JimandSarha

Apparently so true. I still am willing to send my info by fax to another party to look at. I've got nothing to hide. I stated zero because its the truth. The tax records back it up. For whatever people might think of my personality (or lack thereof) I can assure you, I'm not insane. And insane is what I would have to be to try to submit the tax forms I do without having the information to back it up. I think I prefer to move to zip code 90210 instead of 66048. I'm giong to bed. Its 1:30am here. Tomorrow is another day and I've got some more thinking to do about this medical thing. Goodnight girls. Jim

Thank you. I don't see why others take my report as some sort of whining about my good fortune. In actuality, I'm whining because I still see the process as arbitrary and broken. I am not bragging about getting through with paperwork showing I apparently made no money. I'm as puzzled as anyone else would be. I fully expected ROYAL BLUE for my slip. I went in with no evidence because the purpose was to get a blue slip and drag this out to another time. I have boatloads of documentation on relationship and finances on my laptop and backed up on two USB memory sticks. Hell, I've got a backup of most all of this same stuff compressed onto my wife's Video iPod. She could have taken in nearly a kitchen sink. Hundreds of pics, bank statements, business records, Quickbooks weekly backups. The point was not to pass. The lesson is that even with totally inadequate preparation, you CAN pass. This proves its arbitrary. This proves (despite Lance's objections) that there is either A) LOTS of discretion in the sytem OR B) The NVC and Consulate have a lot more info at their disposal than anyone on here has figured out yet. When you get to New Zealand on that delayed honeymoon, take lots of pics and link them from photobucket etc. That is one place I want to see someday. It just always seems to be out of the way or out of time. I've got to make a point of seeing it someday soon. Jim

I'm a worrier too. I think the letter is a good idea. I also believe myself, and have heard from others, that attending the American Citizen's Hour at 2:00PM on Fridays ( I think this date or time recently changed from some other time but that is what it is today ) is almost always helpful. And as far as I can tell, you can go as often as you like. So if you make multiple trips to China, you could go to the consulate multiple times. That might or might not irritate them. But I think you could go at least twice without being as irritating as I seem to be I hope things go well for you. I can't offer you much at all on the CP thing. Hopefully if her job and involvement is trivial, it won't matter. I've seen some other posts on here about this topic though so maybe look at those and PM the people involved if they are still active on the forum. Good luck!

You're welcome Dave. I came to this board looking or some information. I found a little. I didn't need much. I got what I needed. In the spirit of the concept, I try to give back what I find out. I'm really sorry I don't mesh with the forum members. It does get in the way of your acceptance of good information. That is a troubling thing in this world. Without revealing my politics one way or another or perhaps a third way, I don't happen to agree with George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Al Sharpton, Al Gore, Newt Gingrich or a score of other people even half the time on most issues. I find them ALL to be just as annoying as you find me. But I listen to them carefully and I consider their words and I weigh them against what I hear from others and observe myself. Because while I generally don't agree with the goals they have, they have truths in what they say, they have more facts at hand on many issues than I have. They may twist those facts or misapply them to situations to further their own agendas which may or may not agree with mine. But I listen because inside of every message, no matter how grating the messenger, there is something there of value. Not listening leaves a person ill informed and ignorant. I do not make you happy. For that, I apologize. But at least you appear to read and think about what I say. That's all anyone can ask for. Others unfortunately either don't listen or worse, attribute some sort of motives or dishonesty to what I say. This leaves them less well informed and hurts me not at all. The good news for the forum is that I will almost certainly enter the US after being married for 2 years. So, if we go on this visa, I won't have any AOS to go through. My infestation of the forum will end soon after I relate my experience at my POE. Staying after that would not add knowledge and I don't need to stay on the boards to have a social life. Everyone wins. I got some info, I'll give some back and then I'll be gone. In the meantime, I'll keep that cell phone nearby so I can send those faxes out. I am absolutely irritating, but I'm also generally correct. Take care, and go to White Fence Farm and have some of those hushpuppies for me

Text message me your fax number to +8613645173916. I'll send you the copy of the I-864. I'll copy you the visa too. Ask yourself how I got the NVC to even forward the package since they had the I-864 and 2005 taxes with no income tax paid on them either. I don't buy the medical stuff as being a factor. My wife has a notification line on it that she has to be processed for tuberculosis. The exact wording is: Class A or B(TB) Req. ATTN. of USPHS at POE. So what are we going to run into there? Did she test positive on some test but her chest x-ray is clean? I don't give you all details because one, they aren't pertinent or any of your business. I have more thinking to do than you realize. I am troubled because of that line. I'm pretty sure if they thought she was active or contagious, they wouldn't let her on the plane much less into the country. But what does that line mean??? Wouldn't you be troubled? I don't want to go to the USA for an extended period at this time, its inconvenient for business. But if she has some medical issue, I'm not staying in THIS country to get it treated, we're off to UCLA or Scripps or UCSD. And I mean this week, not next. I went back to the medical clinic where she had the exam and they wouldn't tell me anything, said that I had to ask the consulate. Now you tell me, if you thjought your wife had a serious issue with medical, would you go back to the consulate to stir up the issue? Not me. Send me your fax number. I'll even send you a few years taxes with my SSN blocked out. Then you can come on here and tell everyone that Good 'ole Jim actually is smarter than the average bear. After I'm proved not to be a liar, then we can go through the VO's possible reasons for risking federal prison for breaking the law. We could ask the NVC the same thing I suppose. After we get done with them, we'll ask the IRS why they let me skate so brazenly. "I've got a million dollars and you can't have any. Neener, neener, neener!" First we'll take care of my rep.... Jim

I'm an exporter and importer. I just buy stuff that looks too good to pass up and resell it to people for less than they can buy it for normally. My best business advice is don't spend your money on yourself. I drive a car from 2004. I live in a 2200 square foot house that costs less than one month's income. If you live below your means, you'll generally have trouble figuring out what to do with all the leftover money. Never buy anything in China that costs more than 1/10th the US sell price. 60% is the minimum margin you should EVER take. If you can't get 60%, you aren't trying or you are in the wrong market. Margin is NOT the same as markup. Don't sell against Walmart. If you can maintain your concentration on any problem consistently for 5 minutes and your IQ is over 90, you can rule the world. Don't buy or sell things you don't know anything about. There you go, you're all set. Jim

Ok, I'm back. I got my hands on 2 notebooks. One is a G4. Not sure what that means but I'm giving it to her brother for college. The other one is one of the new duo Intel jobbers in white. It has a 120 gig drive and 1 gig of memory. It runs Safari. Is that the Mac OS? They installed the dual boot stuff and a pirated version of XP before so that works. Now I just have to remember how to turn it on My wife is out buying some storage boxes for me to put product samples in. When she gets back I'll have her read the box to me and see what exactly it is. If you want to buy it in December, leave me a message about 2 weeks before you get ready to come so I can see where I'll be at. I paid 5200 RMB for it. Give me the same amount and you can have it. I can't really use a Mac very much, my network relies on stuff that my IT guy can't put on a Mac, or so he says. But they are great for surfing the net I'm told. Less virus'. Anyway, I'm turning Chinese I guess. Running wildly to buy something I'm not even sure I want because its a good deal. At least I think. Seems like that Mac should be about 12000 RMB or more normally. Gotta go again. Its Sunday afternoon and a bucket of KFC has my name on it Jim

<== Insert annoying Sally Fields Oscar speech here Anyway, I'm logging off now. The neighbor just stopped in. There's a computer store near here that is going out of business and they are selling MacBooks at 50% off. I sent my wife running out in hotel slippers to go sit on (literally) as many as she can lay her hands on while I brush my teeth and finish my coffee. Jim

What I'm trying to get across is that the process is arbitrary. Gotta be. I do not know what type of preparation anyone could possibly do to get ready for these interviews. I would tend to go with the kitchen sink theory. Because as far as I can see, its a mystery as to how to pass. Again I see that people are missing my points. My story is not meant to be heart warming. It is meant to be entirely and completely annoying. It is meant to show something. YOU CAN ACT LIKE LEONA HELMSLEY AND GET A VISA Ok, I realize that my methods of speaking to people I don't know, never will meet and need nothing from can be abrupt and disagreeable. And that's the point. I think that the things people worry about in this process may or may not be important. They certainly can only be roughly prepared for. What are the principles in immigration that are important or what my be considered important by a VO and the Department of State in general. Here's MY personal perspective: 1. The applicant should genuinly long to be an American. This probably isn't written anywhere but it should be. People who get LPR status in my meaningless opinion should be people that LONG in their hearts to be Americans. This is not my wife. My wife longs to shop on Rodeo Drive. She's a Paris Hilton who can focus her shopping skills on negotiating with vendors. There are a few billion people in front of her on this 'requirement'. She's not a bad person and will make as valuable an addition to society as half the people in Southern California. Shame on us the US as Paul Harvey would say. 2. The relationship should be valid. Mine is. My proof to the US government consiste entirely of a not quite 2 year old marriage paper. I acidentally ended up with all the paperwork required in notarized Chinese/English right from day 1. The police report was the only thing I had to come up with from scratch. Burden of proof on my part, Zero practically. The testing of that proof by the consulate, also zero 3. Proof of financial ability to support the immigrant. I didn't do it. Not even close. And yet, I've got the visa. In the past people have cautioned me not to criticize the process because the consulate reads these boards. So? The process is goofed up and I don't think that can be denied. Its also arbitrary. Many of you on this board do not have the resources or ability to live where you please. I picked up in March and just moved here because the 18 month wait was causing my wife hardship with her family and we were both lonely for the other. I realize perfectly well the pain that goes with being apart. I feel that my ease of getting through this with holes in the process are an insult to ALL OF YOU. I could absolutely prove relationship or finances if I had too. Its disappointing NOT THAT I DIDN'T. Its disappointing that YOU have to and so many have failed so far on BS excuses. I'm not here to brag that I got it easy. I'm here to say again, THIS SYSTEM SHOULD CHANGE. Last time I advocated that, I got my butt chewed. I still believe it. I never had any doubt at all that I would get a visa. I had no conception that it would not turn out well, at least eventually. Many of you seem to have the opposite point of view. Call me arrogant if you will. But I believe that my experience should be typical. That its not points to my other points that make me an unpopular person here. The "relationships" a lot of people have and defend so vehemently would be considered fairly abnormal within the borders of the USA. For instance, there was a late 50's guy in the Papa John's pizza place across the corner on the second floor mall of the Citic (??) Bank building sitting having dinner with an early 30's Chinese woman. She didn't speak Mandarin or Cantonese, she spoke the local dialect. They were sitting and using a translation dictionary and crude sign language to communicate. I sat and watched them for awhile and wondered what their life together would be like. Will it survive with no visa like my wife and I did? Can he afford to come here if she can't go there? If she goes there, when they can eventually communicate, will they be the person the other one thought they were? I'm sympathetic and I know that I would have to be tough on them in an interview if I was a VO. And that's a problem. Because I don't see it as VO's job to evaluate the expectation for success of a relationship as long as its not fraud. Anyway, I've got stuff to do and nobody likes to hear what I have to say anyway. Just take from this what I'm really saying, not what your biases about me make you hear. I think the system is a mess. We should NOT have gotten the visa by the rules as these forums preach them. Obviously there is latitude and discretion by the VOs, we could all guess that. But its so arbitrary that not only do I think what you actually bring is all that important, apparently you don't even have to supply the minimum of proof if you have some something (not a typo) that makes it all ok. Do what you will with that information. For some of you it might be a comfort and confidence builder. For others this might be a worry. For those of you that just want to dislike me, have fun with that. Jim

Sorry for taking awhile to reply. I had to go back and re-read my first post, I wrote that over 3 sessions and almost a week of time. I wanted to check what I wrote. It certainly could be that. I wouldn't advocate a mass rush of people going in to cancel their interviews and asking to interview anyway. I don't think that would work often. Maybe. I have no idea. On their paperwork, I make no money. I shouldn't be able to feed myself. Obviously, taxable income and real income aren't the same thing all the time. In previous years I've paid some really egregious amount of taxes on less income. And for FY 2007 I don't think I will be able to pull off paying nothing. It will be a fairly low percentage amount, about 7-10% I think. I don't have a good idea yet about 2008 yet. For all the animosity I generate on this board, I'm relatively pleasant in person I certainly get along with the people at the consulate. I understand they have jobs to do and I don't bitch and whine about things I have to do at their windows. They have some discretion and then there are things they cannot change. I go with the flow and understand when to push and when I have to accept the situation I'm in and deal with the hand I'm dealt. So I have no red flags as far as I can tell from consulates in my files. I've had one incident with the Chinese guard and I handled that diplomatically (pun intended). I just said that it gave a negative image of the USA to have guards, even Chinese Nationals, man handle anyone, especially women. I apologized for getting angry but pleaded that I'm sure they would feel the same way if it had been their wives. In fact, I'm sure that same guard would have decked me on the spot if the situation were reversed. I just don't understand the reaoning. No questions at all and a apparent if unreal deviation on paper from the financial rules withoout having to make any explanation at all. Still weird to me after almost a week. Jim

If your wife can pass for my wife and figure out how to fake that fingerprint thingy, go for it. I really have no idea what the consulate is looking for. I met a guy who's a bit older, I'd guess 60'ish and he lives here. He has no income as he's retired and just bumming around after finishing up his job in Beijing. He retired from his job in Beijing and was married to his wife already. They are putting this guy through the ringer endlessly. Separate interviews for him, his wife, her child from a previous marriage. He's been to 3 or 4 interviews. At this one he still got a blue slip. They want taxes (he has no job), bank records from USA (He lives here and has for 3 years) and some other goofy stuff. Us, no questions, no materials. It's harder to get a driver's license. I don't know if its crap shoot or what. It can't be my interviewing skills, you guys all think I'm a jerk All I can say is my wife is a princess and she knows it. I do have that whole ego thing. But truly, its not that I'm stuck on myself all that much. I'm CONFIDENT. Maybe that is all it takes, confidence. It sure doesn't take proof of relationship other than a marriage certificate, proof of income or the ability to document my life for the previous 3 years. I did the absolute minumum required. I didn't even write N/A in boxes that were nebulous. I've learned over time that even writing N/A in a government form binds you to proving its N/A. Blanks should be left blank in all cases. What you don't say in writing can't be held against you. Take care. And really, some of you need to read 001.... But only some of you, I'd say 97.5% of the women on there are exactly what they appear to be. My only question for people remains, is what she is (and what you are) really a match. That same 97.5% of the women on 001 that are genuine also think us American guys are lazy, stubborn, uninformed in some other way useless lumps that need to be led by the nose to get the results they want. I'm unsure that that is a good way to start off a new life. My wife and I have a fair number of problems with culture and we have known each other in person for 3 years. I think internet dating/marriage across the American/Chinese cultural divide is much more problematic than it would be from another western country. About the only thing we 100% agree on is that nuking the Japanese in 1945 wasn't such a bad thing. You gotta love Nanjing girls. Because if they hate you, they hate you for generations. Sorry for the rambling, the drapes came back from the cleaners and the princess is badgering me to hang them back up. Why can't China have drapery cleaning services that come and take the things down and hang them back up for you? 9 foot ceilings and short chairs. Sigh.... Jim

Hmmmm. Now what to do.... We are in Guangdong doing business. We've been here about 3 weeks now. I thought I would update everyone since our interview date (CR-1) was scheduled for August 27th. On the 20th I went in to the offices on Shamian to get some b'ness stuff taken care of and to get my passport cover glued back on for the umpteenth time. While there, I mentioned that my wife had a interview scheduled but we had planned on just ignoring the whole thing. The consulate guys said that might be a bad idea in case we ever changed our minds. They suggested I stop in at the consulate downtown and tell them we were not going to go forward at this time. It seemed like wise advice. So off to the consulate I go. It turns out that the 20th was ACH time too. I arrived too late for that but they let me in about 3:30 anyway. I trundled up to the window to tell them to cancel the whole thing for the time being and see if there was a way to put the process in storage or if it would start over again from scratch if I decided to move back to the USA one of these days. The guy at the window and I talked for about 5 minutes. After shooting the breeze about business, sports and life in general he asked me if I still had all the paperwork. I said I did, my briefcase might as well be a 3 drawer lateral filing cabinet The VO says, why don't you go ahead and do the medical if you have time and send your wife in for her interview anyway, it would look better on the paperwork (why this would be, I can not even imagine) in the future. Well, if you are going to pay for advice (taxes, visa app fee, etc) you might as well take it. I asked my wife to go in for the medical. After recovering from that fight and buynig her a new Montblanc watch, she agreed. So off we go to Shamian Island again the next day to the clinic thing located next to the Victory Hotel. That took about an hour. Taking the former Miss Nokia, 2004 in there was an experience. The doctor who does the immunizations off to the left of the sign-in counter filled in all her paperwork for her and gave her candy out of his pocket (right in front of me!) on 3 separate occasions. LOL! I decided she was in good hands (maybe too good) and wandered off to the Victory Hotel to get a good western breakfast. With a last word to enjoy the breast exam with her new buddy, I hit the street. Remind your SO not to pee before the exam, they need a cup. Before I finished breakfast, Sarha was at the hotel to eat too. We did some shopping and came back to pick up the results at 4pm. Doctor Hot2Trot was not in sight this time so we had to wait 45 minutes this time After that, dinner at Lucy's and back to the hotel. On the day of the interview we went over to the consulate to queue up. For those on a medium budget, the Zhongyi Hotel around the corner from the Westin is a good deal. Its a little pocket hotel and has 28 rooms and suites. The suites can be negotiated down to 350 RMB easily and I've had it down to 250 when I stayed there for about 10 days from time to time. Laundry service is slow but everything else is top notch for the price. You can use the Westin Pool and facilities for 20RMB per day, internet is free, Yada^3. Back to the interview. We were inside pretty quick and went up to the fourth floor. Very few women appeared to have "the kitchen sink". Most seemed to have about a 3 inch stack of whatever it is they were carrying. Sarha had nothing but the medicall packet and a three page tax transcript for FY2006. She didn't even bring a purse and as usual handed me her umbrella to hold as soon as we were in out of the sun. So, with her passport, a 3 page transcript for 2006 taxes (Hah!) and her medical packet, off she goes up the escalator. At least my 'briefcase' lost a couple of kilos of crap I drag around because my wife can't file her own nails, much less important papers She stayed up there forever. She went up about 7:45 or 8:00. Tic toc, tic toc. By 12:45, I started thinking I'd missed her and she was back at the hotel. But a K1 girl that my wife had been talking too outside came down with her pink slip and said Sarha was still waiting. About 1pm Sarha came down with her pink slip. The really odd thing was that the VO asked her no questions at all. She sat down and said good morning. The VO looked in the computer and without turning to look at her asked "How's business?" She said it was doing fine. With that, he gives her the pink slip. That was it. If it got any easier, they would have just mailed it to her. Bizarre. And after 2 years, anti-climatic. Now, for those of you sweating bullets over your packages, here's some observations: We filed for CR-1 almost two years ago. This coming Thursday is our second wedding anniversary. I have not paid any income taxes to state or fed for 2 years. On paper, I have negative earnings. For other reasons I won't go into, I showed no assets on the I-864. My gross income is in the millions, but taxable income is less than zero and all the transcripts I submitted state this clearly. The I-864 seems to be a non-issue. I filled it out with ZERO for my income. I've filed my income taxes from China with a Chinese residential address for the FY2005 and 2006. For all intents and purposes, I'm not even a resident in the USA. We never submitted ANY supporting documentation with any of our applications. Not a shred of relationship or financial 'evidence'. I never submitted a pen stroke that wasn't the bare minimum of information they requested on the forms. My wife of two years does not appear on my taxes. I file single. This is mostly because I do my own taxes (I paid for a nice college education, I might as well use it) and (at least with TurboTax) you cannot file (electronically) with your spousal unit without the requisite SSN, which I promise you, she will never get. After handing in her materials in the initial interaction in the consulate, my wife was completely empty handed. She couldn't have even showed the VO my picture in her wallet. I have no explanation for the ease of the process from beginning to end or for all the hoops others have had to jump through. Except for the completely unacceptable length of time the process took, it pretty much went exactly as I expect it ought too. I'm an American citizen, I got married to a foreigner and according to the law, without a good reason not too, the government is obliged to hand her a immigration visa on demand. The process worked. Why so many people have problems, I can't say. And I won't speculate. Some possible things: I go to the consulates in lots of countries a LOT. By the nature of my business, I'm in consulates more often than I'm in grocery stores. I am honest, brutally so, as some of you know and do not appreciate. When something comes out of my mouth, its exactly what I'm thinking. I think that the consulates know that and my file with the government is probably running into the thousands of printed pages. From the "How's business?" comment from the VO, my suspicion is that there was little doubt at the consulates about the validity of my marriage and my ability to pay my own way. At one point in Shanghai I told a Chinese national guard outside the consulate to take his hands off my wife or call an ambulance because one of us was going to need it. He had grabbed her roughly in line and pulled her backwards out of line when we were waiting in the security queue to go talk business. I complained very calmly about that one inside and made it clear that no one deserved to be grabbed like that, much less the family member of a US Citizen. I know for a fact I got notations on my record about that one... My wife is extremely pretty. She was a model for Nokia in her spare time when I met her back in 2004. She's been on billboards all over China. Maybe the VO just liked her as much as the doctor at the clinic? The VO I talked to originally on the 20th did tell me that obtaining and bringing in airline tickets is a waste of time. They pay no attention to them. Entry stamps on the paspport are all they care about. If you give your SO your passport or copies of all the pages, that's enough. That's all I know about from the VO. I didn't ask any real questions, it just came up in the discussion because I said I'd been over on Shamian to get my passport reglued. Anyway, that's it. Now we have to figure out what to do. We have no plans to go to the USA right away. Maybe we'll head to Florida at Christmas to see my father. Good luck to everyone else, more than ever, I think the process is arbitrary to some extent. Oh, one last thing. This is something I don't remember reading about. Besides the medical exam, your SO will receive some paperwork in Chinese with a half page pink slip stapled to it when they pick up the exam results. This gets taken to anoter clinic in Guangzhou where you pay another 10RMB (I think) to get a required (by who I do not know) health certificate booklet about the size of the yellow immunization booklet. This one has the SO's picture in it too. I have absolutely no idea who gets or needs this as it is not in or part of the sealed packages you pick up with your passport/visa from the post office 2 days after the visa interview. Whatever, we'll see if someone asks for it sometime. Good luck everyone. Jim

With 7 weeks to go before the final interview, we have decided to abandon the process and stay in China indefinitely/permanently. The more we thought about it, the more we couldn't come up with any really logical reason to continue. In the beginning, my business was based in the USA. But in order to have some semblance of a marriage, I was forced to move here is March to wait this idiotic process out to the end. After firing almost everyone and realigning my business to be basically an export business, it would be pretty stupid to return to the United States. Instead, its more likely that I will keep the house I just bought in Nanjing and rent it out as an investment and start looking for a place in Hong Kong, Shenzen or Guangzhou. I'd like to thank everyone for their help through the process we went through to get to this point. Although I have to advise people that you can get to the interview sooner or later with careful reading of the forms and not making mistakes. How the interview goes, I have no idea and probably never will. That said, other than telling you to read carefully, I can't imagine I could be useful to people on the board. So, I think this is it for me. So long. Jim

Hi David, I guess a more accurate description of my current emotional state is that unless they give her a white slip and send the case back to the NVC, I have this thing down in Augist or a year from August. Most people have been apart for months or more and are pining for their wife or fiance. I'm lucky in that regard, here I am. I'm not leaving if she gets a blue, life will go on pretty much the same. If she gets a pink, THEN we have to change our life. We bought a house here and its under construction. It won't be ready until late 2008. In the meantime I'm leasing a place. If she gets pink, then we have to figure out what do we do with our scooter? Where do we store 6 rooms of furniture, 3 air conditioning units, a satellite dish all the household goods and all that STUFF until the new place is ready. Well it goes beyond that, even when the new place is done, I have to have it decorated. That will involve coming over here at least 2-3 times for a month or two at a time to pick a decorator, pick all the furnishings and supervise the construction. And I have to bring a few cats with me. What do I do with THEM when we come back here for business and the house. Uggghhh! Oh well, everyone has their own crosses to bear. Mine are minor compared to people apart. Now, if I can just figure out the GIV-24, I can relax. Jim

I don't know what the answer is. I just get tired of the hoops considering how easy it is for illegals. They practically fill out the forms for you where I live. Anyway. I found my packet and I guess tomorrow I'll make sure I have everything I need lined up and get the package filled out and just sit and wait. I'll have to go to Guangzhou a few days early and get the police certificate translated and do all that stuff. But for me, unlike some others, a blue slip or pink does make my world or end it. I'm pretty much emotionless about it now. Jim