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Daviation

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Posts posted by Daviation

  1.  

    For those who watched the National Day parade on TV, try to obtain a DVD of the original broadcast. You will see the camera focus in on President Hu when the first regular PLA female unit passes in review and you can clearly see how they catch his attention and how animated he becomes. These girls were very attractive. When the Muffin Top Brigade appears, it's like they are day-old bread.

     

    Entirely wrong!!!

     

    Hu was professional through the whole parade until your so called "Muffin Top Brigade"... when he clearly smiled and waved to them... in fact I made the comment to my wife at the time about how excited he looked all of sudden... and I've watched it again to confirm I saw it correctly...

  2. Funny, but they are not even real soldiers. They are part of the volunteer militia --- or the Chinese version of the National Guard.

     

    The pretty girls in the parade were the regular PLA soldiers and not the "flower militia."

     

    Many of your so called "flower militia" were models in training. Yes, they are volunteer militia, but anyone who thinks they weren't chosen for their looks to be in this parade is fooling themselves.

     

    To each his own... but curious that many of us are here because we find Chinese women attractive... and so, of course we'd find Chinese models attractive... I'm not sure why we'd be here otherwise...

  3. I don't care what anybody says... those Chinese women soldiers were HOT!!

     

    If China were to send them to the front, dressed like that... me thinks they'd roll right over just about any male army... the men would just be drooling and wondering "... what just happened???"!!!

  4. Im with dnoblett on this. If he has a state or drivers license id he is gonna get on the plane. He will need his passport at the end of the flight to Zurich not before. Just a boarding pass and a picture id.

     

    Nope... passport will of course be needed (at a minimum) when boarding the outbound international flight. This is an absolute. Airlines are not allowed to let someone board without a passport for an international flight... all kinds of reasons for this (especially post 9-11).

     

    In fact, if an airline lets a passenger board without proper docs... guess what... they get to fly 'em straight back for free when they're not allowed into the foreign port.

     

    If he checks bags just to for the domestic portion, then driver's license is OK for that leg, but make sure there will be enough time to gather bags and recheck-in for the international leg.

  5. ...All of this has created jobs and has added to the economy. I guess the Roosevelt way really does work.

     

    The Roosevelt way caused the depression of the 1930's to last LONGER... as opposed to the worse depression of the 1920's... which we rarely read about today - because the government stayed out of the way and let our great system reset...

  6. I particularly liked this comment:

     

    "I wish China's leaders were as stable as the U.S. dollar," said Chris Murray, president and principal of Murray Financial Group Inc. in Frederick .

     

    :lol:

     

    The most compelling and certainly true comment from posted article is:

     

    "Until Americans realize that the insane level of government spending can't be sustained, our dependence on foreign investment will be a ball and chain," Murray said."

  7. Anyone have experience with travel through Western Europe with Chinese SO when they have 2 year green card? I have a bunch of airline miles about to expire and my spouse says she would rather see Europe than go back to China this year. I'd like to take her some of the places I've already been... thinking maybe Germany, Italy, Switzerland as options.

     

    Have any of you done this? If so, how was the visa process? Were you able to get single EU visa for all these countries? I've heard a bit about EU Schengen Visa... has anyone done this?

     

    Just scouting for advice at this point, so thanks in advance.

  8. ...My wife understands that the American style of belt-tightening means to get a bigger belt.

     

    That's funny!!! And also sad, since it is quite true.

     

    How are we holding up? Well, my wife understands belt tightening better than most of us... in fact she's all for the ground rules our country should be living by:

     

    1/ Don't spend what you don't have.

     

    2/ If you don't have the funds... live without whatever you don't have.

     

    I'm a lucky guy... we have a good life even without the stuff we may not have.

  9.  

    Anybody have experience traveling back to China on AP? How does it work with someone with a 2 year green card?

     

    AP is well recognized when re-entering the US... also well recognized in Canada and to some extent in HK... however, it is NOT well recognized in many areas of mainland China. We tried and it was quite scary... almost didn't get her out in time for flight. We also know several others with the same experience in different parts of China.

     

    As you noted, just try reading the form... very confusing... even when explaining it to someone else with English as their first language - very difficult - can't be explained very well and it doesn't make much sense.

     

    So you can imagine how difficult to explain to Chinese immigration when trying to leave China... they look for Visa or Green Card and don't understand much else.

     

    Green Card is not a problem... well recognized whether it's 2 year or 10 year.

  10. Skype - $10/month with unlimited calling to China and many other countries. We've been using it for over 2 years with minimal issues. We have a Skype phone attached through wireless router so we can call via computer or regular phone handset.

     

    Yes, I know big brother may be eavesdropping on Skype, but that could be happening to all satellite routed calls anyway...

  11.  

    China's big time GDP is domestic, and particularly in the area of infra-structure improvement. And now that China's stimulus package is kicking in, its even more the case. China doesn't wait for 'shovel ready'---it just forges ahead.

     

    passed by by multiple generations of young Chinese.

     

    Add to this the fact that China actually HAS the money for their stimulus package. It is, in fact a true stimulus... meaning an investment with money they've saved.

     

    We'd better stop spending what we don't have, and expecting China to keep loaning us money to fund our mis-guided ways.

  12. All very interesting observations.

     

    But one important, and recent, statistic (reported by The Econimist - don't have time to find the link right now but I could later - and they are usually quite accurate) is this:

     

    China's shipment of goods to the US now represents only 5% of China's GDP... meaning we could drop off the face of the earth and their GDP would drop by a measely 5%.

     

    Not sure it can be expected that they need us so much any more.

  13. Having flown many times from mainland China and HKG into YVR (Vancouver), I am quite familiar with this process.

     

    It is true that some flights have the option of direct transfers through US Customs onto US bound flights. It is NOT true that every flight has this option. There are fees the airlines have to pay in order for their passengers to exercise this option. Not all do... in fact sometimes it even depends on what time of day the flight arrives, as the US Customs there in YVR does not have the same hours as all arriving flights.

     

    In short, I've been through that line many times (US Customs) in Vancover, but I've also been through many times when it is closed and/or not available for my particular flight (sometimes even when I'm on the same flight number as the previous time when it was available).

     

    It is also true that your SO will likely not be able to board a YVR bound flight in China or HK without China transit visa... regardless of what the detailed rules might say. We've taken that route with both AP and green card. They checked very closely for Canada visa upon boarding.

     

    I'd recommend, as others have, that you FedEx the GC or rebook onto flight arriving direct US.

     

    Good luck to you.

  14.  

    Don't believe anything you read and only half of what you see.

     

    There is no lack of demand for US dollars amongst the local population. That demand has been squashed by currency restrictions and difficulties the People's Bank of China imposes on spending US dolars abroad.

     

     

    Not true... in fact the hugely dimished demand for US T-bills was evident yesterday when, for the first time in a very long time, we couldn't sell nearly as many as had been planned. The Chinese have significantly reduced their buying of tbills since January and have recently doubled their holdings in gold. The 10 yr tbill has now started to spike in rate... we MUST stop spending what we don't have... cuz the Chinese aren't gunna just keep lending it to us...

  15. Cost prohibitive.

     

    Are you kidding me?

     

    Can you say $787 Billion??? Actually it is multiple trillion$, but we won't go into that here...

     

    Take some of Dingy Harry's pork for the Vegas to Coast train (or any of the other billions in pork) and put it to some good use.

  16. Her interview is on March 17. I will meet her in Beijing March 11 and we fly together to Guangzhou. If all goes well and we get the visa, we will fly home on March 27. If she gets the visa I assume I'll be dressing up and getting the wedding photos. I don't know where we'll go because she wants photos on a beach. (We went to Sanya in June, very beautiful and very hot but too expensive this time of year).

     

    You may not have enough time left, but you might consider having the photos taken before the interview. In my opinion, the photos add to your credibility during the interview.

     

    In our case, due to an ironic twist of events, one of our studio wedding photos ended up on the front page of the newspaper in Nanning. Of course we included this newspaper with the stack of data my SO took to her K1 interview.

     

    While handing the pink to my SO after interview, the VO asked with a big grin "... how the heck did you two end up in the newspaper?"

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