I love Sunshine

Here is a link to a story about how the man who got hit is trying to find the girl. It is in both Chinese and in English. This attempt to find the girl who helped him made bigger news in China than the event. http://bbs.tongji.net/thread-508415-1-1.html

When I started this thread, it was to make people think. Also to share my own thinking after having lived there for some time. Others who have lived there have also been able to understand this, but those who visit for a short period of time rarely do. There is a stark difference between many of us as a foreigner, who go over there for a short work-trip or to visit our SO and experience a China where soon-to-be family members and their friends are exceedingly generous, things are sorted out for us without much need for worry or concern, and everything seems new and novel. But folks, there is another China out there, with people who refuse to stand in line, push their way onto elevators before giving people a chance to leave, people bump and jostle others without an idea of how others are affected, etc. that your SO must deal with everyday. I agree with others that said that laowai are treated better than the ordinary Chinese. Yes, there are different opinions of civility, and yes, I agree some of my anecdotes can be viewed as generalizations -- I expected this to be said by someone, since it is an easy way to explain it. But when you see the daily occurrence of nearly every person at a bus stop slamming poor granny against the side of the bus to get that one free seat, it does make you ask "why?" And it does make you draw comparisons to what happens elsewhere. It's just human nature to see things this way. If you spend some time in China, you will see there is a pervasive "if it doesn't concern me, why should I get involved?" attitude. Perhaps you won't see it when visiting your SO for a week or two smothered in romantic bliss, but stay a bit longer and it becomes more apparent. Just about everyone I have spoken to who has lived there, Chinese or otherwise, sees this collapse of civility as well. Ask your SO about it, and see what s/he thinks. Be prepared to get an earful of interesting stories.

Yes, congratulations on the pink! Can I ask what you listed as your type of job on your other forms? I am wondering if that had any bearing... Must be a good feeling to be able to get on with the rest of your lives now!

I agree with you about attitude being the most important thing. My Sunshine is from Shanghai and runs her own successful company there. I own a hotel in a resort town with a population of 9,000 people that is far removed from any decent-sized city. I am also a student in thriving Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix. The plan is to spend our summer in the resort town, when most of our business occurs, and the rest of the year in Arizona. She is lukewarm about coming to Arizona, but excited to go to the resort town. I was just up there, and sent her photos of the leaves changing colors and waterfalls tumbling from the mountains overhead. She compared it with Jiuzhaigou, where we visited in May, and is eagerly looking forward to her new life with me, especially in the resort town. She can't wait to go hiking or tubing down the rapids... it is my goal to give her a happy life here. Bored? I guarantee she won't be bored. Life is what we make of it!

My SO passed along a disturbing piece of news from Shanghai which happened earlier this month. On Sept 6 in Shanghai, an American pedestrian was involved in a hit-and-run with a car. Many people were around and witnessed this accident. Despite him needing medical attention, nobody offered to help or even call the police. In fact, many took photos of him lying in the street while in agony. He tried to flag down a taxi, but no taxis would take him either. Finally, one girl got a taxi and stopped near him, and took the boy to the hospital. Others scoffed at this girl, and said she must have been Japanese or Korean, since no Chinese person would do this! This follows a recent well-publicized case in Nanjing earlier this year where an elderly lady fell when exiting a bus. A young man went to help her to the hospital. When he got there, her family accused him of pushing her off the bus, and this case went to court. The man lost his job fighting the case, and ended up having to pay 40,000 rmb fine to the woman's family. So many Chinese think "why should I help a stranger and suffer a similar fate?" So sad. Now a few personal anecdotes: Last March in Beijing, I saw an elderly man climbing the subway steps and he took a tumble. Just as most of you would, my natural reaction was to go and help him. Others were much closer, but to them it was like watching entertaining TV: no one offered to help him. I was the first to assist him and when I saw he was okay, I continued on my way. My secretary, who was with me at the time but didn't move closer later asked me "did you really want to help him or just get a better look?" Yesterday when driving back through Wyoming, I ran out of gas. My fault! I was late for a flight, and called some towing services who wanted a minimum of $150 to bring a gallon of gas to me on this back road as it was quite some distance from any town. The next driver to pass me, a good Samaritan, stopped and offered a ride to town (30 miles), waited for me to get a gas can, and drove me back to my car. I offered him some money but he only said "I only hope that if I was in your situation, someone would help me too". Even in the wilds of Wyoming, we can find civility. I believe that Chinese people are generally extremely hospitable to others if there is some benefit to them, such as a romantic interest, friendship, or business relationship, but if you are a stranger to them, Chinese society is extremely cold and selfish. For those of you who have had limited exposure to China, all in the presence of your SO, please be grateful to them for shielding you from this. For all the negative things that get said by others around the world about Americans, one thing I can genuinely say is that our culture does a decent job of looking out for those in trouble than many other cultures do. Any others have thoughts about this?

Ron, I see from your timeline that you did call DOS today. Call again on Monday -- you might see a change. My theory is they only update computers periodically, and the weekends make a good time for them to do this.

Hi Ron, I filed on March 7, my SO returned P-3 on August 8, and got P-4 on Sept 13, have an interview date of October 24. This means it was a little bit more than a month from P-3 to P-4 for us. It may be this for you as well. So P-4 will come for your SO next week, I hope! Also, it seems they set interviews for the following month early the month prior. So this means your November interview date will be set in early October. However, there have been cases where people have received as little as 2 weeks notice before their interview. This means you could still get an October date, especially if there are any available slots that were vacated by others. It might be worthwhile to give DOS a call and get the latest update on the status. Best of luck to you! ILS

This is good news! Glad to hear it went smoothly, and you and your SO walked away with pink!

I plan to include W-2's since I was married (though separated) during 2004 and 2005. For some reason, my ex's divorce lawyer pushed hard for us to refile our 2005 taxes as married filing jointly, which I did. Since this means those years show a pool of income on our tax transcripts, who earned what can only be determined by the W-2s.

I just hope none of us get the bitter middle-aged woman VO that tsap_seui's SO got! Maybe just a bad day for her. I think you will do well, and they will act fairly and professionally.

For those of you K-1s who have just gone to GUZ to support your SO in the interview, did you re-write or update your original letter of intent to marry? Did your SO re-write one as well? Was it/were they even reviewed by the VO? For those of you who are going soon, do you plan to rewrite yours or update it? It seems to have some intrinsic value (makes you think and appreciate), but just trying to see the value from a VO's eyes. I don't recall seeing these as a factor for any recent interview. Thanks, ILS

Another good question is about notarizations. Do you need to have form xxx notarized? Even though you are physically there and probably will be giving her your passport, do you need to have a copy of your passport? And does this need to be notarized? The seemingly obvious answer is no, but I do recall this being requested of someone fairly recently. Good thing they had a notarized copy. In any case, good luck to you Clayton!

Dave, We are right behind you, and have been following along, so am very interested in your experience. We know you will do well! ILS

Dan, Sunshine told me she the P-4 arrived today. According to DOS, it was sent out last Friday. They used the same EMS label she provided in her P-3 paperwork. See you on the 24th! Do you plan to attend ACH on the 22nd? ILS

Houston, It would also be interesting to see how many of these girls who got blue slipped had their SOs present with them. My guess is that few of them did.

Congratulations on the Pink, Houston! Any details on the interview? With many others at CFL in the on-deck circle, any bones you can throw at us will allow us to feel more confident! Again, Congratulations! Must be a great feeling!

Hi Danielbro! Congratulations on getting your interview date! You have the same interview date as we do, so if you plan to attend, I hope to see you there the morning of Oct 24th! We haven't received our P4 yet. Even though my SO lives in a fairly big city (Shanghai), it took a week to get our P3 once GUZ puts in the computer that they have sent the P3. Truthfully it should only take 24 hours to get to Shanghai by EMS, so there must be a lot of other things that they do or some standard delays before they leave GUZ. I would give your SO a week from today to receive it. ILS

Hi Zachary, Sorry to hear about the blue. I know how it feels to be zooming along in the fast lane, only to be pulled over for driving too fast! Were/are you there with your SO during the interview? Also, how many visits did you make? Your timeline didn't reflect this.

Houston, Let me add my hearty congratulations to you on your fiancee's success! It seems to add to the case that GUZ has already made up their mind about pink or blue before the interview. But that is excellent that you will be together soon! ILS

Thanks to all of you! I definitely will tell about our experience in GUZ. I booked my flight using frequent flier miles, so I am all set! I will probably attend ACH on the 22nd. My 40th birthday will be the day before her interview. I'll be spending it with right person, but hope she is in the mood to celebrate with me, even though I'm sure she will have the interview occupying her mind... ILS

Illinois Dave, that is great news! Our interview will be on the 24th of October, so you and your fiancee will have your pink about 2 weeks before we know our fate. We definitely want to hear how things progress as your interview approaches. As always, all of us here at CFL have confidence that you will bring home pink! ILS

Great news! Called DOS today and they told me that Sunshine's P4 was sent today... We have an October 24 interview date! Now my only concern is that my midterm exams will make this trip a difficult one... hope my professors will be understanding. All of them are foreign-born, so they will understand the difficulties of the interview at the US consulate and need for me to be there to support her... We are both very happy to get this news! ILS

P3 is a great feeling! You feel that the big lump of the wait is over with, and the wheels of progress are finally getting some traction. Wish you can get a speedy P4... and congratulations!

I understand your frustration; however, it seems that GUZ doesn't want the burden of tracking down all our exes, they would rather put that burden on us. They probably have their best fraud detection experts in GUZ (and maybe in Russia too) and they most likely found some sort of emerging trend that needed additional information. Since the additional scrutiny about exes seems to be fairly recent (within the past year, mainly), it is not easy to know in what conditions it is required and in what conditions it is not. This is what GUZ prefers for obvious reasons. I would suspect that situations where there were a number of previous marriages, the previous marriages were short in duration, finished fairly close to the filing of the I-129F/I-130 petition, or perhaps to other non-citizens (in other words, to those people who could possibly be most like our current SOs) would be the ones they would focus on most. However, looking through other reports, there may be a number of other factors that would trigger this information as well. On the original I-129F it requests the A number of any previous beneficiaries. I didn't know my ex's A number (she was a K-1, but refused to provide it after our divorce), so on my original I-129F petition I put "see attached" and gave them as much other information as I could, including SS# on a separate sheet of paper. I did not get an RFE. ILS

What a great feeling you must have now. Excellent! Congratulations!