The past few days have not been the best of my life, is one way to put it. At times such as these, this board is a life saver, really. Thank you all for your comments and support!
I'm afraid this will be a long one...
First of all (to abigbutt): It is partly my fault we have not been able to do a webcam meeting. I asked early on for a face to face webcam meeting and she said she was too shy to do it alone, she wanted a translator with her. Since she’s working in Foshan and the agency is located in her home town Zhanjiang, she would have to do a 400 km trip just for the webcam meeting. That made it anything but spontaneous. However, I have had trouble getting a webcam to work with my computer (I use a Mac). MSN on Mac does not support webcam at all and iChat doesn’t seem to work with other software. Simply put, it has been hard to make it happen and this fall has been one of the busiest of my entire life. So we’ve done EMF’s and Chinese emails. I have made repeated requests for her QQ number (and her phone number), I have given her mine and my MSN nick but she has always ignored these requests. I first thought that it was the translator who simply didn’t translate it to her but she has also ignored my requests when written in emails in Chinese. I don’t know why, but I am beginning to wonder (more on that topic further down).
JimB, I know I left some things out. I was upset and all I saw when I first read her letter was that she was going to a wedding on the day of my arrival. When I reread it, I saw the details too. That is why.
So, back on topic again then:
I sent a letter to my lady about the wedding thing on Tuesday night. I rewrote it several times and in the end, it was not an accusatory letter. I merely told her I was very surprised with the situation because we had already agreed on the plans and that I would not be able to accompany her to the wedding. I got a quick and short reply. She wrote that the wedding was ”put off” and that I did not have to worry anymore. She would write me a longer letter ”tonight”. That was on Wednesday.
I had promised her to send something special to her email on her birthday, December 3, but said I would wait until we had cleared the confusion that had arised (no pressure there!). So after the short reply from her, I felt I should send her the little surprise I had, which was a short recording of me speaking Chinese to her and wishing her happy birthday etc. I also attached a "Zhu Ni Shengri Kuaile" picture. (I had told her before that I would bring the real birthday gift myself when I go to China).
That was on Thursday morning Swedish time, (late afternoon Chinese time). Within 50 minutes from the moment I sent her the email, I receive her EMF, which she apparently wrote last night since it was dated December 2. She explained the situation, said she was sorry that she had caused the confusion and expressed her longing for our first meeting etc. Well, it is easier to just paste her explanation:
"These days I keep calling my friend to get the first hand information, hoping she will eventually put off the wedding ceremony, and my hope comes true! She told me she can't get the wedding photo album before the original date of wedding ceremony as planned, so she have to put of the ceremony. That means our plan to meet in Zhanjiang remains the same! The heavy stone in my heart is finally gone while I got this news."
I found it a bit weird but accepted the explanation, what else can I do. One thing bothers me, though. At the end of the letter, after the dating (December 2) she wrote a PS:
"I have got your beautiful birthday card and song from my email! I am so happy!!! Thank you so much, my love. I love you!!!!"
First of all, how could she possibly know about this in a letter written the day before? Did she immediately call/email the agency asking them to add that PS or (more likely) did the translator do it? If my lady wrote it, why didn’t she just send me a short reply on my email?
Second, I did not send her a song (it was an mp3-file, but it was certainly not a song!). Or was it just a mistranslation? What do you read out of this? Is her email controlled by the agency too? The email is an 126.com account, if that tells you anything.
To be honest, all I have to support that she’s real are the photos of her and her family. I would prefer the naked truth here if someone believe they’ve got it...:s