Scott@Hong

Next time tell your girlfriend / wife to take you to the EXPENSIVE hospital. Hospitals are "you get what you pay for" in China. Most major cities have the discount ones which sounds like what you experienced, then if you find the one most Chinese think is very expensive (still far cheaper then America) you will have found a gleaming, sparkling clean place with modern new equipment wall to wall. These are also the hospitals government officials get to go for free, hence why they are very very nice. I have been to the discount type one time and will never go again. The expensive one I would rather go to then any hospital in America.

Don't worry Bob Visa will come soon, Hong had to wait 10 days for hers, it seems if you have a prior denial it takes a little longer to receive the actual Visa for some reason.

The other people giving advice are spot on, Contact Marc now, talk with him about your best option. Me and my wife were same as you, white slip on K1 and I was in the same coffee shop as you when it happened. In our case we married, filed CR1 and are now happily together here in the States thanks to Marc, Eunice and the people here on Candle.

Finished? You have a learning curve ahead of you. I thought the same thing when wife got Visa, now 2 weeks of having her here in our house and I don't even recognize the place anymore. I still have to change the headboard on bed and few other things because in her words they are "ugilly". Congrats on taking the next step to a better life, all the best to both of you and have safe trip. *hint* get seperate laundry basket for socks and underwear, I forgot to do this and the look on her face when I put them in same basket was one of shock.

Eunice is great, and even if it is 11th hour coaching it is well worth it to have her help you out. Yes she does work with Marc Ellis but she also works alone. If a case needs legal assistance then hire Marc and he will take care of the legal end, Eunice is his contact on the ground in Guangzhou. Eunice solo is more for Interview prep and coaching and can help direct traffic so to speak with medical, what to expect at consulate etc. Together they make a great team.

This is the most important thing you can do to prepare for interview, have fiance/wife know everything about you present and past, marriages, children, divorces, parents, etc etc.

Glad Lihong made it home ok. Thanks for dinner in Chongqing. I made it back the 19th, barely catching my flight by 3 minutes. Pat and Nina are in Chongqing until 17 May. If all goes well, Xixi may fly back when they do. I remember the story you told of the lady with the Chinese torture Hot Foot Bath. I wish you could have come down to the Big Square and listened to the Chinese torture lady singing the "squealing pig music", and at the very end, the "someone steps on a cat's tail"........on torture....torture.. Haha I know the squealing pig lady in the square I have video of her, I wish I knew how to post a video so I could torture everyone Welcome back and best of luck to you and Xixi on upcoming interview.

They delayed my wifes also, we hung around Guangzhou 6 days visiting a friend of the wife, but still no visa and I had to get back to the states. So we flew back to Chongqing and then she just checked the EMS website until visa showed up and once it was at post office she flew to Guangzhou to pick it up and flew right back to Chongqing same day. With GUZ there is absolutely no way to plan anything, it is all but the seat of the pants

I disagree with all your statements on so many levels. You say Chinese people cannot travel to western cultures easy, but they can travel to many locations around the world very easily. Also there our millions of Americans who are born, live and die within the confines of one state. My parents, and my brother have never lived outside the state they were born, western and eastern cultures are not so different, people just are unwilling to open their eyes to this fact because they think their culture is superior to another. Open your own eyes would be well advised. Another comment you write I have traveled extensively in China, in almost every major city from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu etc etc. I have never experienced this so call "predatory" woman. In fact the only place I have ever seen this type of woman is on the multitude of dating websites and marriage broker websites that fill the internet. I have never seen this in day to day life in China. China again has its share of con artists, thieves, and common criminals just like every other country in the world. I constantly see posts like this comparing cultures and a person saying this or that is bad, but look inside yourself, look around yourself and you will find every kind of person in any country you travel to or live in. Guess what some American men beat their wives, oh and guess what this happens in China, Germany, Brazil and any other country in the world. Guess what some American women want to marry for money, we call them trophy wives, hell we even have television shows about it, ever seen Desperate Housewives? Oh China has these women, Italy has these women, etc etc. Another surprising observation, America has couples that have been married 50-60 years, never cheated on each other and love each other their entire lives. China has this also, as does every other country. The only difference in the relationships of the people that frequent this board and the standard same country couple? There is NO DIFFERENCE. Couples no matter the peoples background in the relationship need to share, trust, love, and learn about the other persons history, likes, dislikes and everything else they can learn about the person.

Journey finished, Wife arrived yesterday afternoon to JFK. Only problem experienced at POE was 5 planes landing at same time from 5 different countries so she had a 2 hour wait clearing through immigration. That and her flight to Beijing was delayed so she barely made flight to New York which caused one of her bags to not make the transfer, but Air China is great on things like this and bag will arrive today and they will have driver bring to our house which is 2 hour drive from airport. Thanks again to everyone here at Candle for the support and advice. Scott

1. Yes NVC does electronic processing, Once you receive P2 approval from USCIS, start calling NVC automated system. Once the system tells you NVC has received case it will give you a NVC number, then you can email NVC to optin. 2. All documents are filled out as normail and signed. The difference is you scan them into computer as a PDF file, then email them to NVC. The originals you scanned are turned it at interview. 3. All documents scanned, just sign them before scanning to PDF 4. Wife will need to handle Police report, yes usually hometown she will go to notary to get white book 5. Once you optin for electronic processing you will not receive any regular mail everything will be done online including paying fees. Candle has a good explanation of the process in the Consulate and Interview forums, I suck at links so look there, it is titles electronic processing. Electronic processing is awesome, from P2 approval to interview can be in as little as 6 weeks. Entirely on you shoulders how fast you want to move.

With No Child left Behind law, public schools are mandated to provide ESL classes, find a good school district for her for later on such as high school. Also check with the school district about the teacher or teachers of the ESL classes. I am lucky that when my stepson comes here the ESL teacher in my school district speaks fluent chinese so he will have a little easier time getting up to speed.

Thank you for answer The population of America will grow by one 90lb Chinese woman next week. Crap I need to start cleaning, bye

Is the I-551 stamp valid for travel? My wife passed interview and has finally received her passport with visa and packet, took 10 days and I had to leave China so now we are making arrangements for her to come here. Question is she will need to go back in about 2 months for a family function, just short trip and I worry she would not receive actual green card before she needs to travel back, hence the question about the stamp.

Interesting article, basically you could still process through USCIS and NVC but will hit roadblock at consulate as interviews and visa's would be put on hold. I think one of the hiccups they mention is background checks at USCIS could disrupt some people in that stage.

Oh forgot to put in the some politics to get thread shut, It's all the _______________s fault No, it's the _______________s fault Bah who cares who fault it is, China will loan us more money.

The USA has a wonderful system of checks and balances, Our government writes checks with 0 balance in the checkbook

K1 White slip, I was there CR1 Pink slip, I was there I think the VO decision is 90% pre-determined, so petitioner being there or not really has little impact. On the other hand, being there for my wife was huge I think.

I think the massage thing has been pretty much covered. You asked for opinions so I will give you mine, You need to have a discussion with her about what SHE wants to do, work or no work, and what kind of work. Make sure she is not doing something she dislikes because she feels like she needs to contribute more to the family income. I have already had this discussion with my wife and she will not even be in the States until next month. I found out she was learning some stupid things like doing fingernails, massage and other things because the wonderful 001 website said it was easy to find work in these jobs. My wife is a wedding organizer by trade, she loved doing it in China and we are in agreement she should look for this kind of work in the States. It is something she enjoys and loves doing and we have already discussed the income, in such that we do not need her income so no expectation of her contributing. We have discussed if and when she starts working here, then we will shift the duties at home to balance to our respective work loads away from home. Its all give and take, yes you can't see her every night when you come home if she is working, but I cannot imagine a person being couped up in the house all the time because they have no drivers license and no job, that would drive me nuts.

You need to hold it up, and let wifes get there. If anything it would be preferred that you wife interview before son. I have same problem in reverse, and at wife interview last week VO asked her why son not with her. She explained we are waiting on interview date, and all papers filed. He understood saying that it has been happening a lot lately and he was happy she came first. He explained VO's really dislike interviewing children under 18 before parent, it can cause problems.

This is a reasonable question. Getting to the heart of the matter is not so easy. Think from the position of the mindlessness of VO who sees hundreds of interviews a month, each about 5-10 minutes. If your sending her to english class, they may think: WTF are you guys doing together in the first place if you can't talk? If your sending her to english class, you should not be filing yet. You should be getting to know each other. After you know each other, then you should file. My gut feeling is that GUZ has this on their brain more now than in most past years. If you need her to learn words to talk to you, then she doesn't need a visa. Hard and cold thought. Welcome to GUZ. JMO on what may be going on at times. Having just passed after a failure, I think this is spot on. First time her English was weak and VO called her on it, this time she did entire interview in English. Many times people have passed knowing no English, but I think if there are other red flags in the case, speaking almost or fluent English helps the VO forget the other flags.

Thanks everyone, as you can imagine a little hectic at moment but trying to recall things that happened and write them down when I can. First being here and seeing her come down the stairs and look on her face, priceless. I was here when she was denied and it was tough, but this time the smile on her face when I first saw her was amazing. Some advice, take anything and everything with you. My wife had 1800 pages of QQ and emails when she walked up to window she plopped them down on the ledge in full view of VO, he asked what it all was and I think the interview was sold at that point, though he never looked at a single page, the effect was what we were after. Pictures: Wedding pictures should be at the back, pictures of you and your wife/fiance having fun together should be up front. We had 200 pictures and the VO looked at them all often laughing at many where me and wife were joking around in the picture. Confidence: This is huge, even if Marc Ellis will not take your case because he specilizes in rejects, pay some money to his point person in Guangzhou Eunice. She helped my wife immensely by just constantly saying over and over "you will pass". This encouragement from outside person helped a ton. Lastly in this 2 plus year ordeal, TRUTH is always right. Even when it worked against us me and the wife always spoke the truth. We talked to so many people in Guanzhou both times we were here that planned on saying little white lies. This will come back to haunt you, I saw it happen last time here in 2009 to a woman, were husband told her to say something that wasnt true, and VO picked up on it and questioned her, needless to say she didnt pass. 1.5 years ago I hated Guangzhou people, but this time my wife had nothing but praise for the VO she talked to, he was nice, he spoke slowly so she understood everything in English, and now I find myself wanting to thank that VO for seeing the light in our case. We are off to travel for a few days while we wait for visa, so thanks again everyone and our best wishes to the next Candle person in line.

Wanted to add some big thank you's to the people here on Candle, I am not a big poster but I read almost every post. Also a big thanks to Marc Ellis and his associate Eunice who lives in Guangzhou, Marc jumped into my case late in the action but was tremendous help with what he even said was a different case. We didn't stay with the Yang's because he was full up, but did help us find a good hotel for 300rmb a night called the Zhongyi and helped us get to the medical. Lastly a huge thank you to my wife, she was the ultimate trooper, suffering through the denial, sticking to her guns, learned English to almost fluent level in one year going to school 6 days a week and did this interview entirely in English. Thanks to all, Scott

I am doing a quick write up because I found huge value in reading others, so here is our Gaungzhou review Thursday was document turn in, she was actaully questioned during turn in which was unexpected. She was asked ever travel to US You know Scott have 2 wives Do you speak English and some basic other questions Interview day Do you speak some English Asked how we met How many times husband come to China When we married Ever travel to America before Will your son accompany you to America Who take care of your son in America Congratulations you pass

Never give up. K1 denied, petitioner interview, countless delays, but 2 years later and a whole lot of gray hair this morning she GOT PINK on CR1