chengkai

Hey guys, So my wife and I made it safely to America in time for the holidays. We received her green card in the mail a few weeks ago and a letter telling us that her SSN would be mailed within 3 weeks. It's been 8 weeks now and nothing has come in the mail. We called the 1-800 number they gave us "if it doesn't arrive within 3 weeks," but after calling that specified number, the nice lady told me, "We're a call center. If you don't have a SSN, we can't help you." So, who can tell us what's going on??

Hey guys, Some friends of mine just had their first baby together, and at the most inopportune time. Their visa interview in Guangzhou is next Thursday. They just had their baby 2 days ago. The mother still has to go in to get her shots from the hospital, but the doctor here in Shenzhen informed her that she can't have any drugs administered to her while nursing their newborn baby. What is the policy on this? Can they skip getting the shots with written permission? Should they reschedule their interview? If they reschedule, how much longer will they have to wait? Thanks for the help

Just one. I mentioned that arrogant Chinese guard in my interview result post. You were right.

Congrats on the interview! My wife was asked the same question about the major this past week. Maybe we got the same VO

Received the visa today! Exactly 3 months since we filed the petition.

Without boring you all, I'll try to hit the highlights and tell you the interesting and important things we experienced during our interview trip to Guangzhou. First, the day before we left home, we went shopping for pink clothes to wear to the interview. We thought it might be fitting for the the desired colored slip of paper we had hoped to receive. We also thought that wearing pink might somehow, by chance, give the subliminal message of success haha. We live close enough to Guangzhou, that we just had to get up early to take a 1 hour train ride over the day of the document intake. We called the Yangs and met his uncle to get a room next to the consulate. We shared an apartment with the uncle, his wife, their son, and another mother and son trying to get a visa. While it was a full house, it was worth the money and some pleasant conversation. We asked what time would be best to wait in line for the document intake, and the guy just told us to go at 12:15 because you can't go inside and there's already a ton of people waiting in line. So, we did as he said and went outside to take our spot in line. After going inside, Tata and I split our separate ways at the entrance to the fifth floor. I went to get my 60 RMB cup of coffee and waited three hours while chatting with a the fiance of a K1 applicant. The time passed rather quickly as I knew there was no reason to be nervous this first day. After coming out, Tata reported her experience to me. She said that for the most part, the consular officers were rather nice, save for one "guard-type" fellow. He was yelling and screaming at an old man who was already hard-of-hearing anyway, telling him to get back in line and that he was in the wrong place. The particularly chubby officer seemed grumpy both days we were there. Others that we met thought the same. Tata said that the person who collected her documents was rather nice, and it felt more like chatting than someone interviewing her for information. She said she felt very comfortable, welcome, and relaxed. I was quite happy to hear that. DOCUMENT INTAKE (in Chinese) 1. Where did you apply for your visa? (in China) 2. When did you get married? (...) 3. Who's your sponsor? (my husband) 4. Do you speak English? (yes) 5. Have you been to another country before? (no) 6. Have you been to Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Macau? (Hong Kong) 7. What was your major in university? (...) 8. What do you do for work? (...) 9. What's your [work's] name? (...) 10. Please give me your sponsor and co-sponsor tax returns with their I-864s. (handed the forms) 11. Who's your co-sponsor? (his mom) 12. What's her name? (...the name is German, so she asked the next question) 13. What language does your husband speak? (English, of course) Then, we had several hours to kill and nowhere to go really. We both missed our home in Shenzhen and thought GZ was rather boring. Perhaps we should have seen what to do before we left haha.. Oh well. We got some hotpot at the shopping center down the road which was nice and then went back to our hotel to shower and rest up for the big morning. Interview day. We got up and handed our money to the "uncle." He told us, "Good luck," and we were off. This time, we waited in line for all of 5-10 minutes, and the weather was much cooler than the day before. Mr. Grumpy was there again and was grouchy as ever. He wasn't afraid to use his "power" by telling everyone to move over several times. He also refused entry to the SAME old man that he scolded before. This was after he said that anyone with a green sticker can go first. (The old man had a green sticker) Very odd. Anyway, we got inside and met the same people we saw on Monday which was nice. Oh, and we were sporting our pink polos and khaki shorts as well (absolutely no blue whatsoever). We reached the 5th floor and there was already a huge line stretching around the hallway. We thought there were two lines (due to people no knowing how to make a SINGLE file line) and accidentally cut in front of about 90% of the people there. I felt bad, but no one seemed to get upset. Tata was in the first group to go upstairs. Of course, that didn't speed the process up at all. I still waited another 3 hours to see her again. I knew she got pink after someone came down and told me, "I got pink! Oh, and I saw your wife. She passed too." I was angry and happy all at once. I really wished I had the opportunity to tell this nice girl that I really wanted to wait for my wife to tell me, but before I even thought about what was happening, the words already left her mouth. Nevertheless, Tata passed her interview!!!! The experience. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Tata told me to tell you all that when your wife/fiancee goes, to bring a book or a magazine or anything to keep you awake. She said she almost fell asleep when they finally called her name. There were 4 VOs that Tata saw. Two were guys (no specifics were given about their looks). Two were girls (one in her 30s, the other in her 20s). A K1 applicant told us that the guys were handing out a lot of white papers and no pinks. She also reported that they weren't even giving reasons as to why, either. The younger girl was pretty apparently, but seemed to be handing out a good number of blue slips (no whites). The older girl handed out all pinks. Tata's VO was the older girl. She said she was extremely pleasant and easy to speak with. She had a smile on her face almost the entire time and even laughed a few times. An interesting fact that Tata told me was how most of the applicants were conducting their interviews in Chinese. She only saw a few of them use English (like 2-4, including herself). I was very surprised to hear this. At any rate, Tata thankfully got the happiest VO of the bunch and was successful. Tata said she didn't feel nervous at all, because the VO was very easy to talk with. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (in English) 1. (In Chinese) Have you been to America before? ("I can speak English to answer your questions." VO was happy, and said, "Oh great!") VO repeated the question in English. ("no") 2. (the rest in English) So, have you been to any other country? ("no") 3. When did you meet your husband? (...) 4. Do you have pictures? ("a lot." Wife took out the pictures to show the VO. She looked at the first picture which was a family picture, and then just flipped through the rest very quickly.) 5. Where did you meet each other? ("ice rink") 6. What? ("oh, Shenzhen.") 7. When do you plan to go to America? ("October or November") 8. What about your husband's job? ("He will continue his work in America, and will work from home. I have a letter from his boss; do you want to see it?" The VO really looked at it, quite studiously. She then marked it in her computer.) 9. What's your major? ("Media") 10. Have you been married before? ("no") 11. Do you have any children? ("no") 12. Are you in the Chinese Communist Party? ("no"...the VO never asked if she was in the CCP BEFORE) 13. Where do you live? ("We live together in Shenzhen. My husband is waiting for me outside." The VO laughed.) 14. (VO looked at the co-sponsor form) Who is [co-sponsor's name]? ("His mom") Then the VO took out a paper which they both signed. At that point, the VO pulled out the infamous pink slip and handed it to my wife. The last comment she said was, "Congratulations. America has good education. When you and your husband go to America and have children, let them study hard." Then my wife just said, "Thank you! Have a nice day." That's it! Now, we're planning our trip to America and preparing for my mom to come visit us in October before we leave. I would like to take this moment to thank each and every one of you. Without your help, caring, and support, there would be no way we could have gotten through this. I don't know any of you personally, but you've all had such a huge impact on our lives. Thank you. I hope someday to meet some of you and thank you in person. I also plan to help anyone I can in the future to return the kindness that you've shown to me and my wife. God bless you all and your families.

Anyone else here for the interview? Tata and I just had our document intake today.

My wife paid today at the consulate. Tomorrow is interview day! We'll post all the questions and our results afterwards. Wish us luck

The instructions on our P4 letter are not clear. They just say to pay the fees prior to the interview. But where?? I saw several posts from 2005 and 2006 that they just paid everything at the consulate window, but I'm not sure if things have changed or not. The letter appears to be different. In 2005 it clearly stated that the fees should be paid in cash. Our letters say no such thing. So where do we pay for our visa fees? CITIC bank or on interview day?

My wife is bringing a few copies of the I-864 with her when we go to the interview. One with the co-sponsor listed and one without. But I suppose in your case, they didn't need a form without the co-sponsor, right? They just ignored it?

For anyone filing DCF, I offered both the copy and the original, and the VO took the copy. Copies are fine in Guangzhou as well.

Sorry...I'm confused...which document did you get notarized in the States? Are the document and the white book one in the same? For anyone reading this post who hasn't submitted their Packet 4 yet, you need to get 3 white books in China - marriage cert, birth notarial document, and police record notarized.

You add a great point. Perhaps they don't look at them. But the one time we provide the bare minimum that's asked of us on their forms, that's when we're asked for more. We can never be too careful.

So Tata went to the hospital and got her stuff! Now, we're just getting all our documents and stuff collected and organized. We go to Guangzhou in one week! I had a question about document intake. I've read several people's accounts about how they pick and choose which documents they accept on the day before the interview. If I bring a folder, would they take the folder or just the papers? Also, I've seen several incidents where they didn't take the Sponsor's employment letter. In my case, this is somewhat of a problem. I'm filing DCF and will actually be keeping my job after we move to the States. Therefore, my salary should be legitimately accounted for. I'm bringing a contract and a signed letter of employment to prove this. I'm just afraid they won't accept it on the basis of assumption. So two questions I suppose: 1) At Document Intake, do they take the folder? 2) Any suggestions about getting the employment letter across? Perhaps at the interview if it matters?