Well I should just go ahead and ask this....

[baobeizhu]

Hey!

 

I am an American woman (born and raised in Hawaii) but I am Asian. lol. However, if there is ever anything you have questions about, I would be glad to help you!

 

 

xiaofeizhu,

I have a question for you, do you happen to know if the DCF is only an option if you are a resident w/in China for the 6 months prior to filing?

 

I have just done the CR-1 route, but had formerly resided and been registered in China for just under 3 years when married but later ran into visa difficulties around the Olympics....I remember the lady at the US embassy had told me something about filing an immigration petition when I picked up my single status paperwork, but at the time I was like 'yeah, I don't think we'll need that' and didn't really pay attention. Funny how things work out

 

Anyway, I'm another female on this board. I think the other 'big question' how many people (men or women) didn't meet through the internet. So far I see xiaofeizhu and myself (baobeizhu...hehe oink oink)

 

 

Cheers!

[Dennis143]

baobeizhu, funny!

 

Post your question on your own and you will surely receive the answers that you need.

Edited December 4, 2008 by Dennis143 (see edit history)

[xiaofeizhu]

Hey!

 

I am an American woman (born and raised in Hawaii) but I am Asian. lol. However, if there is ever anything you have questions about, I would be glad to help you!

 

 

xiaofeizhu,

I have a question for you, do you happen to know if the DCF is only an option if you are a resident w/in China for the 6 months prior to filing?

 

I have just done the CR-1 route, but had formerly resided and been registered in China for just under 3 years when married but later ran into visa difficulties around the Olympics....I remember the lady at the US embassy had told me something about filing an immigration petition when I picked up my single status paperwork, but at the time I was like 'yeah, I don't think we'll need that' and didn't really pay attention. Funny how things work out

 

Anyway, I'm another female on this board. I think the other 'big question' how many people (men or women) didn't meet through the internet. So far I see xiaofeizhu and myself (baobeizhu...hehe oink oink)

 

 

Cheers!

 

HAHAHA I LOVE your screen name! Yay for the "zhu"s!! Anyway, I was told by DHS that you had to be living continuously for 6 months. This means that you can't have gone back home or anywhere outside of China for the previous 6 months, even if you have techinically been living there for longer. That's what the man told me anyway, but I was on an L visa. I hear a lot of people on work visas and maybe student visas don't have this waiting problem. Let me know if you have any other CR-1 related questions. I will try my best to help you!!

[pipi]

...

Anyway, I'm another female on this board. I think the other 'big question' how many people (men or women) didn't meet through the internet. So far I see xiaofeizhu and myself (baobeizhu...hehe oink oink)

 

 

Cheers!

 

I met my girl not on the internet, but on the job as she was working under me.

 

Also, to file the I-130 at the GUZ office, you need to have chinese working visa which shows you were in china at least 1/2 yr. This is written somewhere on the GUZ website.

[george lee]

...

Anyway, I'm another female on this board. I think the other 'big question' how many people (men or women) didn't meet through the internet. So far I see xiaofeizhu and myself (baobeizhu...hehe oink oink)

 

 

Cheers!

 

I met my girl not on the internet, but on the job as she was working under me.

 

Also, to file the I-130 at the GUZ office, you need to have chinese working visa which shows you were in china at least 1/2 yr. This is written somewhere on the GUZ website.

 

i met my wife thru my mother's friend's family at work.

[AmericanWoman]

I met my man on the net BUT not through a dating site or personals site. WOO. That is one you don't hear everyday! He didn't even believe I was a female OR an American, he thought I was one of his friends playing a joke on him because our personalities were THAT similar. I wish I could go back in time and have saved every conversation...*sigh*

AW

[Xu And Wang]

Hey!

 

I am an American woman (born and raised in Hawaii) but I am Asian. lol. However, if there is ever anything you have questions about, I would be glad to help you!

 

 

xiaofeizhu,

I have a question for you, do you happen to know if the DCF is only an option if you are a resident w/in China for the 6 months prior to filing?

 

I have just done the CR-1 route, but had formerly resided and been registered in China for just under 3 years when married but later ran into visa difficulties around the Olympics....I remember the lady at the US embassy had told me something about filing an immigration petition when I picked up my single status paperwork, but at the time I was like 'yeah, I don't think we'll need that' and didn't really pay attention. Funny how things work out

 

Anyway, I'm another female on this board. I think the other 'big question' how many people (men or women) didn't meet through the internet. So far I see xiaofeizhu and myself (baobeizhu...hehe oink oink)

 

 

Cheers!

 

Hi there. I might be able to help you. It seems our stories are pretty similar...I had lived in Beijing since 2005, and I married my wife in May 2008 as well (though she was a Beijinger, so it was easy). We then filed our DCF paperwork at the Beijing Department of Homeland Security on June 10, since I knew my visa would run out. (see here for the whole rigamarole)

 

As a side note, after 3 years of dealing with visas, I had learned that I would need to leave China in order to switch to an L visa (from my F), so we took our honeymoon in the U.S.! (Perhaps luckier than most people here, my wife had a tourist visa to the US from before we married, based on us taking a Christmas vacation together to meet my family). This allowed me to change my visa in Chicago and be back for the Olympics. I'm now in Ann Arbor, MI, starting a PhD.

 

Now, I remember when I was talking to the DHS about filing my DCF application, they said that since I had lived in China for so long, no restriction on time length existed. I imagine the answer would be the same for you. I know their address and phone number have changed since the opening of the new embassy, but you should definitely call them and set it up- as you can see from my timeline, we breezed through relatively quickly, even with some of self-caused delays in the process. Let me know if I can help you with anything.

 

(Oh, and we met in a restaurant because of a mutual friend )

 

-Ryan

[Sebastian]

Ryan, not to hijaak this thread, but - did you EVER look into getting a residency permit AFTER you were married in China?

[Xu And Wang]

Ryan, not to hijaak this thread, but - did you EVER look into getting a residency permit AFTER you were married in China?

 

Well, if by residency permit you mean the fabled D visa...I knew I couldn't. The only thing that you are helped with by being married to a Chinese citizen is you have access to continual one-year multiple entry L visas. That's what I'm on now. This is how I managed to stay in China during the Olympics, when nearly everyone else I knew had trouble. There is that "Chinese green card" that requires like 5 years of marriage living in China or something, but that will always be a long shot.

 

Now, I did get a temporary residency certificate, in a similar way to the way I would get them from when I had an F visa. After coming back from our honeymoon with my 1-month L visa, I registered with the neighborhood of her mom (since that was her hukou address), and then her mom went with me to the local police station, where I got the temporary certificate. (I'm sure this process is familiar to anyone whose lived in China for a substantial length of time, but it was eased tremendously by the fact that we were married). I then used this temporary certificate to get my one-year L visa from the Beijing PSB. (Note that everything is connected to the location of your spouse's hukou- I know its not as convoluted in other places, like Shenyang). I then went BACK to the police station, where I got my one-year temporary residency certificate, which I hold now.

 

Now, I'm not technically allowed to work, but if I ever did go back for a few months, I'm sure I could teach English under the radar.

 

Hope that answers your question.

-Ryan

[Sebastian]

Ryan - yup - answered my question !!! I really thought the temp residency certificate would not involve much more than bringing yer wife and IDs, marriage books and hukuo - then a permit is granted.

 

Anyway, you go one NOW, after all the rigamarol(e).

[pipi]

Hi Ryan,

 

I've been in China continuously since 2002 and I filed my I-130 (Oct 25, 2008) and I-129F with a thick stack of photocopies of my china working visas. And I also married my wife 2yrs before we even filed these applications. And we were both never married before. So...logically I should breeze thru the process faster than you, may Buddha bless me and all the friends here!

 

Also, I did get kicked out of China because of the Olympics. Even with my marriage certificate they gave me only 1/2 yr tourist visa.

 

Yr 2008 was a disaster for china (hurricanes, winter freeze, earthquake) and most of the foreigners got kicked out. I wonder if the Beijing Olympics made it all up!

[whome?]

Since it has been bothering me.... am I the only white American female filing for an asian man or are there others out there???

 

American Woman

 

Why does this bother you? It does not bother me that whenever I am back in USA most women like to whisper that I married a chinese girl because I was not goo enough for a USA woman. Who cares what others think?