Robert S.

Over the next few days will be a good time to kick around ideas for what points to include on the new letter. I will be watching for ideas being posted and already have several main points noted down. Or if anyone wants to email with suggestions I will put them in the folder for ideas.

Yes, Jim, very good, I am getting excited about it. Right now I am going to send an email to the guy who posted on G7 the horror story of his fiancee being told the machine was broken yesterday. Well! Just now I went back to G7 and it turns out the original poster of the story about the broken printer has gone back in there and posted a correction and more complete story of what the problem was. Turns out that the machine is not broken, it was just shut off. But you know the complaint in our letter was a lack of sufficient staffing and that still stands. So we do need to write a new letter. - R

Okay, Mark, good deal. And there can be no doubt that your main point is well taken and so glaringly obvious that we have a duty to use it as a tool for a new group letter to Powell, the point being, it seems to me, that the headquarters of the Department of State is giving too much control to the consulate, and WE feel that Washington is, in effect, shirking their own responsibility by delegating too much authority to a lower level. How about that? We can go on and expand from there making a lot of other points. I will be compiling a list. - Robert

Mark, your deductive Sherlockian mind is working overtime I can see. I am sorry that you think I did not ask the "right" questions and am such a pushover that I am satisfied with form letter type "fluff" answers. But I will try to answer each of your questions. I did not ask him who is in charge of making sure GZ is doing things correctly and efficiently. I got the impression that the consulates are expected to perform well, from his statement that these things are the consulate's responsibility. It is my opinion that they do not have a top-down management style. This staffer I talked to did not know how many machines they have, he thought there would be more than one, but if the machine is broken he said he was sure the consulate would be getting it fixed as soon as possible. When I told him it would not be fixed until Monday he was disappointed to hear that: conclusion, CA expects the consulate to take care of these things. If there is any backup plan it would be up to the consulate. The CA plan for the backlogs is to keep sending more clearances so the consulate can figure out how to handle them. Apparently CA does not have a specific plan to deal with our particular backlog problem, they leave it up to the consulate to issue the visas as best they can. He told me GZ is working very hard to issue visas and in my fluffy, marshmallow-eating mind I believed him.

Just now I called, as Mark has suggested, and wanting to express my own frustration, and was greatly reassured by the hard-working attitude and degree of focus of the person I spoke to. The situation in Guangzhou is very much on the minds of the CA staff. I asked him about our letter to Secretary Powell and he said the response is going to be sent out today. I complained to him that the process is bogged down again by the visa printing machine not working. He found it hard to believe that they only have one machine for this purpose. I said, however many they have, they need more. He said that was the responsibility of the consulate to see that they have enough machines in proper working order. When I told him we had heard the machine is not going to be fixed until sometime on Monday I could hear the dismay in his voice when he said he understood how we could be so frustrated by something like that. He thanked me and all of us for our patience and they really appreciate our patience and they in Washington and in Guangzhou are working as hard as they possibly can to improve this situation. He said they are going to keep sending clearances to the consulate which will force them to figure out how to deal with it. - Robert Shelton

I almost had an idea of something to complain about yesterday and feel pretty confident it will come together for me soon. We know they are working on the problem, quite slowly it seems to me now. I was expecting a reply to the Powell letter before now. We have legitimate grounds for discontent and we are going to miss out on Christmas with our loved ones because even if they got visas the flights are all booked up. So even though I do not know exactly what to complain about or who to complain to right now, I am still going to keep banking my fires of resentment.

Yes, I also wish the best for those who have received good news already. The rest of us will not be far behind. I like to think it could be that those of us who have waited so long like this will appreciate our loved ones that much more, and our practice in steadfast dedication will make us so much stronger. - Robert

Phillip, I will be watching for your upcoming avatar. Also it is going to be interesting when Victoria gets one. They are so easy to change, also, it is fun. Thanks for providing a great site for current information as well as enjoyable diversion at a time when it is greatly needed.

Valhalla! I am coming! Viking Kittens Sing Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song www.rathergood.com/vikings/ This site has a lot of other fun stuff which we need for diversion from the exquisite torture of waiting. It is good the way some of us are sharing our means of coping with the stress. - Robert

Mark, Thank you for the detailed and informative story about your phone call. That's the way to tell them what should be expected of them. Maybe over time we can have a "kinder, gentler" DoS.

Okay. Now go to your room.

How much trouble would it be for GZ to update their web site so they can at least have some daily updated information. Even if they only posted the case numbers of those who have been cleared and entered in the system it would be better than this state of not knowing, which is kind of like staring at a blank wall. It seems like this would not be horribly difficult or technically challenging.

Hey Eric, can I be your sidekick?

Hello Kaige, If you have MCI Worldcom at 17 cents per minute then of course you are obviously on their International Calling Plan. Did you know that you can receive a call from China with that plan at the same rate of 17 cents ? This is great because sometimes my dear Ping-ping can surprise me with a call. I did not realize you could get a full half an hour from those China phone cards that cost 100 yuan, but even if you did get the full time, that is still 40 cents a minute. - Robert

The guys on the Yahoo boards have had ample opportunity to notice mention of this board if they were paying attention but if I get a chance I will mention Candle sometime. The way you mention the possibility of visiting other sites that involve immigration or relationships -- I was wishing I knew how to access the vast field of interest you were referring to. Unfortunately, I do not believe that there are any sites of this nature of any size which I am not aware of. For example I have tried to search in Google under groups and did not find anything other than a couple of general interest sites. A Candle For Love is IT !!! Thank you, Phillip.

Hello Charlotte, I hope you can find someone that your daughter can go with. My wife lives in Dalian so that would be no help. Thank you for now telling us a little bit about who you are. The next time you come to the chat room on G7 if I am in the room I will respond to you and try to get you included in the fun (I chat as possum). It is pretty hard to get any attention in there, they have like a clubhouse kind of attitude. - Robert

OOOoooh I am so jealous of you "advanced" members and all your blue thingies!!! It looks like I am going to remain a "newbie" for a long time at this rate.

December xx, 2002 Dear Mr. Secretary: We would like to thank you and all the staff members at the Department of State for the hard work that you have been doing. It is a great relief to us that some K visa clearances have now finally been provided to the consulate at Guangzhou and we are sure that the DoS intends to start actually issuing visas again in China as soon as possible. Our concern is that given the huge backlog and very limited qualified staff resources at Guangzhou this issuance process is going to take quite a long time. Whenever one of us talks with a staff member at the consulate we are always told how they are so busy, they have so much work to do, and that they are trying to do the work as best they can – and we believe them. We are aware that Guangzhou processes tens of thousands of different visas every year. However, it is of little comfort to any one of us to think about all the other people whose visa issuance for their Chinese loved one is similarly delayed. Mr Powell, we have waited a long time already, but now our frustration stands a good chance of becoming even more acute, in the knowledge that the visas we are waiting for could very well be cleared for processing but remain further delayed by lack of adequate staffing. Surely this unique situation is worthy of some number of personnel beyond the mere seven presently working on visa issuance. If more clearances are received this will create an even bigger backlog. We would like to request that you take a personal interest in this matter and see if you could do something to alleviate not only the overworked state of the Guangzhou employees but also assuage the frustration we are all suffering. Sincerely, (How Many People Can We Get?)

This 5000 or 7000 reminds me of the 10,000 back in September.

Due to a new awareness of what is happening with the G7 board I am transferring my allegiance to this board instead. I will continue to go there if it is useful but will join with you in promoting this board. Thanks everyone who wants to try to do something.