TimD

Listen to the wise people here. Go there and take care of it. Check with the HR people at your work and see if you can get time off for family leave. I got 4 weeks off to go to China going this route. -Tim

The only dangerous thing here in China is the taxi drivers

Or rig it so that you can dry fish and fruits in it.

Hats off to my wife in this regard. I have always had a hard time sleeping if the conditions just weren't right. I need a cool room and some kind of background noise to sleep. I also normally go to bed around midnight. Since I've been here we've adapted to each other sleeping habits. I now go to bed when Vicki does but I will stay up and read until I fall asleep. We sleep with the AC on, but have an extra blanket on the bed to keep her warm. I like a soft matress but she like a hard one, so here we got a stiff matress, and I've adapted to that. In my opinion sleeping together is like eating together. It's give and take and compromise. As a side note, even though we've been married for almost 2 years we're still on our honeymoon so sleeping apart has never been an option. -Tim

My funny story is how my wife will clean the house before the cleaning lady comes. I also get a kick out of how she arranges the remotes in a nice neat line on the tea table. Our cleaning lady use to scrub our BBQ, yup we got a BBQ here in Shanghai , but I told her that there is no need. As for hanging cloth outside on the cloths line, yup we do that too. What is funny is when you drive around some of the older parts of Shanghai you will see cloths lines with a big ole pair of briefs and right next to it are fish hanging to dry. That's my favorite. Actually here in Shanghai the newer apartments are banning people from hanging their cloths out side to dry. Most of these apartment have enclosed patios where the cloths are out of site. -Tim

It definately depends on where you live in the states. Ohio is pretty reasonable. Let me put a twist on this for you all. Regarding cloths here in China. Shirts and pants here are cheaper than in the states, unless you buy Levi's or some non-knock off brand. Though the cloths here are cheaper, the quality is below what you would find in the states. Most of the cloths I wear now I have brought back from the US. The colors don't fade, the buttons and zippers don't fall off and for the most part they don't shrink. Same thing for shoes. The 4 pairs I've bought here haven't lasted more than a few months. Electronic equipment here is about the same, you get what you pay for. I've also discovered that buying things at the fake markets just doesn't pay off. Most of the coats I've bought here have broken zippers. In all I think that here in China things are cheaper, but the quality is cheaper. If you want good quality you will pay about the same price you pay in the States. Utilities, however, are much cheaper. I think we pay maybe $50 USD per 3 months for electric. Cars are the same thing. You can get low prices on cars here, but they are small, by US standards. Western cars are expensive, by our standards. On the other side of the coin public transportation here is cheap and for the most part it's easy to get around town. "Western Style" expat apartments are very expensive here in Shanghai, starting at about $2,000 USD a month and going way up there. I think that if you want to live a western life style here in China you will end up spending more than you would in the US in day to day costs. If you live more of a Chinese life style by living in Chinese apartments, which is pretty good, eating at Chinese restaurants and shopping the fresh markets, you can really save a lot of money living here. -Tim

Hey Gang, thought I pass this on to you all. About a month ago I odered a Voice Over IP phone line from Vonage and had the device sent here. I installed it right into my broadband connection and now I have a real deal phone number that my friends and family can call me on. I pay about $30 a month for unlimited long distance and paid about $150 to set up the service and ship the device to my place here in Shanghai. For those of you with your loved ones still here in China that have broad band you may want to look into some of the VoIP services that are popping up as a good solution for staying in touch. Check out www.vonage.com I pretty happy with the service. The quality of the connection is comparible to One Suite. It's nice that now my family and pals can call me just by dailing a local Ohio number. -Tim

Eric, Where in Shanghai are you? We're around the Hong Qio airport. How about this heat? It hasn't been too bad these past couple of days. Last week was opressive. -Tim

I'm from Columbus, but I've fished all around Buckeye lake. Beautiful area you got there. Things here are moving fast, we already got Packet 3 last Friday and are in the process of filling out the forms now. I figure we should have this process completed by October, end of the year at the latest. I'm going to post more in another thread Good to see everyone again, -Tim

Ni Hao everybody, Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Life here in Shanghai has been busy for the both of us since we arrived here. I don't get much time to sit in front of the PC. First off, we turned in our I130 to the Shanghai Consulate on May 12th and had our approval letter 5 weeks later. We're now waiting on word from GZ. We've been told it will take 6 - 8 weeks before we get anything from them. The day I turned in our I130 went so smooth. The consulate officer congradulated me and proceeded to check through all our documents. I had the origionals and copies of everything and he proceeded to stamp all our copies. All in all it took me about 15 minutes to turn in all the paper work. They guy and gal that helped me we great and very helpful. They asked how long we've been married and how long we've been living in China, it was a warm and fuzzy feeling once I left. We're not going to sweat this process since we are here in Shanghai now and have over 2 years left on this project. We bought a nice apartment a few miles from the office and have settled in nicely. I finally got a decent broadband connection that rivals what I had in Ohio. We also got satalite TV so I can watch TV again, though lately we are working through the X Files. We are almost done with season 7. All in all life has been ok. I have some issues with this large city. It's nothing to do with China, it's just I don't like big city life, too many people and traffic sucks. I was home in June for 2 weeks and enjoyed every minute I was home. It was so nice to be back in the fresh air with blue skys over head. I never realized how much I miss driving around and not having to chase a taxi down whenever we want to go out. My wife is heading to Seoul next weekend for a girls weekend of shopping and fine dinning, I on the other hand will start working on my web page again. I posted some pictures from our 4th of July party we went to. It was a lot of fun. It was nice to be surrounded by Americans, American food and music, it did make me somewhat home sick though. You can check out the photos on my site http://www.outlifeinchina.com just click on the link for July 4th. I think I am going to browse some of the posts and see what's going on with all you guys and gals. Hope you are all well, -Tim D.

The XBox was about $400 USD with 2 free games. The games here are about 30RMB each. They don't have a huge selection, but have most of the popular titles except NFL games. Plenty of Soccer and basketball, but no American football. Yea, gotta love the DVD man. We've got one right outside our apartment building. There is also one that comes into the pub we hang out in. Can't beat getting a good USDA burger, beer and shopping for DVDs. Always makes for a good night. We were told that our internet will be hooked up by the end of next week. Let's hope that I am online by then. Our internet access is monitored here in the office and I hate feeling like big bro is looking over my shoulder....blah. -Tim

I just bought a Dell from the Dell web site here in China. The process was pretty painless. I paid with a credit card and they faxed me some paperwork to complete and sign. They sent the PC via China Post and I got it in about 5 days. No problems at all. I even had a English speaking sales rep help me through the process. The funny thing is my wife knows one of the sales managers there. So she contacted her and got me a bit of a discount. All in all I'm pleased with the service and prices. However, there is a 17% "value added tax" they tacked onto my bill....that sucked. -Tim

NI HAO CFLers!!!! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Since we've moved to Shanghai life's been really busy with me starting work and us moving into our new spiffy apartment. I am at work now typing this since we have to wait another two weeks for our internet connection to be installed. The Chinese New Year really put a lot of things behind schedule for us. Let me quickly give you all a quick overview of our life here in Shanghai. First off, work is going great. I love what I am doing the the people I work with. There are a few Americans that we hang out with that have Chinese wives. We've decided to start a support group of men married to Chinese women Living in Shanghai has taken some getting use to. I wasn't use to a huge city like this and had some trouble getting adjusted. The traffic here sucks and trying to find a taxi is almost impossible here were we are working. The prices here are a lot more than they were in Nanjing, but we've found a few local markets that have good prices. The new apartment is GREAT!!! We have an oven and an outside patio area with a BBQ!!! We also got a satilite system so we can watch western TV like CNN, BBC and best of all TECH TV. I was home for a holidays. It was a great great time and very precious as I spent some much needed time with my little girl. My family finally got over their attitude about me being here and I ended up staying with them for two weeks over Christmas. It was a very special time for us all. The day I left we were all in tears, it was sad. It was great being back in the states and having a car where I could come and go as I wanted. The Christmas shopping crowds were nothing compared to the normal crowds here in Shanghai so shopping wasn't at all that bad. Yes, I did finally get an XBox while I was home. I bought a power converter from Radio Shack to accomidate the power, but when I got home and plugged the thing in it blew up. I was so P#$$ed. A few days after the XBox incident we were at the local Carefour center and lo and behold there was a little shop selling XBoxes made for 220v and as an added bonus it had a special mod chip in it so we can play DVDs regardless of local and play copied games....not that I advocate piracey ;P The Chinese New Year Holiday was a blast. The inlaws flew in from Beijing and stayed for about a week. I couldn't understand a word they said to me, but it was still a nice time. At midnight on New Years Eve I looked out the window over this big city and as far as my eye could see there were fireworks. All shapes and sizes. I have never in my life seen anything quite like that. I have my resident card now and my Z Visa. One of the guys I work with told me that he and his wife got her visa in 6 months and processsed it right here in Shanghai. We're having dinner with them next week and I'll post more info once I understand what he's talking about. Anyway, I've gotta cut this short. We're out of here for the day and heading out for hot pot to celebrate the Lantern Festival, yummy. Once I get my cable modem installed at home I'll be dropping in here more often. -Tim

It really is the hardest thing for me being here, is missing her. With Thanksgiving coming up it's even tougher. She already has all of our time scheduled for when I am back there over the holidays, I just can't wait. Once we move into our new apartment we'll set up her room and decorate it for her. That will help in dealing with some of the pain. I can't tell you how much I miss tripping over her toys or scrubbing out grass stains out of her cloths. She will always be Daddy's girl. She told me the other day that she wants to go to school in Shanghai next year. That would be so wonderful, but we'll see, her mother may have some issues with that and right now we have found some peace with each other. -Tim

I'm in Shanghai now one of the boominest cities in China, but jobs here are hard to come by. There are numerous job sites on the net for China, but they are about as effective as Monster.Com. Here in Shanghai I know you can go to the American Chamber of commerce to get an idea of where to work. It's also good to network amongst the expats once you get here. I lucked into the job I have now. I met a lot of people in Nanjing that work for the company I am at now. When this project came up they remembered my skillset and placed me right into a sweet position. -Tim

Mick, Tony has a good point, just think of the public toilets and the paper towels in the bathrooms. I'm in the opposite boat as you Mick. I've been missing the states a lot, mostly my daughter and all the "Daddy/Daughter" days we spent together. I miss getting up at 6:00am to pack her lunch and take her to school. I miss picking her up at the end of my work day and making her dinners. I miss our Friday night movies nights and shopping Saturdays. It's tough. Just think, soon there will be a new life in your world. A new life to watch grow and a little hand to wrap around your finger as you walk. I know once we get back to the states there will be a lot of adjustment for us to get use to, but home is where your family is, look behind with fond memories, but look ahead at what is about to be brought into your world and be happy. -Tim

I feel your pain brother. I've been here for 5 months now without my super beefy "box" or and X-Box or PS/2, just this little ole laptop. But watch out, I'm coming back to the states for the holidays and the first place I am going is to Media play and picking up a new game system. Actually I doubt my wife will mind. She likes playing racing games and I think she will like to play the "Gung Fu" fighting games too. We have a deal, I like to go "girl shopping" and she likes to game. -Tim

LMAF:D So funny!!!! Here in Shanghai I think we'd all blend in since there is such a huge expat community here, but in Nanjing it was a bit different. Was spot the "Big Nosed Whitey". While we were living in Nanjing I had a prefence for cheap Chinese restuarants. Many of which I am sure never had an expat customer. At one place the cooks came out of the kitchen to watch me eat. My wife over heard them saying that I was really good with the chop sticks. Another time my wife was giving a taxi driver a hard time for something and he got mad back at her and said she is nicer to expats than she is to country men. It's a good experience for us all to be taken out of our comfort zones and enter a society in which we are considered different, Moon Carol has the right approach, take it all with a big ole American smile and a good sense of American humor!!! -Tim

Actually there was one from one of our analysts sent me an email and refered to my old boss as "Lan Nazi". She read it copied it to her PC then sent an email to the analyst, his manager, his director and their VP. After it went up the chain and down the chain again she was talked to about reading others email, she proved to be exactally what she took offence to. We all had a good laugh at it. Jobs here are very tight, especially here in Shanghai and for IT folks. It was Guan Xi that got me this position. I'm doing Db development against a financial application. Gotta use VB for it, blah, but I think I may have made a good case for moving the development to Java or .Net -Tim

Thanks for the support fellas. I am really digging this place. The people I work with are all pros. Such a turn around from the last place I worked. Do any of you remember any of the tales of my old boss at the place I left before I came here? She was a tyrant. She would go onto my PC when I wasn't at my desk and look at my internet history, go through my emails etc. She did this to everybody in the office not just me. Well anyway a few weeks after I left to come here she died....that was a shock. Anyway, things are really going well. What they are having me do is right up my ally. I won't be a problem at all. It's nice to work in a professional environment again with real professionals, it's a great feeling. There are a couple of guys at the site that have browsed this site too They have Chinese wives and either already have their K visas or are in the process of getting them...such a small world. Yea, Mick, I was in tears the day of Astrid's birthday. It was the first time I had been away on her birthday and it just broke my heart. Now you should here the little girl. She knows Daddy is coming home in 54 days. It's easier for her now since she can actually start counting down the days. We went shopping yesterday at "fake street" and I picked up 3 desk of pokemon cards and 12 decks of Yu-Ge-Oh cards for about $10....I'll be her hero forever -Tim

Oh yea!!! I got a nice job here in Shanghai!!!! Oh yea....doing the butt dance!!!!! I'm working with my wifes company doing Oracle Db programming. Nice place to work. There's folks from all over the world and just makes for a nice team of folks. Today I was taking smoke breaks with a few other yanks. It was the first time in 4 months that I was able to sit down and shoot the breeze about football, what a great feeling. Shanghai is a great place. Not just all the tourist places, but this whole city. It's much cleaner than Nanjing, well maybe not the air, but the streets are cleaner. The people here are more "trendy" and seem to be better educated and use to seeing a big nosed whitey on the streets. Matter of fact there are several expats living in the same complex we are. All in all things are going great. I'll be home in 6 weeks to spend some much needed Daddy time with my little Astrid. She's a real trooper for being only 7. Lately when I talk to her she's been asking me about when she is going to have a Chinese American brother or sister. She wants to have a brother so he and I can go "boy shopping" and she and her step mommy can go girl shopping. It's what this whole thing is all about, bringing families together. Even though I am here with my wife myu heart is still in half because my little girl is there in the states. Hopefully soon we'll all be one big happy family!! -Tim

I think I am in the same boat. This year I fell below these guideline, but if you take in account my total over the last 3 years I am well over it. Now that I am working again, oh yea....I jut got a nice job here in Shanghai!!!, I am hoping that I won't have a problem. Even if I do I guess we'll have to go the sponser route. BTW, do they just take into consideration what I have made or both of us since we are married? Thanks, -TIm

Well gang, the day has finally arrived for us. It's out last night here in Nanjing. I have to admit I am somewhat sad to be leaving this city. Nanjing doesn't have the expat community of Shanghai for Beijing, but still it has grown on me over these past few months. Nanjing is a growing city of about 6 million people. It's downtown area is nice and there are a lot of great places to hang out and shop. Nanjing also opened up it's first Starbucks a few days ago too The expat community here is small and it like a little community of it's own. There are many nice parks here too, like around the Purple Mountain area and the Ming Tombs. Tomorrow we leave for Shanghai. We'll spend a few days in a hotel then move into our temp apartment while we wait for our new apartment to be completed, which should be at the first of the year. All in all it's been a good several months for me here in Nanjing. I am sure we'll be coming back here once in a while for visits. What I like most about this place is that it's not too big like Shanghai and it's not too small, it's just right. The restaurants here have all been great. The cost of living is good here too, Shanghai on the other hand will be a bit more expensive, but hopefully I will be working within the next week or two. Anyway, we're off to have our last night on the town. If any of you are planning a trip to China think about stopping in Nanjing for a day or two, it's a nice place. And if you come into Shanghai looks us up!!! -Tim

One other thing I forgot to mention. One of the reasons I drink a lot of the instant coffee is because I have had a heck of a time finding coffee filters here in Nanjing, it may be the same in other cities too, that's why the Italian coffee maker may work for her. If you get her one tell her not to put too much coffee in it when she first makes coffee. These things can make some brew that will strip the paint off a car if your not careful -Tim

Jerry, When in the states I was a huge Starbucks/Caribou coffee drinker, but since I have been here I have been drinking a lot Nescafe. The Nescafe we drink here has the sugar and creamer already in it and there really is no substitute for it in the states that I know of. What you may want to do is send her one of those italian coffee makers that have the screen and plunger thingy. Just add the coffee some hot water and she's ready to go with her Starbucks. Starbucks may be a bit strong for her at first, but I am sure she will get use to it. Once we get settled into Shanghai I'll switch back to 'Bucks again, but for now I'll hang onto my Nescafe. -Tim