wolf

Has anyone ever had this kind of problem at the Vicotory Hotel near the GZ Consulate? I stayed there with my Fiancee in May last year and nothing like this happened, but now I have to go back so everyone has made me think. What is your advice at this hotel?

It really seems like we can't make a foot forward as far as the government goes. Everytime we get some help from someone, we loss them. MH was answering all my e-mails to her office, but now she hasn't sent me anything in 3 weeks through KC.

All of you that think that our government should control the money we send out of this country are way off. The government sends more of the tax payers money out of this country than any individual person or company, than it bans us from sending to loved ones and slows the visa process. We worked for the money and can do what we want with it and many of us defended this country but does the government care about us when we ask for a visa for our wife or Fiancee?

Buying a one way ticket here and bringing it with you would be much cheaper, but this depends on which airline you are flying. You may want to check into some of these insurance polices to see if you buy a round trip and cancel the second half would get you a refund. Check around, right now tickets to China are fairly cheap and deals can be made.

Hi Christy, Glade you joined everyone here. Sorry you are in the same hole as so many of us. Just keep writing and trying to find new people to write and keep copies of everything you receive. Write Bush, write the first lady, but do these by priority mail so you have the date they received them. It will take about one to two months for a response by mail, but this also is a hard copy for GZ when you go for your interview. It's tough because many of these interagencies are contract servers and could care less about the time it takes and the people like MH or KC are getting so much mail that you are just another note for them to respond to. Take it from Mick, don't give up hope and just keep trying.

BTM, I just my new Chinese Visa from Ca. I called the Chinese Consulate in L.A. and asked for names and phone numbers of people they could recomend. I contacted one of them and got my Visa in about 10 days. The person I went thru only charged me $ 20. over the Visa price and I think he was part of the Consulate. Not sure, but it was fast and not questions and the check was made out to the Chinese General, so he had to get his cut from the consulate.

Orbitalpunk, Just be away that your congressman may never see your letters and someone in his office is asigned to your case and will except what DOS says. I hade this trouble with one Senator in my state so I wrote the Governor and encluded all the responses from his office and she contacted him, and now he is helping better, but this name check is so full of pit falls and it could be sitting on someone's desk. Keep calling DOS and write MH every week. My dates are no good for your need because I am so screwed by this system the hole is deep enough to reach China.

Did any one get a reply to this. I sent mine off the same day and got nothing. I plan to forward it again tomorrow, Monday to MH with another message to please respond to my e-mail of 5/15. I don't know if this will do any good, but what is left.

PJ, You can apply for a two entry Visa. This is good for 6 months and after the first 30 days you can go to the local police station and have them give you the second 30 days. You can also find some jobs on different web sites. If ShenZhen appeals to you, this is a very modern city about an hour from HongKong in the south of China. Go to the web> ShenZhen, China < in the search and many things will come up for you, including companys that find you work. ShenZhen is very hot and humid in the summer, but a really beautiful city and there are many beautiful girls from all over China that have gone there to find work. If you are looking for that. They also have many schools to offer you work.

Just read this. They say it seems OK to eat the cooked cat, but don't buy one uncooked or raise it or kill it. I don't like to eat cat, hope my Fiancee never feed me any. Maybe now that they have this connection, they( WHO) can get a cure. Gives a new meaning to the works>cat lick<

Panda, Your papers sound like they went from the Service Center to NVC. If this is true than you still need the P-3 and P-4 to do before. Did you do the the P-3 or P-4 already?

CDC also posted the lifting of the sars in GuangDong Province and HongKong. I hope this will make the border crossing a little easier. I also talked to JAL airlines today, they have lifted all prescrening for passengers out of HongKong. For me this is good news if everything stays this way for another week.

Sorry to hear about your Grandfather, I will offer some prays for him. Let us all hope he lived a full and happy life. In the end that is all any of us can ask for. It would be easier if you could be there at her time of need, but I hope she knows your spirit is always with her to support her thru all her bad times till you are together.

Hi Dan and welcome, I hope the lawyer you hired for 1200 dollars is not from MN. with th S and W firm. I hired them for $ 1000. and in 6 months they haven't done anything, but their spel sounded like they knew everything. Now I am trying for a refund, but that will be an empty hole. E-mail me if you need their name.

Mick and Li, Glade you came out of that proceedure OK, but report the chest pain to your doctor. If it is being caused by the meds, they may be too strong for you and need an adjustment. As far as eating well, if you don't like fish, try Cod or Shark if you can get it were you are. They are both white fish and very healthy, but don't have the fish taste. Stay away from Chicken, especially with skin on it. That is worse than Hamburg. If you can get Rabbit, Deer, Boffolo ( sorry about the spelling) but that is the rarest meat you can find with the hightest protoien. Also try to get some NONI and take it twice a day. The Hawaiians have used this for many moons to help fight heart and other internal diseases. Try> Botanic Choice.com for their site, if you have trouble finding it e-mail me and I will check again. Good luck for a speedy recrovery.

Dave, I sent one out the same day using many of the ideas of the group letter and also nothing. I keep hoping that maybe they are thinking about the letters and will give a good reply. I know that is really a far hope, but what else is let, except hope. No one is any help in this situation, Congressman, Senators, no one, that leaves us no help, but each other. What a bummer

Everything I am reading seems to point to the slow down of sars. From everything my fiancee in ShenZhen tells me, everything is back to normal there, but I think at the borders one most still go thru checks. Now that the warm weather is hitting many area, I think this will clear up for the summer and may return in the fall as is the way with any flu type sickness. Now I think many things are being blamed on sars, only to not give the real reasons for such acts, as was talked about adoption in prior post.

I read this article also. It would seem to me if they (Homeland Security) puts this thru, than our fiancee's and wife's shouldn't have to wait for their security checks in China, but everything could go back to the old way of 3 months for a visa. This is a good article to quote to MH the next time you write her. This 16 months to 2 years from start to finsih is not exceptable. Has anyone heard anything from MH from the group letter that was to be sent out last Friday???

Sars is bad, but out of the numbers of people that have been infected to the general population, I don't think it is as bad as the papers are making out. Hong Kong got hit hard because it came fast and hit a hotel where it spread fast to other countries. But like Sarah said if you take care than this shouldn't stop anyone from traveling. I will go to ShenZhen June 2, but will also take some masks and anti- wipes and will keep my hands clean. I say good luck to anyone traveling now days. Doesn't matter where, there are problems everywhere. What's the difference if you get sars or get mugged, one way or the other, you aren't going to be a happy camper.

Owen, A friend of mine from Ca. told me last week about China stopping adoption of girls. He has a factory in ShenZhen and he and his wife wanted to adopt 2 girls. No one special, just 2 girls, but was told over a month ago by the Chinese that they were not letting girls be adopted now because of the low numbers of girls in China ratio of girls to boys. He was told that with many girls leaving China, many man are turning to homosexual behavior. Since young people are not too effected by sars. This maybe something the Chinese are using to stop the adoption of gilrs without going into the real reason. When ever I was in China, the women always seem to out number the men, but I know that many women can't bare children any longer because the government had them fixed if they had children and no husband.

Are you kidding, GZ work on Saturday? we are lucky if they work Monday thru Friday. BUt that is a real good suggestion for them, right work on Saturday.

Long Strider, I have just sent my letter to MH, but used your formate, I would have joined the group in this, but I am in a different situation, but still with a very long delay. Many of the words and phrases are the same as you wrote, so it will be easy for them to know the two are joined. I hope these get some kind of good answer for all of us, but not counting on anything.

How do I put this? In the last month there has been a lot of talk about sending a group letter or many individual letters to someone in power, but this is always droped because we can't decide who is the best to write to or when. Food for thought? Because each couple has different time lines, different INS. areas, different delays, different situations and different K-1 or K-3. Here is an idea, if we all can pick one day, say May 25, and say we send the letters to Maura Harty after her East Coast business hours, so she gets all the letters on May 26 in the morning when she comes in. We all have different stories to tell, but I think we need one solid phrase in each letter that is the same for all of us. Because of the sars, how about a clause about how sars is effecting us because our loved ones are still in China and our government is dragging their feet with our visas? It really doesn't matter what clause we use, but the words most all be exactly the same, so Harty can know that we are in touch with each other about this and we don't want any more form letters, but we need answers. Now, I will leave this out to some of the older people on this site to think about this idea, and who is the best to send it to. We need to give everyone a chance to write a good letter and also get the e-mail address of the person to send this to. Sorry, about the length of this, but I think we need to do something soon and this letter writing has come up often, but died along the way. Please give me some input????

Panda, Everything I am reading is saying that some areas are not letting people from other areas entry without going thru a quartentine. The way I understand this is that the Chinese government is trying to stop the spead of sars from getting in the rural areas of China where they have limited medical staff and hospitals. To leave Beijing for the US or another country may not be a problem. I say may not be, because they are changing the rules each day. If she doesn't have to go back to Beijing, than I would say not to go till she has her ems. Maybe a friend could get her mail for her and send it to her. Beijing is a hot spot now, so there is no telling what will happen each day. Maybe she should call the GZ Consulate before she leaves Xiamen and ask if they mailed her ems and go right to GZ. Xiamen also has many sars cases now, so is she sure she can leave there?

Congradulations Jatuke, on your interview and visa. Here is hoping you a long and happy life together.