agree with you, as long as I'm not obliged to abide by said laws. Being that I am in China, I don't pretend that US Constitutional rights still apply to me. I also avoid anything that can be potentially be misinterpreted as an attempt to undermine the government here. Sure, I occasionally VPN through my US home to access Facebook. I don't, however, setup pages that are blocked by censors and ask people in China to view them. Then again, the US State Department does back certain censorship circumvention projects.
Anyway, we can argue this forever. You won't change my mind, and I won't change yours. I'll be back in America in a month, and you can do as you please in China. One mention of a religion won't trigger any block, of course, but I also won't mention it needlessly. Start talking in depth about the religion, and some of the projects that it sponsors and you might start to see some active censors...
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Good luck there... Make sure you check out the World Expo. The US pavilion is okay, and the line stretches forever but moves fairly fast comparatively. Wait until about 8pm and then wait for 30minutes to see the 10 minute show in Australia's pavilion--that's worth a good watch. I heard a guy in the line for England talking about the 6 hour line for Japan. He said it was well worth the wait, but I never had a chance to go myself.
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To me. that says "censorship", not that it's illegal to access these sites."They can "Take issue with" anything they want, whether legal or illegal.
What is filtered at CFL?
Is it legal to watch CNN International? That's something that's not available to most Chinese.
Usually censorship comes with clauses that make it illegal to circumvent the censors. Circumvention of censorship is what I believe to be illegal, especially as certain sites have been specifically selected. So access may not be illegal directly, but by requiring an illegal circumvention to access, the access itself can be considered illegal. Again, I'm not a lawyer (and especially not a Chinese lawyer) so I can't state definitively that anything in China is illegal or legal.
It's different from CNN International in that CNN is not censored. It doesn't require censor-circumvention to watch. Censored sites are unavailable, but unavailable doesn't necessarily mean censored...
China uses "DNS hijacking" to redirect traffic from certain specifically censored domain names. Of course, they also employ other methods in the event users don't use Chinese-controlled DNS servers (for example http://opendns.org)...
As for CFL, it's clumped in with the rest of the internet. Everything you browse on the web is filtered through what's called a "transparent proxy". Certain patterns cause the connection to be broken. Repeated attempts will cause subsequent connections to the site to be blocked for a short time. I could drop a message here to trigger this. Each time you try to read it, the page will get cut off. Depending on what internet browser you use, this could result anywhere from a partially rendered page to an error message. Of course, refreshing a few times would cause your Chinese ISP to block connections to CFL for a short while, preventing you from reading anything here. However, in the interest of not bringing unwanted censor attention here (however insignificant it may be), I'll simply state that triggers include things such as the name of a politically sensitive religion. This includes English, Chinese, and probably the name as transliterated to other languages as well. I'm sure you know which religion I'm talking about...
Anyway, the Great Firewall is pretty sophisticated and employs a multitude of methods. It's not documented, and the triggers and blocked sites change subtlely almost daily. It is also implemented to be as invisible as possible, in effort to not expose exactly what is censored. Sometimes the triggers require a certain threshold of occurrence before they'll fire the censor.
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No need to resign. The resignation would have needed to be more than 2 years prior to interview.
It is understood that party membership may be a requirement of working at some jobs especially government jobs like teacher at a university. It is similar to having to be in a Union for working at some jobs in the USA.
However by US law membership of a totalitarian party is a mark of inadvisability which requires additional processing for a waiver. So BLUE the visa is NOT approved until this additional processing is completed. Blue is NOT a denial (NOID White Slip)
I think a spell checker got the best of you up there... The section (D)(iv) in your quote is an interesting read. I don't suppose the Attorney General has time to review each case, but perhaps that explains part of the extra wait for CCP members?
I know this is sacriligous but after our experience, if we did it all over again , I would say just lie about it and say no. They have no way of knowing if you were a CCP member if it was an inoccuous membership. Its so stupid really.
I'd agree that the processing for CCP members is stupid and unnecessary, but I'm not sure it's wise to advise people to intentionally misrepresent themselves. In the chance that GUZ investigates and finds that a spouse is in-fact a member of the CCP, they're risking a factual misrepresentation that will bar them from ever obtaining a visa (supposedly). I'd think the white is more troublesome than the blue...
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I would be surprised if there actually were any kind of law in China against using Facebook or Youtube, or against using proxy servers or VPN's. Facebook and YouTube are blocked because of specific content on their sites.
With Google, the issue was not whether it was legal to use them or not, but whether access to their servers would be blocked. That is, would it be legal for them to continue to operate in China.
That is, it's the content that's illegal, not the access.
I agree that China is mostly concerned about content, but I have to disagree with most of the rest. Without getting too technical, I can say that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc are not blocked on content, but blocked entirely. Neither of us is part of the CCP, so we can only speculate as to the reasons--but I'd say that these sites are not blocked on the content already there; instead to prevent Chinese from posting to widely popular social websites not under Chinese control. Websites not blocked entirely are filtered (including CFL). WikiPedia, for example, mostly works. Try accessing pages on certain events at Tian'anmen square, and you'll run into a block on specific content. Further, the great firewall is not actually run by the government, but is required of all ISPs in China. A website that is blocked in one region is not necessarily blocked nationwide. That said, the above listed websites are blocked in all parts of mainland China.
(I don't know why Google was brought up; the main search engine has never been blocked. They pulled out of China originally due to hackings. You can read their carefully worded "f-you" message to China at http://www.google.com/press/new-approach-to-china/update.html, though it's Chinese only. They're only recently looking to renew their content license in China because of the large loss in China's search engine market-share. All of Google's social oriented websites have been blocked for quite a while. Note that the search engine is not a social website.)
So while access to Facebook specifically may not be illegal, I would find it very strange if they didn't take issue with intentionally circumventing a government-mandated censor to access specifically-selected blocked sites.
Great shots of China
in The Middle Kingdom - 中国
Posted · Edited by Rob and WeiLing (see edit history)
Those're nice. One common theme throughout them was the sheer massiveness that is China, both in people and in nature. Two I particularly liked were the nurses and the prisoners.
The photo of the Hong Kong Porn producer with Japanese adult actors didn't really fit in with the rest of the photos. I don't see how it's relevant, and the picture just looked like people watching a video of themselves.
I also saw griz over there. And some ignorant kid's reply.
(edit: add links to griz and response there)