floyd

How do Western chopstick skills measure up to those in Asia? We Americans who grew up with this skill may think we're worldly. But I wonder if, to a practiced eye, we look like bumblers who shouldn't be allowed to eat in polite company. I don't know. I did win a bet a few times that 'I could not use chopsticks'. I then used them eat everything, including grains of rice (I know you are really supposed to use them to scoop the rice now). I also know I can not get my skill set right for communal eating though. As I understand it you are not supposed to let the chop sticks touch your lips/mouth. I do not like to drink my soup from a bowl. Due to the fact I do not eat a number of foods that many people like, I really prefer to order for myself just what I want to eat, so I hate the communal dinning out.

Well even here in the USA a laptop case now is often also used in effect as a mans purse in addition to holding a laptop.

I don't know if they are popular, but I know my wife has one. What amazed me about it is she never charges it. The batteries it came with last for over two years with no charging.

It's not a "non-citizens" vs "citizen" issue.. It's resident on non-resident as far as US Customs are concerned.... Ditto with IRS..... If you are resident in the U.S, then you must declare any WORLWIDE income... The resident one is now USD 800 ( 1200 to 1600 USD if coming from certain Carrribean countries and /or US possessions ) The non-resident one is/was USD 100 .. Maybe it got bumped as well to a whopping 200.... Usually, personal clothing and stuff will not be counted in this amount... I'll take a look at that site, but it's not loading Thanks Ski Note also, that the first time a new resident moves to the USA they are conisdered a non-resident for customs regardless of the Visa they hold.

Wow, I know what you at times though. Since we can not be a part of the day to day lives, and with the time difference it can be hard. I know sometimes I am on at this time just to say hello to her before I goto bed, but she starts hitting me with way to much for my mind to deal with right before I am to goto bed on a work night, and seems to think I having nothing to do for her to arrive, rather then needing to figure out how to handle the taxes, how to set up insurance for her and such, besides work of course. Distance can be hard, and the lack of definative dates to plan around which puts our lives on hold and hers even more so can be hard. Hopefully the light at the end of the tunnel for you visa process will occur soon, as it finally seems to be for me.

Yeah, I plan to. It just seems these types of discussions are very hard to hold when 8K miles away. That should be over with soon, and then I think after a few months these topics should become more of a dialouge with the ability to see each others eyes etc. Of course I doubt she will ever let me meet her parents.

Too tired to read it right now but I think a horses mouth url is customs for moving

Being a Chinese myself, i know this is more of a culture than money itself. My daughter's generation has never experienced any proverty -- that does not change the habit. Chinese like to save for a rainy day by nature -- the household savings in this country is tremendously compared to the income they have. So asking cost -- comparing price -- before they start shopping! I know my wife says I am too frugal at times. I save between 40 and 50 percent of my income. I do not pay for cable, a cell phone and things like that currently. When I have a large expense I am saving for I will keep the heat at 60F and such. At times she says I am being too concerned about savings. I think another issue that may come up is the idea of sending money to ones parents. She sometimes mentions this idea, and my inclination is that if they did not save enough, we should set up a trust rather then sending them the money directly so they can not just spend it all at once, since they may be bad at budgeting and savings to not have saved before,.

My wife does not know the phrase yet, 'do as the romans do' , but it applies well in this case. She definatly knows the concept. She has already said she 'must adapt to my families ways', as she will live here, and at time seems to tease me by mocking the accent in this region, but she says it is just so she will blend in better etc.

Have you ever been married before? No,but I feel this is a red herring. I am aware this is an area that needs communication between the members of the marriage and did so before we married, and we reached our agreement.

Umm... are you curious because your wife or fiancee will be moving to the US soon? If so there is a one time duty free moving allowance that can be used, I used to have the url but I lost it though I should be able to get it again if you can not find it as I did send it to the 'person who matters' for this for me.

Frankly, I do realize China is a cash economy somehow, although not even close to say Bulgaria or Romania , but I've never really had real probs using a visa or amex there in my 12 trips those past 2 + years..... Anywhere.. OK..... flea markets DO NOT take AMEX Gold. Dang... You guys are paranoid Bulgaria, now that is a neat country in many ways. A number of my friends in Bulgaria have gotten a credit card in the past year or so though, so maybe it will be changing there. At least you don't have to pay for your own spy, umm I mean guide, like you do to get the visa in China. In China, we had our hotel reservations canceled a few times, then `amazingly' another hotel at a much higher price had rooms. When we went there they demanded cash despite having Visa and Mastercard logos out, and when I pointed this out to them they can not even look me in the eyes while talking to me. Then we heard some Japanese visitors yelling about how could their rooms be cancelled they had reserved months ago. They probably got sent to the first hotel at a then much higher rate also, wrong idea of 'win-win'! In Bulgaria, I kept getting treated to things which I found embarressing, but could not manage to politely refuse even though I tried. I also sometimes make a mistake in peoples favor when I pay for things in a new country to see how they react, in Bulgaria they always gave me back the extra, in China they always kept it. They are just as poor, in fact probably even poorer now then many Chinese, but they are much more straigtforward to deal with and do not have a soak it to the tourist attitude that the Chinese do.

To an extent yes, but how does one know this information about you to be able to look it up? Very few know how long I have worked in a given field, and most have no idea what level the work is. Say you say you work in finance, are you a clerk, are you a manager, are you Sr. or Jr. etc...., same with saying you are 'in computers', are you a help desk person, a programmer, a sys admin, an analist, or a CTO? And what about income from assets, I could be working as a pizza driver, and have rental properties, or a trust that pays me. I could have the job as a pizza driver to throw people off from the large trust etc. Oh, and these are based on those surveys you get asking for your salary information from time to time, I for one, mistatemy income on these when for some reason I even return them at all.

Oh, I don't think one can say these gals pose no threat!!!

Well, she already knows I guard my privacy in some areas. I do not tell anyone all of my finances and such. We already had some of this converstaion before, and she currently claims that she does not even want to know about them. If she does now ask about them she also knows she is not to tell others, so if she then tells someone she is breaking her word. This has made some things harder, as now I have started to put together a 'emergency' envelope, that would tell her what to do to be able to keep paying the mortgage and such if I was in a coma or worse. I figure at least the first year she needs enough insurance on me to be able to pay off the house and live without working, even if she would then probably head back to China. As for being interviewed by her family, I have doubts I will ever meet them, and even if I did I would not be able to talk to them.

It can open your machine up to attacks that a router/firewall NAT box would shield against.

I know I would be pretty mad to have my finances discussed with my in-laws also. For woman #3, it seems amazing that it would take six years this to have happened.

Yes, that is what I meant as one way to work around the problem. Two drawbacks to this are that your computer is now 'on' the inernet, and your computer will have to be on for her computer to connect.

That and also invalidate a session key that is not from the same address, and after the next access from a user from a different address etc.

You say a bridged connection, then you mention using ppoe, which is a point to point link, many voice protocols embeded the address of the machine as part of the payload, and do not work though NAT boxes (which I suspect you are using rather the a bridge). So as posted it is hard to help since you claim a bridge, then say ppoe , then say something you are not sure of the spelling of but do not want to look up. So, I have to guess, that you are using a connection with one IP address, and the `bridge' is really a router with NAT? In this case, if these voice protocols embed the hosts address into the payload, NAT will give them an unroutable address they can not reply to. You need to see if the router has support for any of the protocols you are using in NAT mode, or if it supprts a relay mode that it can make you machine and the router run at the same address to the WAN, or you will need to run proxy or nat software on your machine (no directly connected to the DSL link), and let your wifes computer and yours connect to each other through a hub and configure her software to use your proxies running on the you computer.

Hmm... well if the urls are that persistent to encode a login, given that http is used, that means anyone going through a logged proxy can be impersoniated by anyone with access to the proxy logs then? And since https is not used for the login, nor even digest security, there are lots of security holes I would bet.

Ok, but you also should not need a social security number if you are not paying FICA, which I doubt you are if you do not have an EAD.

For Europe? Or for France? I am curious since the common law name change right, is from the Romans, and was put into English common law (no idea if they still follow it, but figure there is a chance), French law is based on the Napoleonic code, and is one state in the union, Louisiana, which is why you will often see and 'except in Louisiana clause on things. In any case, in the US, you do not need a reason to change your name, it just can not be for a fraudulent purpose as another poster already indicated.

Look it up... SFO Terminals . It's no big deal, really. these gals are smart... I meant that I doubt being able to get past the security with a boarding pass would help him, as I don't think you can then get from departures to arrivals to be able to meet her anyway.

LOL .. yeah.. I'm sure she did mean the latter... I find those slip-ups so cute.. Mine does that too from time to time. Otherwise.... God has mercy on you ! Yes, when I used to chat online more, I had found I could often tell if a person was a native slavic, romance or chinese language speaker just from the idioms and grammer they would use. It can also be interesting when they use a word in a completly proper but obscure manner. I sometimes picture her chatting with an unabridged 1919 Websters next to her. The one that I heard a few times in China from people that I had to make sure I supressed a laugh was 'my english teacher told me I speak so good english'.