msittig

If you want to experience the guesthouses mentioned above, I recommend the Cosmic Guesthouse at the Mirador Mansion, the next door neighbor to the Chung King Mansion. It has clean but microscopic rooms and is in the middle of Kowloon, within walking distance of the metro and lots of downtown shopping. Notice how the photos on the website linked below show that in many rooms the bed touches three of the four walls. I stayed there a few times on HK visa runs and always paid a little more, but still within my limited means, to stay at this nice guesthouse. http://www.cosmicguesthouse.com/

My wife is in China now, due back in a week. Can't come soon enough. Also note that the executive order cancels the Visa Interview Waiver Program, which I used once to extend my wife's visitor visa without having to wait in that awful line outside the US visa processing center in Shanghai.

My wife and I went through LAX returning citizens line together at LAX.

Go to a China Mobile (or whatever service you use) office and get them to set up international roaming for you. We arrived in the US without knowing we'd need this for SMS confirmations, etc, and it turns out you have to be in China in person to set this up. For now we're using http://www.wo-call.com/which I was able to set up using our Alipay account, but it's not my original Chinese number and it only works when I'm logged into the app. The double SIM method described above seems like it would work well -- most US carriers have a GSM network now; we've used T-Mobile and now AT&T, and I've been on my China-purchased Samsung Note 3 for both.

It also depends on what side of the bed the consular officer got up that morning. Our sitution was very similar to yanglan's: my wife applied for her first tourist visa as an unmarried young woman with no property/assets, working as a preschool teacher. We married, and over the years she succesfully applied for three more US tourist visas, then we DCFed for an IR-1 and green card.

If I remember correctly, I don't think CGI-Stanley ever showed the CITIC branch we registered for document pick-up. And I had to do the same thing you mention, get halfway through the interview scheduling process to register the pick-up location, but then close the browser before actually scheduling the interview. However, the staff at that branch did take our documents and receive the passport with the visa whent the whole rigamarole was finished.

The Guangzhou consulate will contact you next with instructions on how to proceed; my wife never received any direct communication either. See my signature for a rough idea of the time it will take.

It's a nice city, and the people are charming... but of course I'm biased

Congratulations! This is pretty much what my wife and I did almost 9 years ago, except we lived in Shanghai, her hometown was a big third-tier city in Hunan, and we got married in Changsha also over the Chinese New Year vacation.

You don't have to fill it out beforehand, you will be given the form and fill it out at the embassy when you arrive for your appointment. At least, that was my experience in Shanghai.

The one time I found myself needing to visit the visa office and having forgotten to register with the local PSB, I followed instructions I'd read online: go to a local hostel, pay for one night and register as a guest but tell them you don't need a bed, and make a U-turn to the door with yellow temporary registration paper in hand. The hostel was cool about it and got my meaning right away; I guess it was a frequently done thing. But that was when I was young and unattached. Once I had a spouse and dependents, I got overeager about that kind of stuff, visiting the PSB for every passport number change, contract renewal, etc.

The ACS at the Embassy in Beijing was the same 2.5th floor afterthougth... very modern and impressive-looking, but at least Shanghai has some toys for kids to play with.

An alternative (that I used) to having a job lined up is providing evidence that you're working with a recruiter to find a job. Of course, I also had a co-sponsor.

Yes, we used an 11.5 month-old police report and were asked to resubmit a newer one.

My wife is working as a Chinese teacher at a private school here in California, and my cousin's wife is finishing her California teaching credential and doing student teaching. 1.How can i become a chinese teacher in public or private school? what are the requirements? To work in a public school you will need a teaching credential (license) for the state where you live. The process is different for every state, but you can almost always find information online. In California we looked on the website of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Then we looked at public school jobs listed on Edjoin, which lists positions across the US. The requirements for private schools depend on the school. Most want a college degree and teaching experience, but Chinese teachers are in demand so the requirements may be lower. To find a job, you can register with a recruitment agency like Carney Sandoe or search by yourself; in California, we found many private school teaching jobs listed on the website of the California Association of Independent Schools. 2. How can i get a teacher license? Every state has its own credentialing process; some are easier than others. In California, getting a teaching credential involves taking college classes for several years and doing many hours of unpaid student teaching. This was not feasible for my wife because her English is not good enough, and not feasible for me because I am the primary wage-earner in our family. So we only applied to private schools. 3.is chinese a desirable language to learn? How will the private tutoring go? Chinese is in demand in California, where a lot of our economy depends on trade with Asia, and Chinese immigrants are plentiful. In some areas it is replacing French/Japanese/German as the foreign language of choice after Spanish. We have no experience with private tutoring, but another option you can explore is teaching at Chinese Saturday schools for children of local Chinese and Chinese-Americans. We found a few hourly position around Southern California at this kind of school, but some schools were more professional than others. If you end up having to design curriculum, my wife and I recommend the "Zhongwen" textbook/workbooks. 4. What else can i work as when my only skill is speaking chinese? Medical/court translator? Chinese restaurant cook or waiter? Otherwise I'm not sure... Having observed my wife and cousin's wife enter the world of teaching in America, I would like to answer one more question: 5. What is the hardest thing about being a Chinese teacher in the US? The most difficult thing that we have run into is the differences in workplace and educational cultures between China and the US. In China the workplace is a pretty relaxed place where people can have comfortable relationships and personal conversations with co-workers, but in the US you are expected to be professional and careful about what you say to other people, to show how hard you work all the time and never complain or talk about how busy you might be. Attitudes toward classroom education are very different in the US. In China, students are generally quiet in class and respectful of the teacher, and pushed by their parents to do well academically; in the US, we've found students need to be entertained and constantly reined back in, and will openly question the teacher during classtime. It has taken time for my wife to adjust to this type of workplace and classroom, as much as she loves being with students and supporting them in learning Chinese. Also, I would recommend that you try to find work tutoring the children of foreigners in Shenyang. This will give you some experience teaching Chinese, and also expose you to the kind of student you will be teaching in the US. Hope this helps.

I should have been more specific from the beginning: her IDs and now the bank account all say "Zhou Zhou" (in pinyin), and the checks are made out to "Micah and Jodi Sittig". The answer is probably as you suggest, to find another bank.

Thanks Randy! I think working with the bank personnel will be key on this, but so far they've been very inflexible. And a clarification, this is all happening in the US so by her "Chinese name" I mean her name in pinyin, the checks are from American friends, and the bank is a local California bank.

Hi everybody, We're running into a bit of trouble with names and bank accounts. My wife and I have, at several points in the past years, received checks made out to her English name. My bank has added her to our (now joint) account, but will only do so under her Chinese name, which is on her passport, green card and driver's license. Since her English first and last names are both different from her Chinese first and last names, being added to my account doesn't help with being able to deposit these checks. What the bank has asked for is an official government IDs with all of her names on them. Has anybody ran into this problem and succesfully gotten around it? Is there any government-issued document that would easily allow us to get all of her names on the bank account? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Yes, it was the tortilla with egg/ham, and it was delicious (with a little green hot sauce): http://msittig.wubi.org/imgs/mexican_jianbing.jpg Actually the most interesting thing about having the You May magazine is that my mother is reading it as a way to understand how Jodi is adapting to life in the US. There was a little friction between them at first, but we improved communication and things started to smooth out. I was very quiet in the days of Harley's/Gua2/Ark/etc, sometimes brought my camera but mostly just enjoyed the music.

Maybe consider this plan: 1. Study in China for a couple years on an X1 visa, possibly leading up to a degree (you could tutor/write/shill/recruit on the side for tuition/living expenses). Too late this year, but next year you could apply for a CSC Chinese Government Scholarship; lots of info on chinese-forums.com. 2. During this time, live responsibly and develop you relationship with her parents, to the point where they trust you be a responsible partner to their daughter. Maybe save up and buy a cheap domestic car/get your driver's license; or rent a nice place off-campus and fix it up; or plan, pay for and take her/her parents on a couple vacations within China. 3. Ask her parents jointly for permission to go to the US, and take her on a fiancee visa -- make sure you've started the US job search before you begin applying for the visa, so that you have some solid leads or even an offer to show Guangzhou. How does that sound?

Hi Jocey! We received the first issue a few days ago, and so far my wife, mother and I have all been reading it. I even tried to make one of the "children's lunch" items this morning for breakfast... turned out great. Let me know when subscriptions begin; I'm definitely interested. BTW I think we met many years ago at Harley's when Yuyintang was just starting. Good memories

You're in a similar position to my wife and I: applying DCF for IR-1. My write-up of our experience is here: http://candleforlove.com/forums/topic/46512-approved-pending-document-submission/ Also, seconding what dnobletts said about the I-864. That was the most time-consuming part of the whole process for us.

A cousin of my wife's went to Hong Kong on a hukou that doesn't grant many privileges, so I asked him about it and he showed me how there were dozens of sellers on Taobao (probably dan1984's travel agents) who would aggregate buyers and then get them travel permits as a "tour group" in name only. You/your wife could check into that.

育 = educate/teach (dict.cn/mdbg.net) 美 = 美(国) = USA From the site's About page: Then name seems to fit the purpose of the publication/site.

To quote the document titled "Immigrant Visa Instructions" that was e-mailed to me by the consulate before the interview, you need to: That said, we forgot to translate ours into Chinese, and it didn't become a problem (I suspect this was because my wife's resume is not particularly interesting)... but I wouldn't risk it again.