Amaro

Yeah no kidding man!!! The limited english thing is cute at first, but once it starts becoming a reality your like speak the same language please!!!!!!!!! Find someone you can communicate with at least 75% of the time!!

Your brave for trusting a random person on CFL. If the Iphone was wrapped up inside the box, how would the customs officer know that its a iphone unless they opened it up? There are many phones that look like the iphone through the scanner if thats the excuse your thinking about. I think you should mail it to him, you will be fine. its probably going to cost you an arm and a leg though. Another option would be to sell the iphone you have here and just wire him the money to buy one there. The money you get back for selling your iphone + shipping cost should be adequate enough?

Its been a real hit or miss lately. I would just keep checking the prices and pay what you think is "fair" and affordable.

What about Indian + Chinese = ??? Oh yeah I thought about this pretty quickly. I am pretty cheap and she is cheaper = saving lots of money

Well she told me she wanted to major in international business. That's great, but whenever I see the word international I think of traveling and when I see traveling I see time spent apart. She was talking about getting a job in a Chinese company and doing business between the U.S and China or vice versa. Thoughts? I told her if we ever live in China she needs to make enough money to buy a million dollar home and $100,000 car for me to enjoy when shes working.

Welcome to CFL! Your story and mine have some similarities. I was 23 and she was 21 when we first met. We met online on skype when I was on a deployment. I lived in Japan at the time so a quick 6 hour flight landed me on her doorstep. As far as financials go, I made well over the poverty line at the time, but just because I am paranoid I drafted up co-sponsor documents to be on the safe side, it doesn't hurt if you have someone willing to do that. I prepared everything myself, I used the internet, mainly visajourney.com and CFL. The folks on here were very helpful. Now for the tips: You said you booked 3 consecutive flights to go see her. Is it possible for you to go to another location outside of China such as Bali or surrounding countries? My passport was slammed with stamps from different countries, In my mind, it gave my appearance more of a "oh yeah, hes been to other places, maybe he really is ready to get settled down". My wife said the VO spent a good 5-10 minutes looking at my passport. Education: My wife was also attending college in China when I met her. She stopped the program to immigrate. She regrets not finishing her college there before coming here. However I disagree with her. Once she gets educated here, she would be better off. Which leads me to my next topic. From my understanding with state boards and national certifications, the chances of your wife being able to practicing as a RN here even with a degree from china would be slim to none. Many people end up realizing this and end up changing their professions. I know many MD's from India etc, who immigrate here and found out they have to go back to school for 8 years to practice medicine here. I know MD and nurse is a big comparison but its on the same spectrum. Most hospitals and settings are now requiring their nurses to have at least a bachelors degree to be hired. I live in Orlando, and in the medical profession, those are my credentials. Your wife could complete out the program there if desired and then enroll in a program here to be able to take the test for the state and national certification. We didn't even bother translating her transcripts to even try to get a high school diploma. I told her study a little and take the GED and she passed with flying colors. My wife will start college in August and take the path that any college student here would. Either way, whatever path you and your wife wish to choose. Good Luck to the both of you!

I hope one day people of all nations can travel to other developed countries without the need of a visa. Wishful thinking at its best, but you never know.

A quick search on the net and I found http://www.americaasia.com/Default.aspx?locale=en-US&RP=browse&catid=11 That could be an idea as well. Keep them coming!

Even more interesting details have been brought up. I need to talk with my wife about this, the only problem here is that I am involved in my own career and this is something she needs to figure out on her own. I am not sure how much time I could dedicate to her projects. The first step is getting her enrolled in Realtor classes and getting spooled up with the local laws and what not. If she is not able to grasp the concept, I'm not sure how much I could help her. However, I would still need to see how interested she would be in trying to sell houses to mainland chinese and surrounding areas.

You all have brought up interesting points. To answer the insurance question, we wouldn't be moving anybody, just providing tickets and group deals. So we would have one central location where we work out of. We could recommend possible avenues of travel, but not actually provide it. Also I have not considered the real estate business, I have always heard there was money in selling homes depending on the person. I could bring that idea up. There are many homes for sale here in central Florida, but I wonder how saturated the market is with realtors?

Ok so my wife wants to start a business here in Orlando. My brother somewhat brainwashed the idea into her that she could start a Chinese Tourism company here. For those of you living under a rock, Orlando has many many attractions, the big ones being Disney and Universal a long with a couple mile road full of restaurants, shopping and entertainment. So you know, she brings up an idea, and all I can say OK. Every time she brings it up and I seem pessimistic, I think of all the other multi-billionaires in america, how much support did they have when they first came up with an idea. I don't want to be that guy that discourages but, OK, ill bite. So obviously this is going to take a lot of money, research and time, and its going to be targeted to Chinese tourist with a website all in Mandarin, maybe Cantonese and Taiwanese at a later date. Since she has no experience whatsoever in running a business and what needs to be done, I think this would take a huge bite out of my time as well, at least until the ball starts rolling. Everything is still in the planning stages, but the exact scope of the business would be getting group discount tickets, deals and transportation to local attractions. I don't know how much of a profit this would be, or a good idea at all. I mean if shes only going to be pulling in 20-50k a year on this, might as well get a real job and not even waste time on this. It sounds like too much effort if it does not net her 100k+. of course, Im not talking about making that money at first, I know business will be slow at first. The biggest thing is risking all that money and resources for a negative outcome.

My wife breaks out a lot as well. She buys a lot of crap from amazon almost weekly thinking its the cure. I told her to stop putting all that crap on her face and just let it recover naturally. She doesnt want to listen to me, so meh w/e its not MY face!

The technical name for that is "Secured Credit Card" I did that for my wife and after 8 months we applied for a non secure credit card and she was approved! Before any of that, we couldnt find a single place that would give her a credit card, now the offers are spamming my mailbox!!

I would get a co-sponsor just in case. Even if you meet the requirements, you cant go wrong with having paperwork for someone that could also support you if the VO believes you are unable to. I got a co-sponsor during my process as well even though I was well above the 125% poverty line.

Just stop worrying and enjoy life It will go by so fast!!! Good luck!

cheapoair.com has always worked for me. My wife left on jan 10th and got her roundtrip ticket for $700 from orlando to shanghai. I use ctrip.com for travel in china, its the cheapest around for english speakers. You should try booking a ticket to shanghai or beijing, whichever you are close to and then using ctrip for a connecting flight. I have bought tickets on ctrip for as low as $47 with taxes!!

You would have to start over from scratch. If you already have your NOA-2 I don't think it would be worth it. You can still have your big wedding ceremony in China, just wait to make it legal when she gets here. I guess I'm an odd ball since my wife and I are only 3 years apart. I wanted a wife closer to my own age. As Don pointed out if you have a 20 year age difference it is a lot different if you are 60 and she is 40 than if you're 40 and she's 20. Personally I think any man in his 40s hooking up with a woman in her 20s should question her motives. Quoted for truth!

Live long enough to bring her here? Tsap I think its your turn to get on your soap box

Oh yeah forgot to mention, I booked my ticket with Cathay Pacific. Best flight I have ever been on. Anyways, they allow you to change your date anytime you want as much as you want without any fees. I couldnt believe it. I ended up changing her flight 2 times, once because of the visa not arriving in time and the 2nd because some typhoon was on its way to xiamen and I didnt want to risk her flight being cancelled.

I had everything planned, I was going by the usual 3 day window that most people have and I had the plane tickets booked for 2 out of china to the states. Day 3 came around and still no visa. I Had to come back to the states by myself. It took 3 weeks for them to deliver the visa after she was approved. It was due to "administrative processing" I guess because our case flew by so quickly that other paperwork was not caught up with it. Beats me. But it can take up to 1 month for AP. After day 5 and she still has not got her visa. I say have her go back to nanning and keep checking the EMS website, your able to do that too. Once a EMS status is available for your tracking number the visa is ready and have her come back. Thats what my wife did, there was no way she was going to hang out in guangzhou for 3 weeks.

That kid is so screwed when it comes down to the later parts of his life. His adipocytes will always be this much or even greater if he gets fatter. He will have a very very hard time loosing weight and staying that way. It is much easier to fill up your adipocytes then it is to empty them. Thats why you should feed your kids low fat foods and a good healthy diet.

FIrst you have to ask yourself, what exactly is a signature? Something that identifies you. I had my wife sign every legal document in the way she would write her chinese name. There are no rules on what a signature should be. Please inform me if there are any.

Thanks for posting this information. However, this is no new news for this board. I would say a lot of us that peek in here often already know what the deal is. However, for newcomers, you have been warned!

Tsap, empy your mail box, I am trying to send you a private message.

Do you think Chinese women have more of a jealousy characteristic to them then American women and vice versa? I think chinese women might be a little bit more on the jealous side then american women. Discuss! Oh, Also chime in if you prefer a jealous women or the opposite.