Author Topic: Leap of faith to Shanghai!  (Read 34911 times)

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Offline Willy The Londoner

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #15 on: May 29, 2013, 10:25:39 pm »
How many on here actually went through the 'Traditional Wedding Ceremony' as shown on the previous post.

We did not - it was a trip to the marriage office with her adult children. And that was it.  My wife was practical on this. The money saved would be money towards the home we now bought here.

A taxi ride a few packs of cigarettes and candy for the security and office staff and lunch in Changsha for 5.  Job done!

Willy


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Offline maxx

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #16 on: May 29, 2013, 10:47:31 pm »
Me and my wife had a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony. Nik and his wife did.Arnold and his wife did.

Offline maxx

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #17 on: May 29, 2013, 10:49:43 pm »
Martin like's to read the words of wisdom from the guppy.They have the same mentality level. ;D

Offline David E

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #18 on: May 29, 2013, 11:06:47 pm »
We planned to get married in Chengdu on June 8th (my birthday) so on June 4 we grabbed a carton of cigs and a big bag of sweets( to grease the wheels) and trolled off to the local Marriage Office just to check and make sure we had all the correct paperwork (you know how anal they get over this stuff)...15 mins later we were looking at each other on the sidewalk, clutching our red-books with a distinct feeling of disbelief and couldn't quite believe we had just got married....

But we did have a big wedding dinner bash on the next Saturday.

Offline David E

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #19 on: May 29, 2013, 11:15:07 pm »
Robert S

To your very real post about  marrying a Chinese woman, I must add that they are the most nosey people on the Planet....they need to know EVEYTHING about EVERYONE.

I have lived at my current address for 12 years and I thought I knew all the important stuff about my neighbors...you know, stuff like "what the guys do for a living, what motor does he drive, how much beer can he drink in an afternoon, and how he likes his steaks cooked...along with a reasonable estimate of their wives' bra size "...what more would you want to know about your neighbors ??

After a little over 18 months, I swear that Ming knows every micro detail about each of their lives from the moment they were born !!!...and I cant figure out for the life of me how she has managed to extract that much info...its not like we see them every day...must be a particular Chinese Women skill !!!!
« Last Edit: May 29, 2013, 11:16:53 pm by David E »

Offline john1964

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #20 on: May 30, 2013, 02:52:43 am »
I'm with you David, MinYing and I went to the marriage office in Shijiazhuang where we had all the correct paperwork then was given our RED books and we left, I asked MinYing "was that it ?", 3 or 4 times before it sank in, no ceremony though as my wife broke her wrist before the event and cancelled it  :(

Offline AbovetheLAW

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #21 on: May 30, 2013, 03:39:38 pm »
Hahaha! This article was so funny. Most of the things I haven't dealt with and actually don't plan on dealing with but it connects a lot of dots.

Ke Shu will always send me a picture of another woman who is beautiful and ask me what do I think of her. After playing this game a few times I got angry and told her to stop doing this and that I like her look the best, luckily she stopped, apologized and vowed to never do it again. My point is the part of the Chinese woman asking her husband "Are they prettier than me?" really hit home and I get aggravated at her insecurity sometimes but after I thought about you guys post and someone saying "Different culture/ different customs" I can to a new understanding and I have more patience with that part of her now.

The second thing was one day out of the blue she asked this question "Honey, if I come to America to live with you, do you mind if my mother comes and lives with us too?"
(Just a bit of a background, her parents are divorced, so she talks to her mom a lot) Now once I read this I responded with a laugh as I was laughing in real life. I thought it was a joke, I don't care who in the world i marry, I would never live with a mother in-law....Hell no. So She responded to me asking why I was laughing. At that point i realized she was serious and considered it maybe to be a custom. I told her about American customs and explained I wouldn't feel comfortable, she understood. 

As I said before the majority of these customs I simply wouldnt go for. Maybe im a bit close minded but...
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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #22 on: May 30, 2013, 05:08:04 pm »
David, I think it's just a Women's thing.. them digging up information from people close by. Qing is also very well equipped and digests info/looks/body language in way more detail then me or most Men do.

About the Parents coming over to the US is not that simple. First, you can sponsor your Wife (kids (under 18) if any), but her Parents "she" must sponsor them and for that she needs to be Citizen first, which takes five years from arriving in the States. So, any Mother inlay that wants to stay will have some waiting time on her hand first.

Offline Pineau

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #23 on: May 30, 2013, 06:19:25 pm »

As for the question, " is this girl prettier than me"?   I love it and I have a lot of fun teasing her with my answers. And its  great that you wife will point out all the pretty girls that are walking on the sidewalk. (be sure to pretend that she saw them first and you really hadn't noticed).

Mother in the house. for a visit, fine. Permanently, Don't do it. Mother in laws from China are very controlling. Jing's mom and dad came to live with us. Her mother became my surrogate housewife. It changes the whole dynamics of your family and household. I would never do it again.
Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
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Offline Willy The Londoner

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #24 on: May 30, 2013, 10:48:14 pm »
Looks like you may have to make a choice eventually.

 a) Have mother in law come live with you in few years time or

 b) Buy her a home in China and that request may came sooner than expected.

 c)  then wait for your wife to make more regular and longer trips to China as her mother ages with the years.

  Looking after parents is a intricate part of Chinese family life and I doubt if there are enough Western influences in this World that can break that!

 Willy
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Offline Pineau

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #25 on: May 31, 2013, 12:13:51 am »
Haha Willy, I did both. built her a new home AND let her come live with us.  I don't know why I don't have any money...hmmm  :'(
Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
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Offline Willy The Londoner

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #26 on: May 31, 2013, 01:44:56 am »
I did say that you had CHOICES. Not concede everything!   ;D But then probably the safest course in the long run. ::)

Willy
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Offline brett

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #27 on: May 31, 2013, 06:57:47 am »
Funny post, "The joys and trials of marrying a Chinese tiger wife ".

Chinese people do indeed eat everything, and the whole of everything.

While I like some food here (jiaozi, spicy cucumber) it's just so hard to adjust to a whole different way of eating. Sucking the meat off bones isn't something I was brought up to do, when I was a kid I just got given stuff like mash potato or fish fingers.

Last weekend I picked at some spicy chicken wings - Miss Huang left a pile of bones on her plate.

Also food quality here is much lower than back home, and Chinese people are accustomed to finding stones and sharp things in their food, while I'm not. I had a bit of internal trouble due to this  :-[.

Strangely, a lot of food here isn't that cheap either. Today I went to Carrefour, a pretty clean supermarket. Bananas there are more expensive than in England (and lower quality). And I wanted to buy some peppers, but most of them had gone off already. I made do with red onions (which are fairly indestructible) and cucumbers. Their fruit is better but it's not best to linger in that department when they're slicing up Durians  >:(.

And to answer why I don't buy vegetables locally - it's very hard to buy them. 90% of people who live here are students. None of the student dorms have kitchens, so the stores here only really sell fruit, plus one or two bits of gone off veg.

And needless to say all the furniture in my apartment is uncomfortable, although I bought a chair. The chairs in the University's Chinese student classrooms are the same size as they were in my junior school, lol.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2013, 07:05:22 am by brett »

Offline Willy The Londoner

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #28 on: May 31, 2013, 10:05:00 am »

And needless to say all the furniture in my apartment is uncomfortable, although I bought a chair. The chairs in the University's Chinese student classrooms are the same size as they were in my junior school, lol.
The first apartment I moved into had one of those solid wooden bench seats.  That was soon stood on end on the balcony and I went out and bought a $1500 comfy sofa.  Mind you it so large that when I moved it had to be carried down 8 flights and up 5 in the new block as it was too big for the lift and they had to take the steel door off so it could be taken out of the apartment, lucky there were four men who did that for 5 rmb each. 8)

Willy
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Offline AbovetheLAW

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Re: Leap of faith to Shanghai!
« Reply #29 on: June 04, 2013, 12:22:11 am »
Im finishing up my visa paperwork (im using VisaHQ) and it says for Multiple Entry I need to send a letter giving a reason why i need the multiple entry. I am wondering how I should word this, or better yet, what did you guys put?
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