Robert S.

My wife might have been adding a surcharge of her own to the fees I paid. The most expensive part was getting the official documents from the city records office with the official translation, whew, those white books were costly. Bullmastiff, you should read Tsap's story about when he got married over there, it was hilarious. What I remember most about my time was the way we had to go to 3-4 different places and get some kind of permission slip from these different small offices. I felt like I was in a Chinese fire drill. But it was a lot of fun. BTW, do you have one of those big dogs?

Did the maintenance guys fix the windows already? Wow, that must have been wind strong enough to blow some pretty big sticks. ----- I called Dalian this morning and talked with my grandson, using a phone card.

My wife and I got married in Dalian in 2001. It was more expensive there than what you mentioned, but everything is higher there. When you make your fingerprint in red ink and press it over the top of your signature, THAT is when you are officially married. Our little marriage-to-foreigner office lady then made a very moving speech to us saying China was happy for us and wished us the best and the hope that we would "stay married forever." It was so sweet and romantic. Then she took our picture. I just had to give her a kiss on the cheek which surprised her a great deal and she blushed. I treasure that little red book. Good luck to you.

It is so nice to hear about those who have a good experience. Congratulations and best wishes.

I hate all anti-China rants, except those involving anti-pollution.

The way the centers of power are so diffuse in American politics the US is always sending a mixed message, but I believe the State Department behind the scenes is continuing with the same policy of constructive engagement, not antagonism or criticism. And, happily, there is the huge grass roots movement which we exemplify of sharing cultural understanding. The US and China are partners, not enemies.

I wish I were there when it happened. I guarantee I would have stopped the guy, with my bare hands if I had to, or beat him to death with a desk.

I hope you have a good time. What are you going to Dalian for? That is where my wife is from and we got married there back in 2001. She says it is different from the rest of China.

We have not heard back from you. What happened? Hope everything is okay.

It sounds like a good idea to me. There is nowhere in Ala. or Atlanta that I know of to buy the beautiful kind of decorative ceramic stuff like Chinese restaurants have, so I doubt there is where Griz lives either.

Good luck to you two on the interview. I like the way you titled the picture of your wife in your gallery "Wife is Beautiful." Yes, she is. Those eyebrows are very, very pretty.

Good luck. We all hope the best for you.

If you did not go to the right private high school, the right college, belong to the right fraternity or sorority, belong to the right country club, and your parents have the right connections it does not matter how smart you are unless you are truly a genius.

Maybe you two should quit eating so much of that expensive bird's nest soup!

You know, the most important thing is to find something which has the least side effects. It is difficult and troublesome to switch meds. Every time I look at this title I want to edit it, if I could, to say medications instead of drugs.

I thought it was for two months. My stepdaughter stayed with little baby Johnny for two months before leaving him with her mother and going off to work again. Ping made me wait another two weeks after that before she let me go and join her and the baby, I don't know why. I think that Ping believes in the 1-2 month rest thing, but actually baby J. went out shopping on his third day of life, so they apparently did not believe in some kind of anti-wind or anti-outside kind of idea, it must have been just the rest and togetherness Ping felt was necessary.

I guess I better buy a toilet seat now... talk to tsapper - he can recommend a good one Be that as it may -- us old timers know that SeLang is the eminent expert on toilet seats.

I keep wishing that one of our members would meet a lady who would qualify for one of these temporary worker visas, then they could just "accidentally" decide they wanted to get married the way some of the H1B people do: O-1 Individuals with Extraordinary Ability or Achievement in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics, or extraordinary achievements in the motion picture and television field. Or, even more awesome, if the lady's family was really rich and she had a million bucks or more she could get an E-2 Treaty Investor visa.

I hope someone will call the Panamanian embassy and verify this info is correct and post the result of the call here. The P. govt web site seems to be in Spanish - perhaps there is one in English but I could not find it right away.

No, I've never looked into that. Good luck with your plans. I would add that Jamica will take Chinese tourists with a group. Also the tiny island country of Barbados will give a Chinese person a visa. I tried to find info about several other Caribbean nations, but it was not easily available checking thru lots of links. Belize does not seem to take hardly anybody. The smallest island countries I did not bother with because I got the impression they would probably be restrictive like the Netherlands Antilles. There is no need to think about Mexico - they are extremely restrictive towards Chinese people.

Link with the above info

This has been a subject of curiosity for me for years. I have found, from trying to find someplace that will not reject Chinese tourists, that probably the best thing to do is go to Panama. For Panama there are three classes of people: 1. those who do not need a visa or a tourist card. These are citizens of mostly European countries which have an agreement with Panama. 2. those who need a visa. These are citizens of 7 countries listed on the link. 3. those who do not need a visa but do need a tourist card. This includes China. To obtain a tourist card, all you have to do is land at the airport and pay $5 for the card. To be certain what you are doing, of course you would need to call and talk to the embassy, but it is a good bet that the info on this link is correct. There are a lot of Chinese people in Panama. It is a less than 4 hour flight from Atlanta. It has mountains and beaches and great food. My brother has been there several times and loves it.

I wish I never got out of the Corps. Here at age 55 looking back, shit, 15 years to retire is not long. I joined up twice, in for 2, out for 6, then went back as a retread for another 2. Got out in '82 in the middle of a very bad recession. It was a mistake even though there was no reenlistment bonus for my MOS, no hopes of promotion for a long time. Probably the same situation right now. The MC will abuse the hell out of you, but if you can make it thru to 20 you will be less than 40 and have another whole near-lifetime ahead of you. Hell, I can't even remember what it was like to be only 40, or 37. Good luck on your trip. Be a gentleman no matter how difficult it might be.

Why did we all have to be cursed to live in such "interesting" times?

The State Department should make a daily habit of criticizing China for their corruption. We don't have enough food to feed 1.3 billion people if they have a major famine.