Martin B

As far as being "used" by the party, both Winston and Travellight have remarked about the "free" tours that are offered in return for the publicity. The caveat is that you are expected to put in long hours Both decided it just wasn't worth it. Randy, what are these "free tours"?

This Gweilo dude needs to stop acting like these two guys are nothingburgers. Yes, they aren't in China now. I don't particularly care for their recent videos. But they lived there for 10+ years. They worked in China. Both married Chinese women. Bought and sold houses, cars ,bikes in China. Laowhy raised a kid there and had to deal with his in-laws while doing so. In his earlier videos, SerpentZA spoke excellent Chinese. SerpentZA has over 600k subs, Laowhy has over 400k, ADVChina has 300k.... and Gweilo has what, 40k? Probably at least half which are CPC wumao or bots? Gweilo criticizes them for leaving China yet he did so in an instant when it was advantageous to do so. And don't give me the bulls**t about his wife's immune system - tens of millions of elderly and sick Chinese stayed behind rather than fleeing to Thailand. And it looks pretty f*****g hypocritical and cowardly to do this after you've spent the last two dozen videos blabbing about how China is perfect and how nothing can go wrong. Seriously, who is Gweilo to grandstand? The dude claims to have lived in China for 15 years yet still can't pronounce "Shenzhen" or "Yuan" (money) correctly. He's plastered in nearly all his videos. In this most recent video he claims SerpentZA and Laowhy don't have "real" Chinese friends, but yet when he makes videos of gatherings with so called "family and friends" he stands around like a f*****g potted plant. The only possible explanations are that he's getting paid by the Chinese government or he's going senile.

We acquired a ton of hand sanitizer (hint: try Dollar Tree) and have 7 boxes of cheerios. If we had that chest freezer we mean to get someday it would be full. I wonder why she hasn't gone ga ga for toilet paper yet? We have a Business Costco near us which is usually packed with Chinese anyway and they haven't been able to empty any shelves there yet. Because we just got Costco size bottles of their Kirkland gin and their made in France Kirkland vodka, we're probably okay in that department. We've only got 15 cases (of the virus!) in Denver so we'll just watch the news. Cash-flow is usually our top priority but we can bend. I work next to the only Costco Business center in our state and love it. I can walk over during lunch and there's usually a grand total of 3-4 shoppers in there (although lately it has been more like 15). Most of the business they do is apparently via delivery. Only thing they are out of is toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Cases of bottle water are Limit 2. I can usually get 80% of what I need there despite it being a business center. Our "normal" Costco was always somewhat of a s**tshow, it's now unbearable so we go on a weeknight. We acquired a crap ton of hand santizer and masks a few weeks ago at my wife's insistence when the first few cases hit in Washington state. We just had the third or fourth case crop up in our state today - a 30 year old with no known health issues in critical condition!! That set my wife off in regards to my business trip later this month, which needless to say is no longer happening...

We've got about 12 months of "staples" stocked up - things like toilet paper, soap, shampoo etc. We're going to go through it anyways so it doesn't really hurt to keep some extra. It would suck to have to take a special trip just to buy something like tampons if this situation escalates. We also have 1-2 months of emergency food and water in our basement (nuts, pureed fruits, rice, beans, peanut butter, etc.) And my wife insisted that we stock up on wine (for her) and beer (for me) in case we're holed up for weeks. Can't say I pushed back very hard on that one. As of last night all my business travel until August - aside from a trip in March - got cancelled. This morning my wife told me "you are not traveling in March, end of story". I told her I could net $5,000 off of a 3 day trip within the US and would be extra cautious. She flat out said "F**k the money, you're staying here. You can always find a new job and tell your boss to go f**k himself". So I told my boss I wasn't going and that was that.

First case in our state cropped up today - someone who apparently caught it on a cruise. As if I already didn't need more reasons to every get on one of those disgusting cesspools.

I liked his older videos, can't stand his newer ones and unsubbed from him a while back. It's just become the same anti-US / pro-CCP rant rehashed over and over. And he has a serious drinking problem. Best wishes to his liver.

Your wife sponsors her brother if she has citizenship. Then he gets citizenship 5 years later. Easily a 15-20 year process, if not more, at which point he will age out. There are very few options available for non-immediate relatives of US citizens or green card holders. Pretty much work or asylum.

Is he here on an F1? If so, some sort of work visa after graduation. Or claim asylum. Otherwise, no.

Yes she can as long as CBP doesn't give her trouble, which they probably won't.

Recently my wife has been getting super paranoid about the coronavirus coming here. She insisted that we take some "minor" steps as an insurance policy. She's also worried about everything getting bought out if the situation gets bad enough. We typically keep anywhere from 8-12 weeks of "staples" (toilet paper, soap, kleenex, toothpaste etc.) on hand. We made a late night run to Costco to extend that supply to a year. We're going to go through that stuff anyways so I guess there's really no harm in having some things stockpiled. And it may save us a few trips down the road. We also set aside a two-month food/water supply. Mostly things like rice, beans, nuts, peanut butter, pureed fruits/vegetables etc. with a shelf-life of 1+ year that will be consumed anyways. Also made sure that our supply of OTC medicines like Advil/Tylenol was up to at least a year, and several extra boxes of diapers and other misc baby items. And several math/English workbooks for my stepdaughter in case school gets cancelled . We did spend $100 on masks (including the N95 ones) and hand sanitizer - that's really the only stuff that may not be used if the coronavirus (hopefully) peters out. My understanding is that those are okay if everyone is wearing one and do a good job of protecting other people by slowing down the viruses trajectory to some extent and absorbing water droplets if someone coughs or sneezes. At least that's my understanding. That's why the Chinese government required everyone to wear a mask going outside.

You should've listened to Randy when he told you to go to the consulate ASAP. Fwiw my stepdaughters interview was on a Tuesday,and the courier delivered her passport to her house on Friday.

Not to mention an in ground pool is a huge liability if someone has small kids that want to run around in the yard. And removing an in ground pool can easily cost upwards of $10k. If we were retired living in Florida or Arizona w/o kids I'd be happy with a pool, but not living in the midwest with kids where we can realistically use it 4-5 months a year, if that.

All three are great brands, though I like Subaru the least of those three. I drive a Toyota Highlander, my wife just bought a 2020 Honda Accord.

FWIW the flu shot also doesn't even protect against all strains of the flu, just for the common strain(s) of the season. As an example, see: https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20200116/flu-shot-no-match-for-b-strain-season-rages-on#1

Renew her passport and get an I551 stamp. You'll need to renew it in person at the Chinese consulate. My wife did this a few weeks ago - what s shit show.

Final update: my wife and I went to pick her up last week. Breezed through customs at Chicago O'Hare - helps we were the only flight at 10:30pm and sat in the second row of the plane. What a ride it's been... glad to finally be done with this. We're going to let her rest and adjust for 2 weeks and then off to school she goes.

FYI to OP there is a time limit on when she can get in via special enrollment so definitely get on this ASAP ... I believe it's 30 (or maybe 60) days from the day she moves here.

How old is she? You can look into your state's ACA plans, if she's not working she may be eligible for a subsidy. Although the plans are pretty crummy and have astronomical deductibles/OOP maximums.

We use Transferwise

She is 11. Yes, my wife accompanied her. Most of the questions were directed towards my wife. Minors under 14 must be accompanied by someone that has custody of them or have a notarized letter written by the parent allowing another person to accompany them. Based on our experience I highly recommend a parent go, or someone that has a very detailed knowledge of the situation.

Can confirm - my stepdaughter had her exam in GZ and was there for a total of 4 hours. Tons of waiting around. Results were ready for pickup 3 days later. i believe they used to have a service where you could pick up next day (for a $$ fee) but I'm not sure if that's still around. Biggest benefit to GZ is that you can do the medical and interview in the same week which is why I'm guess it's so busy. My wife's entire family is from Guangdong (a 1.5-hour high-speed rail trip to Guangzhou) so she actually did the medical a two weeks before the interview, just to give plenty of time in case something went wrong.

I'll give ExpressVPN a thumbs up for how fast they refunded my money - when I complained that there service was useless in China, they immediately replied saying they were aware of issues in China and I got my money back within 2-3 days.

Just confirming that ExpressVPN was basically useless when I was in China earlier this year...

That's what we figured. We'll have leave extra time in case there is a hiccup and have the relevant info at hand.

Biggest hiccup is that renewals take some time (plus a visit to the consulate) and we were hoping to do this trip early January...