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Finally got visa!

turtle

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turtle

turtle

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Hi everyone, thanks for all the nice responses. Well I made it back after spending a few days in hong kong. My fiancee won't be here till Christmas, so a lot of things left to get ready. I can talk a little more about our experience last week. It was quite a blow to lose the hotel reservations on such short notice. It wasn't just guangzhou, but also the place we had reserved in hong kong for after the interview... As it turned out, we spent a couple nights in that shabby gz hotel, then found a room in the Victory Hotel for the night before and after the interview. The rate was about double the usual, but it was nice to have a clean place to stay! Me and my fiancee were amazed at the number of folks adopting cute chinese babies there.

 

About the medical exam, I read a bunch of previous posts, and watched I think it was Mark and Bea's video, so I had a pretty good idea what to expect. We only had 1 day, so we went to the place on Shamian Island. As I said, got there a little after 8:30. From the look of the place, I'd guess people had been lining up before 8:00 (when the place opens). There are about 5-6 stations you pass through. First is registration, second is give them some biographical info. Third is a height/weight machine which is displayed to the whole room (I'm sure all the girls love this, my fiancee certainly was thrilled). Next is the blood-draw. They test for a wide variety of things-- hepatitis and hiv to name a couple. Then it's time for the exams. First an ear-nose-throat exam, then an eye exam, complete with eye chart. Then an EKG. Next was the chest x-ray. Finally a quick exam by a female doctor. No pelvic exam or anything like that-- just a quick listen to the heart, touch stomach, and visual exam of body. That was it. The whole thing took about 1.5 hours. I was able to wander around to each of the stations with her, but could not go into the actual exam rooms. Most of them, like the ENT and eye exam, had a window where you could watch. We got same-day results at 4:00. The nice thing about the place on Shamian Rd. is that they give you a booklet listing all the results. You also get the chest x-ray at this time. The collected all of our documents (156s, 157s, giv, family comp forms, etc., plus the single certif, police certif, and birth certif) and put them in the sealed envelope. Make sure you've got at least 8 passport photos, since you need to glue 4 of them to the 156, 157 forms, then the medical staff needs 4 more to glue to the medical forms.

 

Hmm, about the interview. The woman started by asking my fiance if she spoke english. The rest of the interview was in english. It's interesting. There were a few items we worried about-- one being a couple of f1 student visa refusals from last summer. Before the actual interview, some chinese workers at the embassy ask some "pre-interview" questions. Apparently they scribble some notes for the vo based on this. One of these had to do with the f1 refusals, and my fiance saw some red marks the chinese worker put on the paper indicating that the vo should ask about this. Funny, though, during the interview, the vo started to ask about the f1 refusals, then stopped to talk to someone else (a trainee was watching the interview) and never came back to the topic. It does seem the interview was almost a foregone conclusion. The vo did not ask to see any of our documentation (although, as I mentioned, she was flipping through my application packet the entire time). My fiancee made a point to offer the photo album, and the vo spent some time looking over it. So I guess if you have some evidence you want them to see, make sure your fiance(e) offers it directly.

 

I waited in the parking lot the entire time she was in there. There were probably about 30-40 people waiting-- mostly family members. Not sure what % of the people interviewing were k1 or k3 or something else. I know we saw a lot of f2 people in the medical exam line the day before. There was only 1 other non-asian person among the group of waiting people, some guy who'd been teaching in china for 10 years and didn't seem in the least bit worried about the interview result. Of course of those 30-40 people I was just about the last one left!

 

My fiancee was worried about getting a blue slip the day after the interview, I guess there are some stories on this on 001. So we didn't celebrate too much after the first day, still worrying. The next day we were told to show up at 4:00. A large group of people (hard to say what % from the day before, although my fiancee hardly saw anyone get refused) showed up. They all had to wait in the courtyard outside the embassy, and one-by-one names were called over the loudspeaker to go up to a window and take the visa. This time, my fiancee's name was one of the first!

 

Overall the experience in gz was not so bad. The city seems pretty nice, although we didn't get to explore too much. We went to hong kong after the interview. My fiancee had to go as part of a tour through shenzhen, which was a total nightmare, as many here have mentioned. The shenzhen railstation/bus station is the worst I've seen, the station hotel was pretty dismal, and getting through the place was not fun. Definitely not recommeded if there's another way to do it.

 

Well, that's as much as I can remember as far as useful tips go. Now just waiting for my fiancee to get here and start our new life.

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Robert S.

Robert S.

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Yes, Turtle, all right, that is great!!! I am so pleased to hear everything went well, especially because you have been such a great contributor in tracking the time lines as Clifford reminds us. Thanks for all your telling the whole story the way you do, very enjoyable. Now you must consult Don's definitive list of how to get ready, good thing you've got all the way until Christmas. I'll be looking forward to hearing the rest of the story in the future.

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mlspyl

mlspyl

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Congratualations to you and your fiancee !!!!

 

We are happy to hear your good fortune on the successful interview. We also appreciate the detailed report on the actual experiece of the medical exam and interview.

 

We save all post information on actual interview experiences. The more information that can be gathered makes the interview process less threating when the day actual arrives.

 

 

Goodbye from Pei Yun & Mark

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