robhon

I've been banging a few kettles trying to flush out some information on what's happening. So far nothing of real substance has turned up. I had a dream early this morning that was very appropriate, though. I got into some jeep that was supposed to be my car (although I have a Camry). I started to drive but couldn't control the vehicle. I was backing up trying to avoid other cars but the brakes didn't work well and it wouldn't stop. When I finally pressed so hard on the brake that it finally stopped I was sitting on a one-way street going the wrong way. Then I saw a cop coming up over the hill ahead of me, but he turned. I went down the one-way street to get turned around but ended up the wrong way on another one-way street. All the while the controls of the jeep were barely working and very frustrating to manipulate. Does this sound like an apt metaphore for the visa process to anyone else?

Maybe we can set up a date between her and Sonny for say... 16 years from now!

Just send it in. That's what I did. I know they've received it and haven't, as of yet, kicked it out. I've never even seen the barcode. What's it like? A little black and while stripy thing?

I actually called one of those "tell me how I'm driving" numbers. This guy startled the hell out of me when he came up behind me on the San Raphael Bridge doing about 90 when I was doing about 65. He'd actually scratched out the very last number in the phone number. I just kept calling every possible number until I got the right one and reported the bugger.

Rob, I wonder right now if I even should address this comment, me being a driver. I consider myself a professional, in both my driving and appearence and attitude, and yes, I will drive 5 mph over the speed limit, and this is not like I see as far as delivery vans, greyhound and some others that drive 10 to 15 over the limit. I think that I better shut mouth before I get in trouble here. Sorry Ron in advance. I don't think keeping a similar speed to the traffic around you (albiet over the limit) to be unprofessional. The truck driver who was doing 95 in a construction zone while on coke and killed my uncle... that guy was most definitely unprofessional.

Well, regardless of how miffed I am at how things have gone with my attorney, I still think she's a nice person. She told me she would go through and see how much time they have put into our case. She said she'd give a refund based on that. Although, I have not see a check yet. I'm also kind of imagining her boss (managing partner, or whatever) isn't going to be real happy with the results. I know they've put something like 6 or 8 hours into my case. Based on their published billing rates the refund should be most of what I've paid them so far. I don't think 11 months is THAT far out of whack. I've seen many that have been far longer and most seem to take about a year. A few are shorter. But, yeah, with a child, it's completely unreasonable.

Yup. My (ex) attorney told me exactly the same thing. This is what lead to us getting pregnant and having a child in China instead of the US. I said to my attorney, "My wife and I are very eager to start a family. Do you think it would cause any problems if we got pregnant?" The response was, "Not at all! It can only help your case." Now at 11 months, pushing on a year, my wife had our child in a roach infested hospital and I am separated from my new son for extended periods of time. What's that phrase? "Throwing pearls to swine." Maybe this is what paying for an immigration lawyer is.

You should have seen when my brother brought his two blonde daughters (9 and 11) to our wedding in Hechuan, just outside CQ! Talk about a spectacle!

Hmmm, somehow I always considered the definition of "professional" to include a level rational behavior. Is the bus driver (like the one I had once in China) who drives at excessive rates of speed on winding mountain roads actually a professional? He certainly does it for a living. He certainly has a skill level beyond most who drive. He also lacks a certain level of "professionalism." Personally I don't consider anyone who openly breaks laws and willfully endangers the lives of others to be a professional.

No, you just need a pulse.

I believe this is much more of a Chinese government document. It seems to be pretty standard that you have one when you get married in China. Your friend must be getting married in China if someone is asking for this. There are different agencies that handle different things when you get married there. I'm not sure which office it was but someone there in CQ created a "single certificate" for me based on the documents of my previous divorce. If someone is American and has never been married I do not know how you'd prove this. We had a very interesting little encounter when we were filing the marriage documents. We gave everything to the marriage office (the Office of Foreign Marriages and Adoption) and Youyue's father had to take my divorce papers over to another office for some reason or another. There were some problems and questions. Her father came back with this older government office worker gentleman who spoke some English. He was very cagey in manner of speaking. He kept asking, "I see you were officially divorced as of April 2001 but how can I know that you have not remarried since?" I told him several times that, in the US, we do not have any kind of documentation that would prove this. (Again, for me, another one of these 'proving a negative' scenes.) After 10 minutes or so of discussing the issue the answer dawned on me. I thought to myself, "He's not asking me 'how he can know,' he's asking to provide him with the single certificate without actually asking me directly for it." I remember that we'd handed it to the marriage office person, who was all of 5 feet away, and I'm sure could hear the whole conversation. I stepped over and asked her for the document. I showed it to the old man, he grinned a big grin and said, "Yes, exactly!" Again, as for who exactly we went to for the single certificate, I don't know. There was one office in CQ we went to who did a bunch of certifying of docs for us. The certified the copy of my passport and I believe they looked at the divorce records and created the single certificate. I will ask my wife and see if she remembers. All I really remember is that we did lots of running around to a bunch of offices, people took my money and did things.

My god, how DID we all ever survive before Al Gore invented the internet? (BTW, I like Al.)

Hi Steve, and welcome to Candle... I have good quality PDF copies of I-134, DS-230, OF-169 and OF-167. We are in process at Guangzhou in between P3 and P4. These are all P3 documents but we are missing good (current) copies of the additional medical forms that come with P3 for K3. If you see these medical form floating around please let me know. Thanks!!

The FAQ's on the GZ website are pretty clear. If you are K1(fiance) your medical forms come with P4 and if you are K3 (married) your medical forms come with your P3. I have no idea why there's a difference. They're the same forms, apparently.

Huh? You mean it's not suppose to be like that?!? All my flights to China have been on the United SFO to PVG (Shanghai Pu Dong) direct flight. Think I'll have to try something different next time... Jerry You know, I think United gets a little better once you've earned a few miles with them. Once you get premier status you get put into "Economy Plus" which has much more room. Both this year and last year I managed to get Executive Premier and can now use the Red Carpet lounge and get the little red priority tag put on mu luggage. It all makes a difference. On my last flight I was even able to upgrade to business which made the whole trip almost enjoyable. If you can ever get on the triple 7's it really IS a much better experiece. But it seems United only flys the 747's to HK from SFO. The 777's seem to go to Shanghai and Beijing.

Yeah, those are actually the list of docs for K1 packets. The only difference between K1 and K3 that I can figure out so far is, the medical forms are in P3 instead of P4 for a K3 visa. (Weird.) I've been asking around because we sent back our DS-230 and OF-169 without actually receiving our physical P3. Now we're trying to scramble and put together our missing P3 docs.

Ah Mark, I think you hit the nail on the head. There are more drivers in China who drive for a living but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call any of them "professional drivers." The traffic in China, even in SZ where things are better than GZ or CQ, is highly disorganized. They have incredible opportunities to fix traffic problems and allow for far greater numbers of cars on their streets to get places soooo much faster. One of my last days in SZ I was commenting to Youyue as we were trying to cross a street something about this. We could barely get across, baby and all, and along with a swarm of other pedestrians, because so many drivers were running the red light. Just on the opposite corner were 4 motorcycle cops sitting there chatting and doing nothing in particular. The US definitely has far more drivers who are barely qualified to sit behind the wheel but rules of the road are much more strictly adhered to. I predict China's traffic problems are going to very quickly become FAR worse and will continue to do so until they begin to enforce rules of the road. But I'd also say, I think this is a normal phase for a rapidly developing society.

I'm actually very confident about the 35 MPH figure in the US. It's a very often quoted figure. This even accounts for all the traffic travelling 70+ on all the interstate hiways. Yet still the average is only 35. Given that there is very little high speed traffic in China and given the amount of traffic I've seen moving slow or utterly stopped in SZ, GZ and CQ, I don't see how the average speed of traffic in China could be much higher than that. I think what we tend to notice when we're riding in a taxi in China are the exciting moments. We're not tracking the actual average time it takes to move any particular distance.

Very popular item on restaurant menus in Guangdong. That and Civet Cat. Oh!! Is that what those were? How much woodchuck can you upchuck if you could upchuck woodchuck... wood(?). Or, something along those lines.

I think the big difference between driving in China and driving in the US is the average rate of speed. I've heard in the US the average speed cars travel is about 35 MPH. In China I'm sure it's closer to 15 MPH. In the US, when people do stupid things in cars the consequences are far more catastrophic.

I would think, once she's in she can go anywhere in the US that her sweet little heart desires. It the land of the free!!

Jasonw interview is Jan 27th, I believe....... Ah! That may be what it was...

Hm, I thought I saw that someone had an interview date set for Jan 26. Who was that? jasonw? chinalover?

Funny. I do the same coming into OAK in my own little plane. AvGas is expensive! Why waste it? Yeah, I'm not sure what could be so different. On United the attendants are all very friendly. United food is no worse than any other airline. Economy Plus is plenty roomy enough for a not-so-huge guy like me. I'm not sure what more they could do (at least that would be legal and acceptable to my wife) to make me feel more comfortable. First class tickets for $600 would be nice but that ain't gonna happen.

Ah! That's great. Thanks everyone!!