Ping Still Asking About Paper

[Back Again]

So this forum is where the old-timers hang out. I guess that makes sense, given the passage of time. I see a lot of familiar names on this forum.

 

Ping has been a permanent resident for 10 years now. We filed her N-400 with a Receipt Date of December 19, 2018 and we went to have her biometrics done on January 18, 2019. One of the first places I took Ping and Angela after they arrived in Houston was Costco, and I have not forgotten how Ping whispered a question in my ear when she said she was going to the restroom. "Will they have paper there?

 

Well, ten years later she asked the question again when we were at the Application Support Center on Friday. I guess that concern becomes engrained after you live in China for many years.

 

The processing time in Houston for an N-400 is rather slow these days, with an estimated time range of 17 to 20.5 months the last time I checked. So we are looking at May to September 2020 before she can expect an interview.

 

We live in Fulshear, Texas now, about 20 miles West of where we lived in Houston. We bought a four bedroom home in Cross Creek Ranch in late October and we are almost settled in here. We prepped our home in Houston for sale and the listing just went live on the Internet yesterday. Our new home is a beautiful one-story home in a beautiful neighborhood and we enjoy everything about it. We have more than 20 lakes and some 15 miles of walking trails here, and we walk around the lake nearest our home pretty much every day, often more than once. And we still hold hands everywhere we walk.

 

One of Ping's desires was to live in a home where we can walk our grandchildren (when they arrive and are old enough) to elementary school every day. Our new home meets that desire in a great way. It is just a 10 minute walk along the lake to the elementary school, and many children from our neighborhood walk or ride their bikes to school every day.

 

Another of Ping's desires was to have a home that faces West so that the morning sunshine can flood our bedroom windows. We also met that desire in a big way. We have a wall of windows in our master bedroom, a wall of windows in the living room that adjoins our bedroom, and a wall of windows in Angela's bedroom that adjoins the living room on the other side. Every morning when I get up I open the plantation shutters on our bedroom windows so the morning sunshine can awaken Ping as it floods into our bedroom. There is a 12 foot ceiling in our bedroom and the windows go almost to the top, so that is a lot of sunshine. I open the wooden blinds in the living room so I can enjoy the morning sunshine, and there we have a 16 foot ceiling, and again the windows go to the top. The windows in Angela's bedroom are the same as in our bedroom, but she is usually up and gone to work before the morning sunshine arrives, except on weekends when she sleeps late and enjoys that morning sunshine.

 

Our home is on a cul-de-sac corner, so no through traffic to deal with and no neighbors on the South side except across the street. It is an extended cul-de-sac with about 20 homes on it. Our neighbors directly across the street are a young Chinese couple with two young children. The man's parent's are visiting from China, and to our surprise, his parents are from Shandong Province, just like Ping and Angela. What are the odds of that happening. The little boy's name is Edward, and he is very outgoing, always wanting to talk to us and come in to see our home. The little girl is less than a year old and the grandfather dotes on her, pulling her through the neighborhood in her baby carriage.

 

Ping has been arranging a Chinese New Year's party to be held at our home on February 2. The decorating she has done in our home is exquisitely beautiful, and I know she wants to share it with her friends. I love my home office with French Doors and a wall of windows that face North, and Ping also has a home office at the front of our home, also with French Doors, and her wall of windows face to the West. In my home office I have my partner's desk, leather chairs, and hand-carved mahogany breakfront from my law firm office. In Ping's office we have a gold and black Rosewood desk shaped like a U with paintings of Storks on it, with a matching table and matching cube, and Rosewood chairs, with Angela's Gu Zheng (21 string Chinese zither), that give it the feel of a Chinese Tea Room.

 

I have a wall-mounted flat-screen TV in my home office, and in the living room we have a wall-mounted flat-screen TV with two matching leather recliner/rocking chairs facing it so Ping and I can spend our rocking years together. She and Angela use You Tube to watch their Chinese movies, and I use my TV to keep up with the news and sports. Ping has created a garden in our backyard, complete with many plants and flowers, including some Chinese plants with fragrant flowers, all which we can enjoy from our patio that receives that morning sunshine. We are looking for matching rocking chairs for the patio so we can spend many hours there, just sitting and talking and enjoying the great outdoors in our back yard.

 

But for now I need to stop and enjoy the congee that Ping just placed on my desk. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect that my marriage to and life with Ping would be the best thing that ever happened to me, but it is true. We feel very lucky to be together, and Angela is a fantastic daughter as well.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Back Again (see edit history)

[dnoblett]

That's crazy slow, back when my wife did her's it was perhaps 4 months for Buffalo NY

[Back Again]

It is crazy slow these days. I can remember when it was only 3 months, but those days are long gone. But we are together, so it isn't difficult to wait like it was when we were going through the K-1 visa process.

[Corey&Xu]

We filed on September 5,2018 and she had her Oath Ceremony on January 9,2019..........We are in Raleigh NC.

Pretty fast considering the Holidays.

 

I enjoy reading your posts, they also get me thinking of all of the blessings that I share with my beautiful bride.

I hope it goes quicker then you think. The Oath Ceremony was a very enjoyable experience, nice to see people happy to be part of the USA.

[Randy W]

You can tell Ping that, if she wants to come back, they've got her covered!

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/10155860486244820/

[Back Again]

We filed on September 5,2018 and she had her Oath Ceremony on January 9,2019..........We are in Raleigh NC.

Pretty fast considering the Holidays.

 

I enjoy reading your posts, they also get me thinking of all of the blessings that I share with my beautiful bride.

I hope it goes quicker then you think. The Oath Ceremony was a very enjoyable experience, nice to see people happy to be part of the USA.

Congratulations Corey and Xu. Ping waited to file until now because she will turn 50 next year and will file for medical care in China while she is still a Chinese citizen. Her thinking is that even though she will live in the U.S., if there comes a time when she is in China and needs medical care, it would be nice to be covered by medical care there. She is covered by CHAMPVA in the U.S. for the rest of her life with no premiums, a $50 annual deductible, and a co-pay that is capped at $3,000 annually. When she turns 65 and adds Medicare, the combination will be even better for her.

[Back Again]

You can tell Ping that, if she wants to come back, they've got her covered!

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/10155860486244820/

LOL Randy. I bet she still carries paper everywhere she goes in China even if the toilet revolution were to change things there.

[Back Again]

Well it turns out that the Chinese plants with the fragrant flowers that Ping planted in the garden she created in our yard are more than just for looks and smell. Yesterday Ping made some Pu'er tea to which she added some of those fragrant flowers, and the flowers brought a more mellow taste to the tea.

[gzbabi]

That's crazy slow, back when my wife did her's it was perhaps 4 months for Buffalo NY

In Texas here (Dallas), my wife N-400 also took almost 2 years, she got her citizenship last March

[fluffyballs]

 

That's crazy slow, back when my wife did her's it was perhaps 4 months for Buffalo NY

In Texas here (Dallas), my wife N-400 also took almost 2 years, she got her citizenship last March

 

 

USCIS is backed up worse than a toilet at a Mexican buffet right now. At most field offices you're looking at 1+ year for AOS, 2+ years for ROC, N400 - who knows.

 

Worst part is that our state's DMV and other agencies are super backlogged as well , which makes it hard to get a license (appointments for raod exam booked out 3+ months in advance). My wife applied for a state ID in mid Dec 2018 and we just received it a few days ago.

Edited February 4, 2019 by fluffyballs (see edit history)

[Back Again]

I had forgotten I wrote this post back when we first started the N-400 process. The waiting time that USCIS posted kept getting longer after we filed the N-400,

with the range extending out almost 2 years. But as I indicated in another post, we unexpectedly received Ping's interview notice just 7.5 months after we filed

the N-400, and her interview was yesterday, which was just shy of 9 months after we filed the N-400. The short end of the range posted by USCIS was 14.5 months

so we were lucky to even beat that shorter end of the range. Ping passed her tests and the interview and we are waiting for the notice to attend the oath ceremony.

[Dennis143]

You can tell Ping that, if she wants to come back, they've got her covered!

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/10155860486244820/

How do they plan on stopping all the tissue and paper towel theft? Does one still need to bring their own paper when visiting a toilet in China?

[Randy W]

 

You can tell Ping that, if she wants to come back, they've got her covered!

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/10155860486244820/

How do they plan on stopping all the tissue and paper towel theft? Does one still need to bring their own paper when visiting a toilet in China?

 

 

 

My picture at the top is unique - the dispensers are full every time we've been there. The hotel it's at (in Wucai Tianyuan) even filled in its parking lot with dirt and planted a garden - see

Wu Cai Hotel.

 

But yes, paper is still pretty much on a "bring your own" basis, except for an occasional oasis.

[Randy W]

Thanks to people like this - from the SCMP on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/vb.355665009819/691559038022380/?type=2&theater

 

South China Morning Post

· 9 hrs ·

Elderly people take toilet paper from public washroomThe next time you reach for some toilet paper and don't find any... this might be why.

More stories on Chinese society here: sc.mp/chinasociety

 

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/vb.355665009819/691559038022380/

[amberjack1234]

That was funny. I showed it to Lee and she said what are they doing that for? Me: What do you think to take home and wipe their bum with. I said "Chinese people are so tight that they squeak when they walk" She said "That's just crazy. She has been in the states to long I am going to have to send her back to China for retraining.