Melrose Plant

God, Marc Ellis is still around? Hahahahaha. We hired him, and though he is one weird dude, he did us a good job. I think in addition to having been around so long that he seems to have a certain amount of pull at the consulate, he also seems to have a 6th sense about whether your putative spouse is the real deal. After our consultation, he pulled me aside and said, "Son, you know you're a lucky man. I've seen a lot of couples come through here, and I can tell you that she really loves you, not like a lot of them who are looking for a ticket to the U.S." It turns out he was right.

This is the Land of the Brave and Free. We have 5% of the world's population yet use up about a third of its resources.

We are fighting 6 wars now for nothing but corporate profit and you want to come over as a tree hugger? That's so un-American and makes you subject to the Patriot Act.

Better watch you back, Lady!

Haha, Bob, I know what you mean. We seem to hate conserving resources. It's inconvenient, isn't it?

OK, thank you very much for your replies. I think I'm gonna go with the one-sided version, just because it's easier, and what the hell, it only wastes 5 extra pieces of paper.

And yes, I know, I need to update my timeline. I'll get it done soon.

OK, I may be worrying about minutia here, but I can find nothing in any instruction that speaks to this matter. Is it important whether you print on both sides of the page? I'd really like to use 2 sided-printing to save paper, but I know some places don't like it because sometimes the information on the opposite side bleeds through, making it difficult to read. Thanks.

Oops, I meant "physically."

I just got 30 $2 bills to give as gifts. These Vietnamese are strange folk.

I have news about Crazy Linda.

She also disappeared from my sight as well. I never did meet her in person, but I spent (or wasted, as the case may be) many hours of my life listening to her and trying to give her constructive advice about her case.

About 3 months ago, I was on Yahoo Messenger, and Holland (using the ID Linda Chaidez) came online. I dashed off a quick message to her. Something to the effect of, I haven't seen you in an age. She did not respond. Several days later, the same thing happened again. I again sent a short greeting to her. She responded with "Who are you?" I though that was pretty rich, so I responded with something slightly snotty. Anyhow, after several more back and forths, it came to light that the person I was chatting with was not in fact Holland Ashley, but the REAL Linda Chaidez. Linda Chaidez was evidently at one time Holland's landlady, and she claimed that Holland had for the past year or more, appropriated her name for as she put it, "God knows what purpose." Now pieces of the puzzle started to fit together. That's right. Holland did admit early on that she was not really Linda Chaidez.

Anyway, Linda (the real Linda) said that this Tuan, aka Tan, was here in the U.S., and she thought he and Holland were living in Arizona somewhere. She didn't know any more than that.

I hope Holland will come back to VJ and tell her story, but I don't think that's likely from the sound of things. Good luck, Holland and Tuan, wherever you are.

If you have good internet connection (or even a sometimes questionable one), you can use Skype to call U.S. phones (or other Chinese phones, for that matter) for 2.1 ¢ a minute. My wife used Skype for over a year to call me every day on my cell phone at morning coffee break before we lived together. Just don't try to call your Vietnamese friends using Skype, though. That'll cost you 30-something cents per minute.

I just want to ask at the interview if it is required a big sum of money must have in the bank otherwise the visa is denied??? Thanks.

The correct answer has already been given--no, you don't have to (I ought to know, because I don't).

Weird to have posted this in the China forum, though. Must have been a mistake.

After all this time, I'm busted. My wife noticed today that my avatar looks remarkably like a Chinese lady from Guangzhou. I guess I'll have to change it eventually.

See, that's kind of what I thought, it's operator error. My family is not poor, and can eat whatever they wish. My wife never really had to cook in her life until this year. Back in 'Nam, chị Hương kept the family fed, and I don't remember such repetition. In fact, chị Hương boasts that she knows 1000 dishes by heart. Chị Hương is also bốc phết.

Thanks for the reply. By the way, I had bún for dinner tonight. With bean sprouts and beef.

So, let's bring this full circle--sort of. It's been nearly a year now, and pretty much all I've eaten for a year is phở, bún, mì, và cơm. With various meats and vegetables thrown in for variety. Some variety. Just a tad of variety. OK, very little variety. I blame this at least partially on Texas BBQ, or rather, the poor timing of our visit there. It was probably a bad time to introduce her to huge, fatty, rich slabs of meat, the like of which she'd never seen or tasted before. It was too much to take in at once. She absolutely hated it.

Now, a year later, she is much less negative on many American foods, but she won't touch anything that even mentions the word barbecue. I have to be careful to refer to that outdoor cooking appliance as a grill, or just forget it.

But still, we eat phở, bún, mì, and cơm. I refuse to eat miến any more because I hate those slimy noodles. Did I really eat that big a variety before, or am I just stuck in a different, Vietnamese rut now? I honestly don't remember. I can say for sure that cooking is pretty much like any other skill. If you don't do it often, you lose some of your skill at it. I am amazed at how easily I can screw something up now.

So, is Vietnamese food really that boring? Or is it just the cook in our house? She never really cooked all that much before. At her house, her sister-in-law does 99% of the cooking every day. She's come a looooong way in a year. Still, I hunger for some Texas BBQ. How about you folks?

Yes! That's it! Crunchy water! Evidently in English, it's called a pomelo, then.

As a footnote, one sometimes must be careful writing Vietnamese on an English keyboard. In the instant circumstance, we understand "BUOI" to mean bưởi. However, if you spelled it buồi, it might have a quite different meaning, and I might be offended you called me that without provocation.

Oh, and by the way, thanks Chuck. That's been bugging me for a while. Now I can rest easy.

This fruits are quite large, bigger than a softball, and they are firm like a citrus fruit. I believe they are a citrus fruit of some kind.

Good luck to you and your wife Dan. And hasn't that ####### been dead long enough now to be Ông Hồ yet? I've even got a few little kids that call me Ông at age 41.

Hey does anybody know what the English name for a particular fruit is? It seems like it's related to a grapefruit, but there are no little segments--it comes apart more like an orange. It's yellow in color, and there's a LOT of bio-mass waste. You throw away way more than you eat. I've eaten just a ton of that fruit in Vietnam. I don't particularly enjoy it all that much, it just gets shoved in my face. It's rather tasteless to me. I refer to it personally as "crunchy water." Kind of like the fruit version of Iceberg lettuce. Anybody have any idea what I'm talking about?

BTW, I like the Mangosteen also. I had no idea what it was called. I also really like lychees, but they're not in season for too long.

Dam Hoi is something that HCMC likes to see for K1's.

Excuse me for veering slightly off topic - Our engagement ceremony was called "Lễ Đính Hôn", rather than "Đám Hŏi". I had seen "Đám Hŏi" mentioned in this forum several times before our engagement ceremony, so I naturally asked my fiancee and her family what was the difference. They either weren't able to explain it, or just said there was no difference. My limited understanding is that "Lễ Đính Hôn" means "engagement", whereas "Đám Hŏi" means "marriage proposal". Other than the name difference, it looked pretty much like other engagement ceremonies I've seen. Same red and blue ao dai. Same procession of the groom's family with the gifts. Same big party afterward.

So, are these terms used interchangeably, or this is a regional difference? Most of the people who've mentioned "Đám Hŏi" seem to have SO's in the south, whereas my fiancee is from the central region around Hue city.

The difference in terminology is undoubtedly because you're dealing with Hue. They really do talk funny there. My Hanoi engagement ceremony was called a Lễ Ăn Hỏi. That's just what they call it up north. It's the same thing. The Saigon people do not have a monopoly on the language. Just on VJ

Hey, good luck to her on the interview. Just try to keep her calm, and I'm sure she'll do fine. My own wife, who is highly educated and speaks English reasonably well, just went to pieces a couple days before the interview, and made all kinds silly mistakes during our practice sessions due to extreme nervousness. Thank goodness the real interview was easy, and that they'd obviously decided to pass her before she ever showed up at the consulate.

Regardless of their smokeability (chokeability?), I wish I'd a-had some a-them at our wedding. Just for the "double happiness" bit. I can't remember what brand we gave away--some Vietnamese brand. Thing is, hardly anybody in my family smokes, so the few that do had a heck of a windfall out of that deal!

We had our interview in May last year. Does that count? Seriously, I can't believe it's been a whole year already. That goes for Dave_Thao, Haonie, and some others I can't recall right this minute.

So much has happened in a year.

Good luck to all you May interviewees!

if you are past the point of no return, screw her man. you have to stay two steps ahead of her. seems like you have been two steps behind her. i don't mean to kick you when you are down, but dam. you have to protect yourself, do what is best for you, then make her life misarable. screw her. screw up her life. i'm sure there are some before and after pics of her surgery hanging around. send them to vn, show the neighbors, pass them around. That would cause huge damage to her and her family. i'm sure you can think of other things to mess with her, do them. Make it hard for her man.

I respectfully but strongly disagree with this suggestion for a number of reasons. Reason number one: There is a child involved. Or children. I don't know how many you have. If you do wind up divorcing, both of you owe it to them to be adult enough so that they don't become totally screwed up themselves when they become adults.

Reason number two: Revenge is so sweet--or is it? Yeah, it feels good for a while, I'll admit. But how will you feel two years later? Five years later? Twenty years later? I speak from experience--not so good. A lot of energy is wasted on revenge, energy that could otherwise be used for positive things.

Reason number three: Purposefully making trouble for your soon-to-be-ex-spouse winds up costing you a hell of a lot more money than not purposefully making trouble for her. Period.

Alls I'm sayin' is it's OK to be firm. It's OK to stand up for yourself. It's OK to say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more." Just remember to be as civil and polite as you can force yourself to be. It ain't easy, I know.

And lastly, I really hope you guys can work it out in the end, and not have to follow (or ignore) ANY of my advice. Good luck to you.

It's good to see a few people on here from the other end of the country. I thought we were the only ones.

One thing's for sure--I'm sure Jack doesn't really care that we hijacked his thread. In fact, I think it's the furthest thing from his mind. Congratulations once again Jack and Xuan!

Vietnamese women convince men to eat all kinds of crazy things under the guise of "improving men's health." I personally believe it's more of a subconscious control issue, myself. Do the various crazy things actually work? Maybe some of them do. But I have only anecdotal evidence to prove it. And I can't really go back to the same set of circumstances and not eat the crazy things to see whether my "health" declines. But it does make for some pretty good stories.

Too true! My fiancee has asked me a couple of times to bring nutritional supplements that are either difficult to find or too expensive in Vietnam. She has made some odd concoctions for me to treat some relatively mild ailments. I've eaten or drank pretty much everything she gave me, but only after insisting I know exactly what's in it, and confirming that it isn't going to make me sick. I can't help but feel that some of the ingredients are chosen for their horrible taste, rather than any specific health benefit.

My fiancee thought western medicine actually made people more sick. She changed her mind in January when I gave her two Advil for a headache. On my last trip, whenever we were packing my backpack for a day trip, she made sure the Advil was packed!

Luckily, I don't have that problem, as Bố is a Western doctor. That is, he practices Western-style medicine. One entire large cupboard in the kitchen is a pharmacy! However, that sure doesn't stop other family members from concocting all sorts of awful tasting and smelling stuff for various things.

Jeez, I'm sorry to hear that. It just goes to prove that there are crazy people all over the world.

Vietnamese women convince men to eat all kinds of crazy things under the guise of "improving men's health." I personally believe it's more of a subconscious control issue, myself. Do the various crazy things actually work? Maybe some of them do. But I have only anecdotal evidence to prove it. And I can't really go back to the same set of circumstances and not eat the crazy things to see whether my "health" declines. But it does make for some pretty good stories.