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Thread: I'm off to Shenzhen in February

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[quote=LHAYS1,262484]I'm off to Shenzhen in February. This will be my first trip to Mainland China. I'm going to see a lady I met online. We have been writing back and forth for almost six months...I would have gone sooner, but this is the soonest I can take my vacation from work.

This whole adventure has been an amazingly wonderful adventure and a nightmare of Hollywood porportions at the same time.

While we get closer with every daily letter, that closeness breeds a desire to be together. So, we embarked on that journey. I am flying over in February so we can spend Spring Festival together.

She is, as I write this, in Changchun gathering documents...birth certificate, Marriage Status Certificate, Death Certificate of her late husband, Letter of No Record from Police, Passport,..having all this translated...what an ordeal!!!!

For an American, this is all no big deal..a few phone calls, an email or two and all these documents come flooding into our mailboxes.....no sweat!

For her....take an unpaid leave from her job, fly a few thousand miles, stand in endless lines for an entire day for one document and in the case of applying for her passport....she stood in line for 31 hours!!!!!! yes folks...2 1/2 days in one line!!!!....

The Letter of No Record from the Changchun Police will cost her a months pay. All these documents, then the translations and the multiple copies will cost her almost a years pay by the time she is done including the airfare....

Oh..and on top of all of that, when she arrived in Changchun, she found out her son (he is 22 and finishing up college) had to have surgery on December 26th. So, now she has put the document gathering on hold while she looks after her son.

I can tell from the letters she writes that she is bone weary, frustrated, scared about the cost (and no, she wont accept any money from me for this) and has no idea when she will be able to get it all done.

Ladies and Gents of the Western World...we have it soooooo easy!!!....I try to bolster her spirits with every email, I try to make her laugh with every phone call...but you know, in truth, I (we) have no idea how hard it is to get anything done over there that doesnt involve simple commerce...it seems that is all their systems are set up for...anything else is an "unnormal circumstance" and cannot be handled easily...

She tells me she is doing her best to handle all of this bravely and optimistically since this is the first step to us being together. She know that is all must be completely perfectly so the USCIS will not accept it.

She really is wonderful, ya know!!!

I think I'm pretty lucky...

End of rant....thanks for listening!!![/quote]

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