chrisnhong

Immigrate to OZ? Depends on what you have to offer in terms of skills, age and other factors. If you are on the preferred occupations list, then it's certainly fast. www.immi.gov.au for ruther details. This is a damned fine place to live.

Rats! Why is my browser unable to read this into Chinese characters?

I like using NJStar (of njstar.com). It has a 30 day trial, after which you get the occasional nag screen if you don't pay up, but it still works. I have found it well worth the money, but it's really up to your conscience..

No need to worry. It's a cultural thing. In China, it's standard for a woman to call her husband "laogong" or a similar word, which translates into English as husband.

America absolutely has a culture. But when dealing with people in foreign countries you should count on one thing. In general they will know much more about the US than you know about their country. The US media is to blame. Information about foreign countries is almost non-existent, with the middle East being a possible exception. Television and movies from other countries are also practically non-existent. On the other hand, in Australia roughly 50% of the television and 75% of films come from the US. When did you last see an overseas film or television show? One comment, the entertainment output in the US is of a higher quality in general. Better stories, better acting and better production. There are exceptions. For example, see if you can get your hands on "Shaun of the dead" from your local video outlet...

No, that's not right. We (i) drive on the other side of the road and (ii) walk around upside down.

My lawyer was able to contact the officer in charge and convince him that the VO should be instructed to talk to me directly. He had previously appeared before the officer in charge who had been part of the appeals process in the migration department. A handy contact. A comment that the case would inevitably pass on appeal seems to have put things back on the rails. The visa will be a 2 year temporary visa. Once the temporary visa is up, she can apply for citizenship if our relationship is still in place. The government here is keen on temporary visas as a method of weeding out some of the mistakes. Seems reasonable to me... Sydney to Perth is more than 6 hours by plane. Domestic airfares here are expensive due to the distances and the low population. Having said that, there are some fine places to see. I think life here is a little less frantic than the US.

Haven't had time to update for a while. Let's see. The interview last Monday went, well, really quite badly. My wife was phoned by the consulate officer and was asked for a photo to be transmitted from my latest trip to China. No dice, we had a camera, mine, and I have all the pictures. She was not aware that she could have downloaded them from my website. Strike one. She was asked for my full name... To my embarrasment, I had never told her because (i) I only use it on official documents and (ii) it's a real mouthful for someone with limited English. Strike two. Then my wife's nephew got out of bed, the CO heard this and asked my wife to change to English because she thought he may be helping her answer the questions.. Hong just blanked out and the interview was abruptly terminated. I sent an email off to my lawyer the next morning, he contacted the officer in charge. Next thing, I'm phoned by the consulate officer at work. She asked me a few questions, mainly about how we communicate. When I explained that we mainly talk in Chinese, she asked me half a dozen questions in Mandarin, which I was able to answer. Interview complete. My wife was called today and asked for her passport to be mailed to the consulate at Shanghai, so that her visa can be affixed. So there it is. By the time Hong gets her visa back, the process will have taken about 8 months from the application date. Obviously we are delighted! I'm tired, but just can't seem to sleep, making all those plans instead...

Let's see... How long to become an aussie. It depends, there are a number of different categories. See Austimeline for details. Getting a visa from China is only slow because there is a lot of fraudulent visa applications made from there. New Zealand probably has the reputation as the easiest country to get visas for and it's one fine place. If you're interested in a little tourism down here, don't forget to go to NZ... Yes, GZ is understaffed, but I draw your attention to the length of some of your signatures and how many steps you have to go through. Each one means that your application sinks to the bottom of an intray and has to work it's way to the top. This system badly needs re-engineering so that most of the work is done in the first step. Biometrics? Well, it's a security/terrorism issue. We're going to have those here shortly, I know the cost is higher, but I can only approve. Passport security has not kept up with current technology available to forgers. Personally I'm not too concerned about terrorists, but poor passport security does allow the movement of criminals in and out of a country.

The process seems to be only a couple of steps. The visa application is placed with the police checks and evidence, a few stat decs from family and friends here stating they know about the relationship and a couple of forms. It can be a fairly bulky document. After a couple of months wait, they ask for the medicals to be done, along with further evidence of the relationship. Another couple of months go by and the request comes in for a phone interview with my wife. The applications from places like China can be slow compared to say, countries like the US and the UK. I've seen reports of such visas being approved and issued in less than a week. The US system (from afar) looks like somebody's idiot cousin put it together. Each step where documents etc. are sent to Guangzhou will mean that the wait times blow out. Systems that are built with so many steps are virtually impossible to maintain fast processing unless lots of resources are thrown at them...

My wife has been contacted for a phone interview on Monday. I'm told that they will run her through a series of questions, then phone me for an interview to ask the same questions. If all tallies up to the immigration department's satisfaction, then the visa will be issued. Six and a half months since the application was made. Got my fingers crossed..

Absolutely correct. Americans are very friendly. When I did my tour there, I'll never forget limping into Riverside CA after a jet-lagged 80 miles or so. I dropped off the back of a bunch and got lost for a little while. When I eventually found my way back, I stopped to have a look at the route map and a young african american lad (around 10 or so) said to me, "You slow, man, dey way up dere!". Yeah, yeah, I hear you... The tour was CrossRoads Cycling Tough going in parts, but lots of fun and very many friendly people. When I did a similar short tour in China, we were a travelling sideshow. People were less friendly than incredulous. You couldn't possibly be doing this for fun, right?

Pardon my ignorance, but looking at it from afar... It's my understanding that the Secretary of State is supposed to argue the diplomatic solution to problems to the president. The Secretary of Defense is supposed to argue the military solution... If the SecState doesn't do his job in this fashion, then the US may get tangled up in wars that it may have been better off staying out of. The precedent that I have read of is that Robert MacNamara completely overpowered Dean Rusk in the early 60s, allowing .... Is this right? My apologies if I'm completely off the mark. ???

In Xi'an last month I took a tour to see some of the sights, one of which was a building shaped like a pyramid, with a sphinx and a miniature "Collossus of Rhodes" standing outside. It was called "The Hell of the Eight Ancient Wonders of the World"..

IMHO, this study is well out of date in that it pre-dates the internet era. It needs to be done again, properly and by someone INDEPENDENT. This report was actually given to Congress and may go some way to explaining why the whole foreign spouse/fiancee visa process has generally blown out past a year....

A few of the travel guides that I have read advocate using a walking stick to ward off the monkeys. When my wife and I went to Emie Shan, it was during the May public holiday, so there was so many people that the monkeys were severely outnumbered, so no threats were required.

YesAsia

Sorry, I'll try that again.. Daily Telegraph..

Daily Telegraph After four years of trying to get visas, now this...

I figure watching chinese film is a good way to learn the language. I rather like "Needing you", a Hong Kong romantic comedy. But my favorite for language learning is "Monsters Inc.". the region 3 version translated into Mandarin. For a mainland film, I like "The missing gun". The one about Beijing opera is "Farewell my concubine"

Thanks Carl. I wish yourself and Bing all the best on your recent marriage. I became interested in China a few years ago. My father died in 2000 and I got my mum interested in audio books. "Wild Swans" was the first that I got for her. It fascinated me. I ride a bicycle on tour through various places and signed up for an 8 person tour through Guangzhou and Guangxi. Signed up: January 2003 (and started to learn Mandarin) Booked ticket to China: May 2003 (decided to go to Nanning initially as it was in the middle of things I might want to see, Yunnan, Guangzhou..) Contacted Hong on the internet: Mid-September 2003 (just looking for someone as a contact in China if something went horribly wrong) Fly into Nanning: October 5 2003. Hong came to see me at the hotel. I was a little reluctant as I wasn't really looking for a foreign girlfriend, let alone someone to marry. But she was sooo nice and everything just fell naturally into place...

My first post, so I hope you will all bear with me. Learning Mandarin is one thing, but the local dialect at Nanning has a few sounds that I've never heard anywhere else, and I've been learning for 18 months or so now. As commented, the online translators are poor at best, even Babelfish. I have not tried one of the packaged software translators yet. Powerword (by Kingsoft) is basically a dictionary, although a very good one. I am using NJStar to write, inputting pinyin, then translating the reply by myself, a slow process, although putting it through Babelfish first can give you a general idea of the contents. Little, in my opinion, beats the Pimsleur courses for learning Mandarin. I am able to make myself understood, but hearing the reply is often patchy. Becoming fluent in a language as different as Mandarin will take time, but at least your girlfriend and her family will be impressed with you for making the effort. Best of luck. Electronic translators are OK but take time to learn to operate. Perhaps if she buys one before you arrive, she will be able to show you how to use it. For myself and my wife, learning each other's languages has been a bonding process, rather than one that keeps us apart. Patience is required. Best wishes