JerryL

Thanks for sharing the story, Marty. Good luck on your visa process! One thing... You mentioned you expected to get a visa within 6 months. Depending on what route through the system you take to get the visa, the expectation may be a little on the optimistic side. Just a heads-up so you don't end up with an impatient bride on the other side! Here's the link to the story, to save folks two clicks through the home page... http://www.chinaadviser.com/marty.html Jerry

People wait in line in China??? Where??? Jerry

Damn, Clifford. How do you notice these things? I can barely make out the number of eyes on each face in all of these tiny pictures. Jerry

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

I haven't flown Cathay either, but had been a Premier member on United. My last round trip with them to China was just awful. This was after they declared bankruptcy, so I suppose it may have been related. There were a lot of little niceties that disappeared, like the paper menus and such. But that wasn't a big deal. The big deal for me was that rather than three food services like on all the previous trips, it was cut down to one food service and one snack service. On one of the flights, they never brought out the food for the last service. They obviously had them in the galley, so passengers who were hungry enough would go there and ask for something, and come back with food. Then other people who saw people come back with food would get up themselves to get something, and so on and so forth. You haven't seen anything until you see dozens of people struggling through two narrow aisles on a 747 trying to get to the galley, and back, in both directions. I'm surprised the plane didn't crash from all the shifting weight. Me, being my usual idiot self, thought that once they saw this going on, would put a halt to it by actually bringing the food out to everyone. Nope. They just stayed in the galley and handed out the entrees to people who were hungry enough to squeeze through the aisles to fend for themselves. I don't know if they've switched back to three food services since I haven't flown them since. It's one thing to be starved on a three hour flight cross country, and another on a twelve hour trans-Pacific flight. As soon as I used up all my miles on United, they're off my list. As far as the attendants on that flight, I hope they're collecting unemployment, or better yet, holding up signs at some street corner somewhere. Jerry

Congratulations, Jason! Just in time for Valentine's Day! Jerry

Latest P4 List from 001 http://www.001.com.cn/forum/usa/222278.html Lots of January interviews which is good to see, but I really feel bad for the people from September who are still waiting. I know how that feels, seeing later petitions go through and wondering where in the world yours is... Jerry

Amen to that! Despite the problems we have in this country, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else! Well, except maybe out of California. Place seems to be falling apart... Jerry

I'm about to start month 11 of this visa odyssey. All the fascination with "what is" died months ago. Now only the "should be" holds interest... Jerry

Here's the CNN story @ the quake... http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/South/12/09/eas...e.ap/index.html Jerry

Gosh, it sure has been a long trip for the two of you. Congratulations on your visa approval! I'm very happy for you two. I know it's raining cats and dogs outside right now, but I hope you're out celebrating! Jerry

A physical earthquake? Don't see anything on CNN yet... Jerry

I'm actually hoping for an early February interview at this point, since mid January is probably out of the question. I hadn't thought about travel arrangements much but you make a good point. It's probably going to be a pain finding lodging during Chinese New Year. I've been to China during all the major holidays in February, May, and October, and the tourist crowds just seem larger and larger each time. No doubt at all the economy is booming... Jerry

Since I saw all those November P3's getting interview dates on 001, thought I'd give DOS a ring to see what was up with our application. Fortunately I got someone who was pretty friendly and got to chat with her a bit. Looks like GZ had sent out a flurry of P3's in early November and we were at the tail end. Plus Penny was out of town and wasn't able to turn the P3 around for a few days. There was someone who got their P3 in on 11/19 got just got assigned a 1/29 interview date. Ours got in on 11/20 and didn't get entered into the computer until 12/1. Since they do this in waves, being late one day makes a big difference... The good thing is that we're all clear and the status in the computer shows that she's now eligible for an interview date assignment. So hopefully when they start assigning interview dates again in early January, we'll get one. Although I was hoping that we could have gotten in an interview in late January, I guess the good thing is now her interview date won't fall during the Spring Festival. I'd hate to be running around in a strange new city trying to get errands done with all the tourists crowding in Guangzhou. Just hope SARS doesn't break out again... Jerry

Unfortunately, CSC has slowed down somewhat the last few months. I think an update or two ago, they actually went backwards. They're at the NSC/TSC level of performance now... Jerry

Yeah we should consolidate all the thingie posts into one thread so (ahem) legitimate posts don't get bumped off the first page... Jerry

I only have four thingies. Is there a way to get non-blue ones? Jerry

I don't think California has a Chinese manual available for download (would love to know if there is one). I just stopped by the local DMV and picked up a copy. They should have them in the front counters along with all the other language translations. Took thirty minutes to find parking, and thirty seconds to actually get the manual... Jerry P.S. Gonna have to go get one with Schwarznegger's picture instead of Davis's in the next few months...

Yes, it looks like a P4 Pit may be forming... A lot of the people who got interview dates are people who received their P3's in early November. But there are still quite a few September and October P3's who still are waiting. I guess sometimes it doesn't pay to be ahead... Jerry

Yeah, I would think mailing it is a much better idea, even if you do it from a post office a few blocks away. When you deal with any kind of bureaucracy, it's never good idea to deviate from their mainstream process... Jerry

Thanks for the help, folks. I guess it makes sense to answer the questions in English, though I wonder why the instructions are also in Chinese if they expect English answers... Not that this applies to me, but what would people do if they have no Chinese name where it asks you for one? Would that be None or N/A? 'How do you do, Mister None.'... Jerry

Not that I'm going to submit such pictures (certaintly not after this discussion!), wouldn't the VOs be familiar with this stuff? They deal with marriage-based visas day in and day out, after all... Jerry

For the Family Composition Sheet in P4 (Form GIV-24), are the answers suppose to be in Chinese, English, or both? Thanks, Jerry

Mine had a white screen. Started with 16k of RAM and a cassette player but later took it to Rat Shack and got it upgraded with the two floppy drives that held 160k each. Then got online with Compuserve and a 300 baud modem. That was the fast one, way better than the 110 baud one my friends had. I still remember all the tricks for hacking message bulletin board systems. God bless the string overflow error in all those Microsoft BASIC interpreters that were burned into the ROM of all those Model III's. Though in looking back, I should have been buying Microsoft stock instead of hacking their software... Later, I even got the Model IV upgrade that gave it high res instead of the default 128x48 resolution. Man, those were the fun days... Jerry

I still have my old Model III around the garage somewhere... Jerry