Broseph32

I had a friend of mine go there (he's 67!), its actually fairly easy. You'll need to go to your city's local entry&exit bureau, and ask to go to tibet from the people that handle visa extensions. They'll ask you why you want to go to tibet- I'm not entirely sure what constitutes a 'good reason' to go, but my friend said he wanted to go to get a lhasa dog. He said they looked at him suspiciously for a second and then "OK!" You'll get a stamped paper that you'll need to carry around. That is your Tibet 'visa'. However, upon arriving, your only allowed to stay within the city of Lahsa. If you want to further explore, you will need to find whatever kind of PSB they have there and ask to explore outside the city. A train ticket to Lhasa from anywhere is expensive as hell.

Topic's a bit old, but i thought i'd clear something up- Unless anyone here is a former Chinese citizen, and currently a US citizen (and even then all i've heard are rumors), "yea right" to the becoming a chinese citizen idea. There is no immigration path for China.

http://news.163.com/10/0724/02/6CAS1J2600011229.html In Chinese, but the gist of it is A crazy woman with money&power went on a killing spree in a car killing 3. & The police will do nothing about it because she is "in". There's some good ol' fashioned Chinese justice for ya. If ya see her, and look like a foreigner, be sure to step in her way. I'm sure she'd rather die than be hit with the bill for sending a body back to the states!

Hmm, sorry i dont know much about that aspect of it. You may be better off finding a forum for people that are trying to sell imported products. Although a quick google search wasn't very fruitful, from what i can see, as long as its nothing unusual the duty will be paid and taken care of while its in customs after it arrives in the us. Thats how i paid the fees from that logistics company- after (or shortly before) it arrived in the us, they emailed and called me telling me about an invoice for a wide range of fees. I'm sure that if a duty was required on it, regardless for what i plan to do with it in the US, i would have paid it before the port would let it go.

Yea when i was in CJG i met alot of legends! Chenhuixian was one of them! Tell her James says hi! (if she still remembers me )

WOW ITS YOU!! Weve never met, but i know your wife! (from CJG) Hows it goin for you two? doin OK? Yes, actually i know a little about importing, but mostly just about the logistics part. Want exactly did you want to know? Just last year i shipped 2 taiji dagan's from zhengzhou to NC. Actually thinking about it a little more, you may or may not be better off just using good 'ol China post. (that is, by boat) I cant say for sure if it would be cheaper to find a company in china to ship containers to the US...... assuming your wanting to ship ALOT, then maybe, but let me break it down: When i shipped my Dagan i first found a special shipping company to do it (well, actually that was after ALOT of talking to ems, dhl, fedex, ups- NONE of them would do it == 4 meters long), and ill skip all the original prices and just list what it ended up being after all negotiation was said and done: 1500 RMB to the the company, mostly because 1. using a container isn't cheap, and 2. very much over sized. $~80 to a 'lavinstar logistics', which i really have no idea what it was they did, other than collect money. another $100 fee for going in and picking it up at the wherehouse myself. Whole ordeal took about a month from shipped to home.

Domicile? Get it in order, but dont expect them to really try hard to ding you on it. Its just one of their 'tools' that they CAN use against you, but i've never heard of it happening, and we had no problems with the issue either. Albeit i only back filed one tax return for 2008 with an income of $2000. I had written explanations of why i didn't file the other 2 years. As long as your cosponsor has an annual income of at least $50000 (and it's not questionable as to how long he/she can maintain it), they probably wont even look at anything else financial-wise. My cosponsor was my grandfather, who we also plan to be staying with for a while upon our return.

Well, not considering the mistake i made of thinking that statement on the packet 4 was applying to both persons, it still solves one thing: what details djwalker60 should include on his statement. Although technically that statement isn't aimed towards him, the petitioner's ex's info is nevertheless a more-than-uncommon denial at GUZ- one which he should prepare for to help prevent a possible denial- and p4 contains the details as to what it should include. I don't know how you missed that.

Well then i guess that solves it. Its amazing how little people actually read the official instructions, and then get all surprised come interview day. In practice though, i think that this (although it is right on p4) is actually only asked for maybe 50% of the time, so in some respect you would be preparing this document just in case, but really, there isn't much excuse not to have it: its right there. Not trying to scold anyone, just think its amazing how often people are blued for documents that they actually tell you to get- a lot of times they like to blue for stuff they dont tell you to get.

Yea, in this case pretty much just if its asked for. The reason i said 'prepare her on how to use it' was because i trained my girl how to use some of the less-direct documents to prove up other obsticals. For example, i included 6 months of bank statements for my usa bank account in my I-134. The primary purpose for this is to prove how much money i had in the bank. But it also served another purpose: I 'trained' my girl how to use it, by saying that should they want evidence for domicile, (as just one thing she could say>) she should direct them to the statements, as it shows active use of my bank account, while in china and in the US.

Correct. After that, the hardest part is just trying to get them to see it, but as long as you get a semi-competent VO, that shouldn't be a problem. I think you'll do fine- i prepared LOADS of documents that weren't at all necessary, but if i thought there was at least a 1% chance of it being asked for, i had it ready to go. [ie, resume for myself and my finacee, (where fiancee's is sometimes asked for if CCP) even though my fiancee was not CCP- prepared because i thought it would help our case for domicile, reinforce the fact that she's not CCP, and also clear up any misunderstandings they may have about her or my previous employments] O yea, and you shouldn't need to offer it up, just have it in case. Dont forget to prepare your girl to know when and how use it, too.

Like i said, dont give 'em a chance in hell to refuse ya! For the most part, you only get one real shot at the visa. Might as well do your best, or be prepared for the VO to roll the dice.

I dont know, i was just listing random stuff. I think it would be best to err on the side of more information rather than less, but your best bet is to look for a thread where someone else had this request (its not that uncommon in the realm of GUZ) and see exactly what it asked for.

Visa in hand, at last.

Visa is finally on its way- after 7 days from the interview.

?! Where/when did you see that asked for? There are many divorced people who have no idea what there ex is up to or where they live. I've seen that request many times here on VJ and CFL. The reason i mentioned that in particular, was because when i was waiting on my girl, i met a guy downstairs who had never been on 001, VJ, or CFL. he made the mistake that many do, of thinking he could breeze through this as long as his relationship was real. He was K-1 too. About 5 minutes before my girl got out, his girl came down with a BLUE, asking for his ex-wife's address, occupation, her work address, phone number, etc. For the next 5 minutes before i learned we were pink, i was pretty worried myself, considering the small number of K-1s that day.

Thanks everyone. I'm just glad i can finally stop worrying about all this. Like JohnP told me last night 'its all down hill from here'. In all honesty, i think that GUZ is turning over a new leaf. I've spent the last 7 months day and night studying GUZ in particular, past & present, and from what i saw in the 2 weeks i spent down there, it seemed like the majority of applicants were all pink. On the 5th we want to see a friend that had interviewed, and she said the whole day there was only one white, all the rest were pink. Now for my review: I wont even bother with the first part, everyone knows how that goes. My girl was one of the last ones out, and one of only 4 K-1s that day. We had prepared ALOT- my whole thinking through this entire process in putting our stuff together was: 1. make them want to give us the visa. Have all the necessities, and show them the bona fides of our relationship. But seeing how this was GUZ, i wasn't going to take any chances. So- 2. Prevent them from giving us anything but pink. Eliminate the blue and white slips as possibilities entirely. I did this by making sure i did ALL my homework, and then some. I studied other peoples blues, and the sheet itself. I systematically prepared everything that was reasonable that anyone's blue-slip asked for. This means that its impossible to issue a blue, unless they just flat out refused to see that we had it already. AND i had a backup plan if they tried to do that. As for white, i made sure that Yun knew absolutely as much as i did. If they asked her a question, and she didnt know the answer, then i sure as hell dont know the answer either. Prove a bona fide relationship, plus our communication, and a white is rendered obsolete. If they wanted to issue one, they would have to make a fool of themselves to do so. AND i had a backup plan if they tried to do that. Now, for our 'red flag' list: 1. I am 20, and Yun is 5 1/2 years older than me; 2. Our I-129F was prepared with only the bare necessities; 3. I had very little heavy weight for my I-134; 4. We had an unclear engagement date, and no mention of our engagement details were provided in the I-129F; 5. Not really a red flag, but our 'plight': i could not marry in china for 2-3 more years. 6. My cosponsor is 90 and retired, but qualifys generously nonetheless. 7. Our K-1 is 'untypical'. I mean this because we have been living together for a year and 6 months now. Just about everyone that lives together through this is CR-1. On interview day, Yun said that she watched as the infamous "Black Pearl" gave out pinks all day, and the "Korean guy" issued only 1 pink, and all the rest were blues. She said she was praying to get the black woman, and then suddenly her number got called to see the Korean guy! After that, in the words of another friend who watched her interview, "It was crazy". She said that while she interviewed, one minute they would both be using Chinese, and the next English- switching languages the entire time. Her friend told me it did'nt even look like an interview, but rather two friends laughing and smiling the whole time. First she handed him my notarized EOR. He didnt want to take it at first, but yun insisted. Still, she said he didnt read it. She handed him my passport, and he spend a long time reading it, particularly the page that said i had pages added on the 5th. He also spent a while showing my cosponsor's 134 to a person shadowing him. Then, the questions asked were: 1. Who applied for you? 2. How & Where did you two meet? 3. How many times has he come to China? 4. Do either of you have brothers/sisters? 5. Whats his sister's name? 6. Whats his birthday? 7. Do you have any relationships in the US? (other than me & my family) 8. Why do you love him? Then he looked at our picture book with our best pictures in it. But where things really got crazy was when he saw a photo of Yun and I half-naked showing off our twin red underpants! He asked "What's this?" And she said it was the first time he smiled all day! She responded by saying that she thought the picture was very beautiful, and he agreed! Well, that's about all i know about it, and in no particular order of course. And somewhere after that he issued her a pink. But, something i think was the BIGGEST factor in getting the pink for us, was something i had been stressing all along: something to make our case unique- something to make the VO smile. Although we had a few gold nuggets hidden around our evidence to do this, in this case it was the underwear picture that drove it home. I think that had we not had it there, we would just be another number, and it would be a lot easier for him to give a blue or white. It certainly was'nt a no-interview interview, but i think that with all the time we had spent preparing, there really couldn't have been another outcome. In summary, my advice? Two things: 1. DO YOUR HOMEWORK! I cannot stress this enough. This sole factor can make or break your case. Study those that have similar situations as you- and even though its a little scary- study those that got denied or blued. This way you will know what they'll want to see on interview day (such as ex-wife's employment address, name, and all that good stuff they ask for, if you have an ex- IN ADDITION to the divorce decree), and you can prevent them from giving you ANYTHING BUT PINK. and 2. Go the extra mile to give your case something unique! Something to make them laugh! The hardest part here is just ensuring that they see it, so provide as much as possible to do this (so long as it wouldn't be detrimental of course). Thats it. I know i gave it my best. Thats all you can do, right?

No actually i was just cheering john on .... But PINK anyway! (almost the last one out) Will post details when im back on my computer in Zhengzhou.

Well, she's in the interview now. Will be back when we have a verdict.

Good luck to you! Am at the internet bar now, will check Starbucks in a bit. God bless us both! PS: PINK!

That was a close one. But we didnt get out of it unscratched. I would like to say, for future reference to other CFL mebers, that when in Guangzhou, you need to protect your stuff. Especially your interview equipment, and especially when your away or at night. Not just from people, but nature too. We've been staying on the outskirts of GUZ. What looked like a godsend in comparison to zhengzhou's buildings, weve been staying for 30 a night in a relativly nice room. On the 3rd floor of an 8 floor building. Last night, our room was flooded about 2 inches deep. In the mess of it all, my Mp3 player was destroyed, but thanks to a bag my mom gave me to store my interview equipment in, that happened to be waterproof, our documents are safe. Had i stored them in a different place, we most certianly would have needed to rescedual, so close to the interview date- and theres no telling how much money that would have costed us. The rain water came in from the 8TH FLOOR, and the only reason i was able to notice it, was when the toilet started making noises and the room began to stink. Just a friendly reminder to those that stay someplace that may not be as top quality as a hotel- Keep your documents safe!

Well my ACS yesterday went smoothly enough. But in all honesty, i dont think it had much effect. Not sure anyone even really looked the letter over. I also had pages added to my passport. I'm secretly hoping that when i listed my parent's house in the US as my permanet address, somehow thay might notice that and it will help us for domicile come interview day. Probably a crap shot, though. I think the most that having the EOR letter notarized does, though, is make it look pretty, and they're less likly to trash it 'accedentily' come interview day. And today we had the medical done. Pretty much what others have said. She wasnt happy about the breast cancer check, or the part where they wanted to take a peek 'down below', and im sure that if this wasnt common practice for the medical, someone was going to loose a tooth today. And i dont mean because of my fiancee. I was pissed. But 800 for that shit? Really? This might just be the biggest rip off in all of this process. I had my medical in december for 200, and they did 5 times more- PLUS they did'nt need to peek at my jewles. So not too much more exicitement than were used to, but we're off duty again until our final preperations and our stay with the yangs on the 9th. Signin' off!

Although im getting it notarized tomorrow morning, and im about to run out of money at the internet bar, i thought that i'd post my final EOR here to follow up and put a lid on this topic.

Thanks, i will! And #1 there is our biggest problem. Only thing is, i cant marry here yet (am 20), so we'd either need to get the visa, or go off to hong kong to fix that one. Wow, suprised me to hear about that.... & I thought 2 weeks was a marathon.... If we're still in china then (or back?) we'll look ya up. Yea zhengzhou's a real chinese city. Only problem i have with it is that sometimes it gets a bit too excessive for me (such as the whole 'developing' city thing== no place to stay for a night unless you either have 100 rmb to spare or an apartment to stay in), and the whole no good chocolate in all of the city thing, etc. But yea, sometimes i think the population of ZZ is way too high.... then i come HERE and it makes ZZ look like a ghost town!!

Yea i did see what happend to you with the weather- but i actually didnt read your post until after we got here I just saw that there was alot of flooding in GUZ on the news, so i figured that would be a problem. I did however write that the guy handing out the numbers at ACH might have been korean because of your interview though!