Bobby

Just poking my head in real quick. Cai Yun and I have been doing well. We're expecting a little baby boy at the end of January. We still haven't received her greencard (our case went from us, to Atlanta, to (I think) Nebraska, to California), but things are looking up. She'll be learning to drive in the next month or two. We haven't been back to China yet, but are planning to sometime in the next year or so. Really things are going great. It was well-worth the hassle, and hopefully we'll be finished soon.

Congrats, Mick!

I'm a software developer living in South Carolina.. planning on getting the heck outta here asap...

There's quite a bit of wisdom in this statement.. the first time I went to sz, I wore decently nice clothes (khaki slacks and decent button shirt) to impress my [then] girlfriend and her family.. the beggers and other not-so-favourables wouldn't leave me alone.. so, I decided to change into my "weekend" clothes (cargoes with holes in them, a t-shirt, and dirty running shoes).. sure enough, I rarely got bothered.. I still got extra attention from people, but for the most part, people left me alone.. I actually enjoyed my time in sz, and part of it was the general excitement of being in what I consider a "wild west" town. My in-laws are from the area and are very wise as to where and where it is not safe to go and do.. haven't been clubbing yet, but hoping I can next time.. As far as "blending in".. yeah, that's just not going to happen.. Common sense is the key.. ShenZhen's a beautiful city and growing by the day.. get out and enjoy it, just don't do anything stupid.. check out DongMen Litchi Park.. Aside from that, I find simply walking around to be really exciting..

I've been in SZ and the surrounding areas twice without a hitch.. I've had problems with beggars before, but luckily my brother-in-law is a cop.. My wife was attacked in the city near her village (in the SZ area, a city called, LongGang)... the people who are are actually from the SZ area generally can tell who is not from SZ and disdain these people.. I have to agree with lele, just stick with those rules and you'll do pretty well..

Still waiting on our EAD here..

You might also want to look into buying Superbit versions of the DVD's you want (usually in silver boxes). They cost a little bit more, but tend to have a lot of different languages supported. I discovered this when I saw a copy of Spiderman at Wal-Mart (yes, in South Carolina) with Chinese subtitles.

Its funny.. I've also been wondering what is "officially" considered good and bad luck. It seems to me that pretty much any time I do something she doesn't like, its bad luck.. "don't drive too fast, its bad luck".. "don't point, its bad luck".. "don't point with your chopsticks, its bad luck".. "don't put my pants on your head and run around, its bad luck".. I've always believed that the concept of "luck" stemmed from mothers looking for a passive/easy way to get their kids to stop doing things (ie. walking under a ladder and opening an umbrella indoors are just bad ideas to begin with).. How about common american causes of bad luck? Stepping on a crack on the sidewalk Opening an umbrella indoors Walking under a ladder Having a 13th floor in your building (the buildings I visisted in HK and SZ did not have a 13th floor either) Dropping salt Those are all I can think of off of the top of my head..

Greetings all, sorry its been a while. My wife has been in the country since March 2 and things are going great! I just wanted to let you know our status and let you know about something that I didn't know of before-hand.. We applied for her AOS and EAD on April 30, 2004.. We did the fingerprinting on June 22, IIRC.. the AOS is still being processed, and it looks like Atlanta is working on 485's from March 2002, so its going to be a little while. We're still waiting for her EAD. Let me tell you about a little "gotcha" that I didn't know about. If you have not recieved an update or EAD within 90 days of your NOA (our's was May 19) you can go to your local field office and request an interim EAD (which is free, issued very quickly and good for -- I hear -- 8 months or so). The trap we fell into, however, is in that our EAD was approved on July 30, but they sent it to the wrong address (yes, they used the correct address when they send us our NOA, they just mis-typed it when they mailed her EAD). So, the rule says that if they have approved it and you have not yet received it, you must wait 30 days from the notice that they mailed it (available online or by calling the office) before they can request a revisit of your case to see if it was returned to sender or to have them re-issue the card. So, we're still waiting. We requested last monday that they revisit our case, and there's been no update. I'm going to give them a call next monday (to give them 2 weeks to do what they need to do -- seems reasonable to me). My wife is going insane with cabin fever. I'm starting to think volunteer work would be the thing for her until this is cleared up.. Now just to convince her that there is some value in working but not getting paid

This reminds me of something I should have posted a long time ago, but forgot. Be careful of the restaurant on Shamian island on the end of the park near the White Swan hotel. Its stands by itself, and I believe it is next to the Kodak place. Anyhow, it had probably the worst food I've had in China yet. (we had the noodles which were barely palatable, and at one point I tried the spaghetti. I've never had spaghetti that tasted like fish, I think they use the same water for everything).

Save me a seat on the bus! I was never really attracted to Asian women. The ones I had met either fit the "submissive" stereotype (at least publicly) or seemed really bossy and domineering. I am, however, very attracted to women of small, athletic build (my cy to a "T" ). I was really wary when I first started talking with my wife and took things as slow as possible. I certainly wasn't ready to get married, and, in the beginning, neither was she. She was the first one to get the marriage bug, then I got infected with it later. Now we're having a great time. I love my new Chinese family and the cultural exchange is amazing. I'm hoping someday down the line we can both move to Asia for a few years so we can spend time near her family and experience new things. Why didn't I fall for an American girl? I could list the superficial reasons (bossy, high maintenance, general pain in the asre), but that's not it. I just hadn't met anyone that I was interested in spending my life with.

I have to negotiate the tip before we walk out of the door or we don't eat. And, because of my poor bargaining skills, there are now a few places in town that I don't feel very welcome in any more..

We haven't really had any problems. I have one cousin who married a prostitute while on leave in Spain, but all things considered, I'm pretty sure everyone is happy with my choices. The crux of my family's relationship is mutual respect. My family respects my choices and I respect theirs. I was quite surprised by the reception my wife got and am now convinced that they'd trade me for her any day . As far as her family goes, as far as I can tell, they accept me. She told me that they could see that I would take care of her and so they weren't worried. Most of them were happy to see her get on with her life and make something of herself. The only bad reaction I got was out of her youngest sister who didn't understand why her big sister was moving away, but I think she's ok with it now. The interracial thing is something I think about some times, but overall people's acceptance of us has been great. I get the usual jokes from time to time, and there's really only one I won't tolerate (this one having to do with the USPS). But once I explain everything that we went through to get together, most people respect our relationship and our love. Occasionally she asks me if I think I would be happier with an 'American Girl'. I always look her right in the eyes and very honestly tell her that I couldn't be happier with any other person in the world.

Upon my first visit to ShenZhen, I insisted seeing the WalMart there. It struck me as kind of dumpy. Its underground, has a low ceiling and reminded me of a Big Lots (or large Family Dollar) here in the states. It was the only place I went in China where they didn't accpet a 1 RMB coin that I gave them (after buying an apple ).. On our way somewhere (LongGang? GuangZhou?) we did pass another WalMart that looked like one of these multi-storey behemoths that you wrote about. I didn't get to visit it, though . There's a line of department/grocery stores in ShenZhen that has a giant green 'K' in its logo, IIRC, that I enjoyed visiting. They were clean, nice, and had a good variety. I thought the tiny little shopping carts were cool too..

I've spoken a few times with my wife about this (she has four sisters, and her brother-in-law has a twin brother). What she explained to me is that if a family has more than one child, the government will institute fines as well as begin to refuse to allow parents to work (first the mother, then the father, IIRC). For some reason, wages are garnished, yet none of the money taken goes to anything useful (besides some politicians pockets). As far as the abortion thing.. I've heard rumblings about forced abortions, but have never seen it. My wife once said something about her mother being forced to have an abortion, but didn't really get into any details. She did tell me that its quite easy to get an abortion in China and was surprised to hear that you can't just run to the hospital here and get it done anytime for any reason. As far as disinformation goes.. I live in a state where there's a lot of animosity towards the far east (China specifically). Textiles were very big here. One day while she was trying on clothes, another husband (who was also waiting) told me he hates China for taking away his job. I explained that I'm in the IT field, and although I don't feel any animosity towards India, I do understand why he's angry. I tried to follow-up with asking him if he'd considered other careers or at least a different "angle" on his current career, but he didn't really have anything further to discuss with me (maybe after seeing me hug my wife when she came out of the changing area )..

Greetings.. Here's my update.. nothing really new.. My wife is starting to get a little cabin fever, so I decided to do some investigating as to what's going on with our case. We still don't have an SSN. I called the local SSA office and they told me that they still have her listed as coming over on an F1 (Student) visa. Basically, they can't issue the number until we get this cleared up (I was told that if we didn't have this problem, we would have had her new number within 24 hours of applying for it). I called the INS (BCIS/UCIS/whatever) line. I spoke with a relatively nice woman. I told her the situation and she began explaining to me that when I converted from a K1 to F1 visa I didn't file properly. I then explained the situation again and told her that we never filed for an F1 and she has a physical K1 visa in her passport. The woman put me on hold for about 7 minutes while she asked around. She came back on and told me that I might be able to file an I-120 (request for replacement I-90), but that would get me a replacement card, not necessarily a corrected card. I asked her who I should call or what I should do as my wife is starting to get cabin fever. She didn't seem to know and suggested that I take her down to the local INS office and try to get them to resolve the situation. On a side-note, when we filed our paperwork (April 30), I asked the local INS officer (in-person) about this situation. She told me she couldn't change the status, but would submit a request to have the visa classification changed. The woman I spoke with today said that a request of this kind can be submitted every 30 days and that we should have another one submitted (!?!). I also spoke with someone on the INS help line about a month or so before we filed our paperwork and he assured me that they wouldn't run her out of the country and told me to just go ahead and file and that this problem would "work itself out." So, I'm going to stop by the local INS office next week and have another talk with them. I'm not terribly worried yet, but CaiYun's starting to get really tired of sitting at home. I'm also a little worried about the AOS interview ("...it says here you filed and were approved for a K1, but entered under an F1..."). But, considering that I'm filing through Atlanta, I've got nothing but time to get this problem solved.. Just for laughs, I'll try to post a picture tonight or tomorrow of the document that started all of these problems..

Heh.. I get this kind of question constantly about ex-girlfriends. It amazes me. We'll go to the store, "Did you take your ex-girlfriend to this store?".. What's funny is that I hadn't dated for over 2 or 3 years before I met her.. As far as expiration dates goes, she's not that militant once the purchased goods make it through the door. It does bother her a lot that the meat sold in stores isn't from an animal killed that morning (I asked her how many cow pastures she's noticed since she got here -- that just earned a dirty look ).. She does, however, go through every item on the shelf looking for the one that hasn't "been touched"..

It doesn't make a difference. We wrote, "UNEMPLOYED" on my wife's forms and didn't have a problem at all. Keep in mind, though, that up until about 4 months before her interview she was employed and we recorded that employment history when it asked (she left her job because she was not happy with it and was working long hours with little pay). She wasn't asked anything about a job or being employed at her interview. I do believe I remember someone once saying that at their AOS interview, the wife was asked if she had tried to get a job or was working while in the US. I think that question was coupled with one wanting to know if she worked illegally at all (ie, with no EAD). Not sure on that one, though.

I'd say the opposite is true as well, though. My wife has a few words that she uses to describe everything. The one that threw me for the longest time was, "hao fan." At its base, it means "melancholy," but she also uses to to express confusion, frustration, sadness, depression, mild anger, and sometimes she uses it sarcasitcally. When I use it, she panics and seems to assume the worst -- so I avoid that one .

I'm not sure exactly what you would need. I was told by an INS officer that they can expidite an Advance Parole, given "proper" proof, within about 24 hours (I asked as her grandmother is in poor health).

The first time they called us up to review her information, they took her passport. I imagine this was so they could enter information from her passport or her visa. Either way, they gave us the passport back when she got her fingerprints. Nothing to worry about, just a procedural thing.

That is so cute!!! My wife always gets plastic and practice mixed up. The best one was one time I called her and asked her what the weather was in China and she said "nose coming." It took me a few seconds to figure out she meant "snow coming." I get the same thing, except its "potato" and "tomato".. she keeps telling me that she doesn't want "potatos" when we go out for hamburgers, then gets mad when she doesn't get any fries .. My other favourite is "call phone" (cell phone). I've had to get used to "trash" being "rubbish" and that we "take away" things, not "throw away".. That's ok, though, she laughs at my Chinese just as hard.

Well, yesterday we had our fingerprinting.. here's a brief summary.. We had two appointments yesterday in Charlotte, NC (a 1.5 hour drive for me), 11:00a for the I-765 and 12:00p for the I-485. The woman that greeted us at the door said it wouldn't be a problem and that they could do both at the same time. She gave us a form to fill out then told us to stand in a short line. The form contained basic information (height, weight, name, birthplace, current address, eye/hair colour, etc). We stood in line about 5 minutes and then talked to a woman (receptionist, by title) behind a desk. She reviewed our 797's and confirmation numbers, gave us a number (16) and directed us to a seating area. There were two seating areas, we had the smaller of the two. We waited about 30-45 minutes then our number was called. We (we were allowed to be together through the whole process) went up to a computer and the operator verified the information we filled out on the biometric form we got when we came in. They took her passport and forms and asked us to sit again. We waited another 15 minutes and were called up to a different machine. They took her fingerprints and photograph and returned our 797's (with stamps indicating she had been fingerprinted and photographed) and her passport and told us to wait a few weeks for her EAD. That's about it. We got there at 10:15a and were out of there just after 11:00a. Luckily, it wasn't very crowded and the people were pretty nice.

For what its worth, when we went to submit our paperwork I asked which center would be processing our forms and the answer I got (as expected) was Atlanta. I asked if we were looking at a two year wait and the officer replied, "I'm afraid so.." She also said it was about 6 months on Advanced Parole, and I'm not sure about the EAD (still waiting).

I'd have to agree with the majority of people here: go shopping with her. If she's from Southern China (HK, SZ, etc), finding things in US sizes won't be too tough. That 2.95 looks like its probably meters, but keep in mind she might be measuring from the waist to the cuff (as opposed to the inseam). Ring sizing for me was tough. Sometimes she would give me her size in metric, other times in UK (which is completely different), and sometimes close -- but not quite -- her size in the US. In the end, I just looked for someone with similar sized fingers and guessed. Luckily I was right on