TotalTommyTerror

Is there any way to get a sticky on this thread? It'd be nice for all the chinese based visa cases to see an interview review thread right up top.

Here's ours:

First, I gotta say I recommend getting to Guangzhou at least 7-12 days prior to the interview. I think if I came down with 5 to go we would have been shot down.

The medical exam took us three business days to get back, but 5 actual days (she got her exam on a Friday.) And it seemed like almost every day I was finding something else that I should have included in our packet, right up to the day before.

Among those was what's called proof of domicile. When went to the notary appointment (speaking of which, make an appointment before you go, as early as you can for the notary service, because when I booked on Friday, they had nothing available until the Monday of the next week), anyways, the notary, the lady I talked to there looked over my intent to marry letter and relationship letter and mentioned the domicile stuff. Just an email from my parents saying they were providing us with a place to stay (I've been in china for two years), I printed out online bank statements, and had an uncle that owns a business write me an email with an interview offer (not even legitimate really, but how would they know?)

That's all to establish a kind of residency that we'll be going back to in the states.

Also, make the time to get yourself to the American Citizen's Hour every Monday at 2:30 (be there at 2). Now, this thing didn't work like I thought it would. I thought it would be a group Q&A session, but it's basically a one on one you have with a visa officer. Personally I would have preferred the group thing, because by the time I did this, I had zero questions, but I was ready to take notes on other people's inquiries.

My questions had to do with the proof of relationship and the support forms. About the cash: he said they look for 125% above the poverty level (at the time I went it was $18,213).

As for relationships, I'm sure overseas loves have a nigh on impossible time dealing with this, but my fiancee and I have been living together in china since late October of last year. And as the officer said, people living together, reasonably should have lots of pictures, which we did.

Our personal documents included more than a dozen pictures, air travel receipts (with our names on them), insurance tickets for some other tickets (when we didn't have the tickets), we even had a pair of tickets when we went to go see The Nutcracker during our Christmas trip to Shanghai.

To seal the deal, we included pictures of our dog. From his puppy stages to the adorable demon monster he's grown up to be. You want proof people have a relationship? That they have a dang dog together.

Okay, enough with the preamble, here's the interview day stuff.

We got there about 6:30am and there were already plenty of people in line, and in typical chinese fashion, nobody respected personal space. Deodarant, gone in 15 minutes. At about 7:10am the building guards came out with rails to corral people and organized the mob into lines (some girl was trying to cut in front of us but we wouldn't have none of that, and neither would nobody else in the line, ha ha, back of the row!)

At about 7:20, they started handing out number tickets and letting people go in. They don't allow the any accompanying party (even if you're an American citizen) until after 9am. But I was way too nervous to be waiting next to my fiancee, so I just did it right outside the exit to the consulate.

We had all of our stuff organized very neatly in plastic folders using little post-it tabs and paper clips for each section we needed (like tax forms together, copies of passports together, that sort of stuff.) And we rehearsed every night for the 4-5 nights before the interview how she should present the information.

Things like saying "This is my fiancee's affidavit, these are his taxes showing his income for etcetera etcetera". Other stuff like going over our pictures, explaining my numerous visas (between my tourist and resident visas).

Now, I used to be an IELTS instructor here, so I'm very familiar with teaching people about interviewing with foreigners. So I made sure that she did a few things I felt were very important. The first was that she never ever refer to me as "my fiancee" that instead she used my name. Maintaing eye contact, smile, and keep her speaking in a natural flow. Anybody who's heard chinese people rehearse answers knows that they tend to come off sounding like a memorized robotic language, and if I were an officer, I would seriously scrutinize that tone when evaluating the validity of a relationship.

She's unsure of the time frame, since they confiscate all electronics before going in (who wears watches when cellphones work just as well?) and I did not see a single clock any time I was in the same building.

First she had to hand over all of our documentation, which was the first part of the weirdness, because on my affidavit of support, I do not make enough to support her, so my mom was ready to be the co-sponsor. But the chinese lady at the window seemed to think my stuff was enough. Handed her a number, called her up, had her testity to the validity of the submitted forms, called her number again, fingerprinted her, she sat down, called her number again for the interview.

I estimate that she interviewed around 9:50am, because she had passed quickly and I saw her roundabouts 10am.

The officer asked her 5 questions.

"What's your fiance's name?"

"When did you meet?"

"How did you meet?"

"What will you do when you go to America?"

"When will you leave?"

The first 3 answers she explained (private!), the fourth she mentioned she'd go to the university of our city, the officer asked if both of us would go, "yes."

The last one, her answer was "We have a dog that we have to get a travel certificate for, and after we do that we'll leave? You want to see our dog's pictures?"

He said "Sure" and that's when she showed our pictures to the guy, who mentioned that our dog was "cute".

He said, "Okay, you passed" handed her the pink slip, she walked over to the counter to pay for the 20rmb delivery fee (pay for the damn delivery but we gotta pick it up... America...)

Our interview was on Tuesday, we had the visa on Thursday, we've made our travel arrangements and are just waiting to jet on out of here.

Her thoughts were that it was pretty easy to pass, it was like interviewing at a bank, and that most of the chinese people's stories she read online about failed interviews, were obviously people that weren't prepared because they were morons or lazy.

(Not that America makes it easy, but they do that for a reason.)

She noted that one person she saw failed, didn't correctly answer the question "When was your fiance born?" I'm not sure how big of a criteria that is for pass/fail, but people that have a relationship remember stuff like that to the number.

My postscript thoughts: I think what got us through is what I learned from here. That the people that pass are the ones that are super-over-prepared. I was so paranoid in the whole run up to this thing, and I think, that if you're not paranoid, you've done something wrong.

While we were in line, I took stock of what people were taking with them into the interview, it's pretty obvious to know who failed and who passed. Those of us who have been there know the difference between the people walking either towards the law offices for the rejection petitions, or the ones walking directly to the travel agencies. And most of the people I saw walking out in failure were carrying little to no paperwork with them.

As many have said before, better to have too much rather than too little.

Man, I kinda rambled there.

First of all, thanks to this place and those that offered their help, it was certainly beneficial.

We went in today, she passed, but here's what's making me nervous.

I am not really in a great financial position, to put is bluntly, I'm poor as hell, so my mom offered to be a co-sponsor (I'm poor as hell, she's rich as hell, perfect balance.)

But, the chinese lady who took my fiancee's forms didn't take my mom's affidavit (even though my fiancee showed it to her) and the officer even approved the case.

I mean, I'm happy we passed, but should this be something that worries me? Or is the financial stuff just one thing that may not matter if everything else is in a row.

(I would think our relationship is more than bonafide, we've been living together for almost a year and have plenty of photographic proof of it.)

Thoughts?

Yeah! Take him down a peg!

21 kids 11 moms means some of these girls opened their legs more than once...

I can't help but think that somewhere along the lines, common sense and the public education system failed them.

Banned by the Beijing government moments after it's release, this film exposes the reality of corruption, greed, avarice, and wanton disregard for morality endemic in the Chinese life.

45 minutes in china exposes the reality of corruption, greed, avarice, and wanton disregard for morality...

I've been here 2 years, and yeah, I'd agree, from the sound of it, that film's just telling it like it is. (And the chinese hate that.)

I think I'll try and find it.

I love the argument that marriage is "sacred" or we have to preserve the "tradition" of it.

For one, the "tradition" of marriage changes every 10-20 years. It wasn't that long ago that interracial couples didn't get blessings for marriage.

As for the "sacred" state. As Chris Rock put it... "Michael Jackson got married!"

I have an appointment at the consulate for the notary services. One of the forms (I'm sure) that needs to be notarized is the certificate of legal capacity/intent to marry that my fiancee must sign.

Does she need to be present in front of the notary officer? And if so, is it a pain in the butt to get her inside the consulate to do so?

I made our appointment on monday last week, (man it really bites they were taking so much time off this week, cause our interview is Tuesday and the only available day between last monday and next tuesday, was next monday.)

I'm a little confused on whether or not my fiancee should get her vaccinations before the interview or after.

The exam hospital says that she should come back after passing the interview to get her vaccinations.

The medical exam forms are a little confusing to me, and I want to be sure that we don't show up on the interview date and have them slam us with a reschedule because we didn't get the vaccinations at the right time.

Help is always appreciated.

My fiancee was with me in Chongqing when we needed one of these from her home city of Qingdao. Her father was able to get one on his own with just her ID Card number, wasn't a problem he said. I think he may have taken their household register as well, to prove their relationship.

It was actually the second one we had to get, as the consulate won't accept them more than 1 year old (we initially sent one with our petition package.)

It's just a paper printed out by an officer that says she's clear of crimes or any felonious record.

If she has friends in the city or family, see if they could get it for her. Hopefully you could do that, but who knows. There's no such thing as "similar" when dealing from one chinese institution to the next.

I stopped by the consulate earlier this afternoon to get a couple of questions answered and found out that Monday the 25th of May, they won't be having this because of the Memorial Day holiday.

Kind of a bummer for me, because my fiancee's interview is the Tuesday the week after. And they said that's the only time the vo's are availing themselves for questioning.

I have a friend who said his affidavit for himself just stated zero income and he didn't even include his tax returns, since his dad was co-sponsoring his.

I'm kind of in the same boat, with no income, but I've got sponsors from relatives, and I'm pretty much doing the same thing, filling out an affidavit that says I've got nada.

A "relative" not "relatives" may act as a co-sponsor.

Hah, well, that's good to know. Means I need half as much paperwork from them now.

I have a friend who said his affidavit for himself just stated zero income and he didn't even include his tax returns, since his dad was co-sponsoring his.

I'm kind of in the same boat, with no income, but I've got sponsors from relatives, and I'm pretty much doing the same thing, filling out an affidavit that says I've got nada.

My fiancee and I are going to our medical exam in Guangzhou tomorrow and we neglected to get passport photos taken before we get there.

Does anybody know if the medical office can take their own photos there? I've had medical exams in China before and typically the hospitals take their own photos for my exams.

And if they don't anybody know of anyplace nearby that can print some up quickly? We're hoping to get the exam tomorrow and trying to avoid delaying it (albeit time isn't a problem for us right now.)