China Romance
General Discussion and Useful Links => Newbies Corner => Topic started by: Iceland on April 11, 2011, 08:02:24 pm
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I am a total newbie here and I am yet to go over all the material in this forum since I just signed up as soon as I discovered this site. I really think I need some help and guidance from people who understand my situation. I am Icelandic and I am 55 years old. My English is not perfect but good enough I hope.
I joined Chnlove in March 8th an I am already totally confused about what to believe and what to not believe regarding these ladies and their letters. I have in a period of one month responded to 8 different ladies and each of them tells me, more or less, that I am their one and only. Each of them also looks like they could become the next Miss World.
I have this awful feeling that in at least some cases the letters are not coming from the lady herself but have been written in their name for the only purpose of keeping the response/credits coming in. Some of the letters look suspiciously alike in content. Another thing is that although my preference was to meet a woman between 40 and 55 in age I still get "admire" mails from girls in their thirties. I wrote to two of them, one 20 years of age and one 25, thanked them for their letters and told them that I considered the age difference to be way to much and thus a serious relationship between me and them was impossible. They both wrote me back immediately telling me they were both looking for an "mature" man and that I was definitely the man of their dreams. Totally unbelievable to say the least. I am almost old enough to be their grandfather for crying out loud and it is totally unbelievable that these young girls are looking for someone like me. This has made me VERY suspicious regarding these letters. Are they for real or not? Are the women for real or not? Or are they maybe in it for the money? How can I know?
But I guess I am not the only one who has faced this situation so I am going to read this forum to look for some answers. I really only wanted to say hi to the mods and members of this forum.
However, if someone can give me an quick answer to where to look for answers to the situation I am in it would be appreciated. Highly.
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there are a few of chinese ladies who could speak English well, escacilly for over 40 years old chinese ladies. i know the agences hire some people as translators and help these chinese ladies who couldn't speak English to write the letters to your guys. you would find: the letters are the same style from the same agence.
i would like to ask you a question: what would you think of it in your life after you meet a chinese lady who is beautiful, honest.... but couldn't speak English at all?
you know the marriage between the west man and the chinese lady is long and hard journey although they had chemistry at first. you would take care of her and her kids after married if you read something here. an amercian guy said on the newspaper: marrying a chinese lady means marrying her family in china!
have a good lucky.
Sara
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Sara ... I have thought a lot about it and I think that although it will be challenging to climb over the language and cultural barriers it will also be a fun part of the relationship and give it a special meaning. This does not scare me at all and is not a problem since we have the internet today and it is easy to get translation in case of misunderstanding.
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I would suggest hiding your profile. This would eliminate the unwanted admin letters. As for the 20 something women, it's a good chance they were just eating up the credits. There are plenty of stories here to read that will help you along.
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I hid my profile after about a week and haven't opened it since. So that is not the problem.
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Hi Iceland
Welcome to the Forum.
I guess, in summary, the advice you will get here is:
Be reasonable and realistic which women you correspond with....regarding age, looks and situation.
Dont get wrapped up in sensless expense of credits with 20 year olds...it is not likely to go anywhere.
Correspond with 1 or 2 likely ladies and get onto a more personal communication as soon as possible...QQ, MSN or similar. You will then get to know EXACTLY who you are writing to !!
and...finally, make sure you are able to go to China (money and time) sometime to meet face-to-face in the near future.
then let Nature and Chemistry take its natural course ;D ;D ;D
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Thank you David. I guess you are absolutely right. The best way to handle the situation is to use common sense and personal contact. And I have already made arrangements to go to China in October so I am sure my story will have a happy ending although I am confused at the moment.
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Hi Iceland nice to have a newe Country represented here.
I have been in China for close to two years now. Married and happy and no youngster.
The yonger women and older men. Like the world over they will be looking at your money not at you. But saying that it can also be a problem with the older women who also look for us foreigners as security in there older years. Older men on here have also found that to their cost.
But be sensible and keep your thoughts about you and you will be OK shortage of English or not.
Willy
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I don''t think the language barrier should be underestimated, but at the same time, if you find the lady that wants to spend her life with you, both of you will likely be learning each others languages. If English is not your native language, the lady will probably try to learn your language. I know we have members from other countries that speak languages other than English, and their women have worked hard to learn.
Your comment about the letters not seeming like they came from the lady. Odds are, they have not. Often, it is the agency that is writing the letters, and helping to break the ice. Sometimes it is with the ladies knowledge, and other times not. But as has been suggested to you, if you find someone that you enjoy writing to, ask to see natural pictures. The ones on chnlove are often Photoshopped. And also, try to go for direct personal communication. Either by way of QQ (A very popular instant message program in China), MSN, Yahoo, Skype,or email. Some members have continued with chnlove translation services, and used direct contact as well. This way, they are getting the best of both worlds. And while speaking of direct contact, a web camera goes a long way in seeing who it is that you are writing to.
There are also online translation sites. While they are not perfect, they do help. I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but Google Translate has improved lately. They are now offering alternative words in their translations. It should help out considerably.
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Lookout David E and Seagull , Martin is coming your way via Christmas Island , maybe he accidently loaded his semi onto one of those boats we keep collecting ha ha .
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Robert
Now dont get me started about the Illegal Boat Immigrants that are pouring into our North West !!!!.....I could blow a fuse !!!!!!
This issue is likely to develop into Civil War in Aus if something isn't done about it. They get their visas quicker than all the mugs like me do, because we are forced to do the Legal thing.....
If I had my way, I would be waiting on the beach for them with my .303 in my hand.......but that's another story.
(ps..but Martin would be welcome of course ;D ;D ;D)
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We have the same problem in Canada, it seems the easiest way to get in here is illegaly, by boat. Just doesnt seem fair.
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Yes Halfpint, you are right.
It would cost me about $4000 to get her to Djakarta legally, put her in a hotel for a couple of weeks and get one of my mates to fly from a remote landing strip in our vast North West and pick her up in Indonesia and fly her back here, where I would be waiting with a 4WD and drive us back to Perth down through the Central Desert...nobody would ever know !!!
I could even fly it myself, but I am not licensed for Extended Overwater Flights so I would have problems finding my way back ;D ;D ;D
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Thank you all for your replies. I am now certain that at least one of the contacts I was in was a pure scam of the attached agency or someone working there. They were writing to me in here name. I am not going to do anything about it although it did cost me quite a few "credits" but it sure isn't a nice feeling being bluffed this way and it sure reduces the trust I had towards Chnlove.
Anyway ... I have been reading a lot of diverse advices here in the forum. I have decided to cut down on my contacts and try my luck with the lady I like the most. She was also the only one who took the initiative to send me real photos of herself to my private email address. Her letters through the agency also feel real to me although the translation is a lot "wobbly" in some cases. What for instance does this sentence mean: "I have a brother. She can take care of myself"? Yep, that is an actual sentence in one of her letters.
I guess the translator messed it up but it does tell me not to put my trust entirely on them either.
I now want to take my contact with this woman to a much more personal level.
She says she does not have computer at home and is not allowed to use the computers in her work for private use - understandably. To use a computer she must go to a netcafe.
Now, she has a Yahoo mail address with a .cn extension. Does that mean she has access to yahoo messenger on these netcafes? Do you know?
Do you think she should be able to use Skype at an netcafe?
What is the full url to this qq site I see so many talk about, I mean the url to where I could register? Does this site have an instant messenger built in with a webcam feature?
I have learned that Facebook is not accessible in China. How about YouTube? If I upload a video to youTube, could my chinese lady see it?
Sorry for all these questions but I would appreciate if someone who knows about these thing could inform me. I will buy him a chocolate cake for his trouble.
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Iceland
QQ is the social networking site in China that EVERYBODY has...either on their computer or on their mobile phone.
It has everything...live video, interactive chat, keyboard conversation and a built-in translator (not the best, but good enough !!)
Can be downloaded at : www.imqq.com (http://www.imqq.com)
I would be lost without it..it is really a great way to interact with the ladies.
In any net-cafe she will be able to "meet" you on QQ...just register and give her your ID number
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Chocolate cake! now you have my full attention ;D
Yahoo is quite common over here but qq is by far the most popular choice for Chinese people. Here is the link to download it
http://download.imqq.com/download.shtml (http://download.imqq.com/download.shtml)
It has everything you could wish for,well almost!
I'm afraid both Facebook and You tube are blocked and the only way of accessing them reliably is by using a paid for proxy. As for using skype in a net cafe I would have thought QQ would be a safer bet and it would be no trouble at all to set up a meeting this way. Of course it would depend on your lady feeling comfortable doing this and then there is the language barrier to sort out. No small matter! :-\ When my wife and I first started doing web cams together we were faced with a whole barrage of small problems. To start with my computer did not even recognise Chinese characters! ::) Which was quite fundamental! Then there is the whole question of which translation software to use. Everyone here has their favourite but mine was google and it worked fine for us as well as being free which helped!. You do get really good at cut and paste and in fact we ended up just sending Chinese script which I would translate and reply with. The main thing to remember is that the translations are by no means perfect and if your not careful misunderstandings can cause you lots of problems. For example google would often confuse and substitute the word love for hate....not good :-* :'( . If you start with the basic premise that you are not going to send anything that is deliberately hurtful then translation errors can be quite fun, so share them. I wish you the best of luck......
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welcome Iceland
I think Mike deserves the cake... ;D ;D
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Yes, Mike deserves the Chocolate cake and so do the others who have replied to me here. I will email it to them as soon as I get my hand on their email addresses.
But what a relief to find this forum. I feel save and secure.
Mike, thanks for the info regarding the translation issue. I will be much more aware of this "problem" from now on. But it raises another question: I thought the translation was done by human translators. I can understand that the initial translation is done by software but I would have thiought that translators would read it over to check to see to that obvious faults are corrected?
And then ... If I am getting a software translation with the faults still attached, how about the lady I am writing to? Isn't she also getting it wrong ... or incorrect?
Are you experienced guys living in China or in your home country with your Chinese wifes?
I have downloaded the QQ software and signed up. My number is 1504962919. Would anyone of you care to contact me and give me a practice lesson? I have never used a software like this or a webcam before.
I am on GMT here in Iceland.
Warning: Those that connect with me might want to know that I sometimes turn into Mr. Annoying Many Questions.
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I'll remember that Rob! ;)
Iceland, Mike and myself were talking about the translations you will do personally when you web cam with your lady and not the Chnlove/EMF's that you pay for, they are done by human translators. That is a whole other story!
I am living here in China with my wife and it will be our second anniversary in September. ;D
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Iceland...you will find that people here cover all ends of the spectrum. A couple of our members are married, and living in China. More have their wives living with them in their home countries, while many are married, and trying to bring their wives home. Some men here are dating, while others are still looking for the right person. So we cover all the angles here.
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1) And then ... If I am getting a software translation with the faults still attached, how about the lady I am writing to? Isn't she also getting it wrong ... or incorrect?
2) Are you experienced guys living in China or in your home country with your Chinese wife?
Welcome Icelander. You've hit the nail on the head with that one. I can tell you that my former girlfriend didn't receive wrong translations, she just didn't receive much of anything. 90% or more of our conversations were between me and the translator, with little or none filtering through to her. She knew very little about me and a lot of what I knew about her was plain wrong. EMF was the biggest joke on me. Expensive joke too. Unfortunately, EMF is sometimes the only option until you actually meet her face-to-face or at least on webcam.
I'm currently married and my wife is still in China. We are working on the immigration process now. I hope she can come to Canada soon, but I have a feeling it will be a while yet. We met on qq. She added me randomly and we became friends long before we ever decided to meet.
Neil
Good luck to you. This is the best adventure you'll ever have, but it is not easy, or cheap. As I tell my wife, we chose a difficult path, but the final destination will be worth the effort.
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Iceland
I am married to a Chinese lady and we are currently waiting for her visa to Australia to be processed. I tried the CHNLove route for nearly 2 years but I actually met my wife on another Dating Site that was free from EMF charges...only paid a small one-off joining fee.
The issue with translations is peculiar to China. In China there is a very low level of English understanding in general, it is a very rare occurence to meet a Chinese native who has excellent English (not impossible, but rare).
So even the Translators will get it wrong often.
The biggest problem is the accurate representation of language idioms and colloquialism...plus our tendency to spell words wrongly...this leads often to translation screw-ups !!
You will note that Mike's example of "I cant wait to see you" is literally translated as "I am unable to see you"....ie the word driver "I cant wait"...is translated literally as "I cannot wait"
My Daughter explained it all to me very clearly. (She is a Teacher in an English Second language School). When she first spoke to my (then) fiance on QQ she quickly assessed her "English language age" as 4 years old. So she began to speak with her as you would speak to a 4 year old !!!...and the communication was much better than mine, because I was trying to speak as if to a adult. So I modified my words to keep only simple, short sentences and to avoid "can't, shouldn't , wouldn't "etc....I am sure you get the drift here.
Over the last 12 months, My wife's English has improved out of sight (try to translate that expression !!!!!) to the point where my Daughter says she has an "English language Age " of about 10 years.
My Daughter tells me that the Language Age of 10 years is about the maximum that a non-English speaker can achieve without a period of total immersion in the language...ie to get better, they need to live inside an English speaking environment .
Chinese people who speak English seem to have an English language age somewhere about 7 or 8 years (I think this is due to the many years in the past where they were totally isolated from the Western World and the population had almost no exposure to the Western World or it's language and culture).
Now, before anyone starts throwing stones, this is a generalisation only and I do not make comment or criticism about any individual !!! But it is close to the reality of the situation
David
ps You can easily see this effect in the postings we read in the Forum, for instance, because he is a Pom, Willy has a language age of about 7 years, and Robbie who is unfortunately a Scotsman has a language age of about 3 months ;D ;D ;D ;D...while our resident wordsmith..Rhonald...appears to have a language age of something like 756 years !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (just joking guys)
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hehe mike better share that cake with Paul.... ;D ;D
Sorry mate, I meant you too... ;D :D :D
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Hey I'll take Mikes cake. Ooo... wait you guys are using a different icing. Never mind. ;D ::)
Welcome Iceland. I'd comment but it looks like it has already been said.
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I must be one of the lucky ones. I met a lady on a web site without spending a dime on EMF's, and she speaks, writes and read's English very clearly. She's smart, nice and pretty. She has a lot of good qualities...I am lucky!
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You're definitely one of the lucky ones, Halfpint. You were blessed to have her come to visit you.
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Robert
Now dont get me started about the Illegal Boat Immigrants that are pouring into our North West !!!!.....I could blow a fuse !!!!!!
We had the same problem with the Scots coming into England so we built a wall between Scotland and England. But the cunning devils found a way even if it was only as far as Barrow in Furness.
Willy
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LOL.......And when exactly did 'The Romans' become English ? :o :o ;D ;D ;D
Or was Hadrian really a 'My Smith' from stoke on trent...hahaha
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Oh, my ... I wish I had discovered this forum at the very beginning. It would have saved me a lot of time, not to mention quite a few qpid credits.
But, well, sometimes it is better to learn the hard way.
Regarding the EMF. Although I am new to this my feeling is that the EMF's are as different in quality as the agency's are many. All in all I have in the past month communicated with 8 different ladies through EMF. I am absolutely sure that at least 2 of these contacts were fake, that is, the agency, or someone there, was pretending to be the woman.
In at least 3 cases I would bet the EMF's were generated as Mike was describing. A part of it is from the lady, but then the letters were filled up with meaningless ladida's from the agency.
But then there were 2 or 3 that felt like they were coming from the ladies themselves, especially the one's that came from the lady who is now my only contact. All her letters have been consistent in style and character, she remembers well what we have talked about earlier and she has always made an effort to address and respond to everything I have said in my letters - and she has done so in a very sincere and authentic way. I am now looking very much forward to communicating with here through qq.
And I am very happy that the studio pictures are out of the way. I have sent her many real and brand new photos of me and she has sent me real and brand new photos of her. I don't think it would be a good idea to meet one of these ladies on qq or face to face if you have only seen her studio pictures.
Thanks to those that have contacted me on qq. I am looking forward to shamelessly taking advantage of you and drive you half crazy with stupid questions. And thanks to all of you for being here. I am hoping that in time I will be able to join the "experienced team" and my "adventure" will become a help to others too.
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You are very welcome with all your questions.
I'd like to bring up one point that was brifley mentioned earlier. Investigate your opportunities to travel to China, both financial and practical. Then you are ready to travel in (fairly) short notice. When you have established good contact with a woman it is important to be clear about when you can go, and that is not that far into the future.
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Iceland. that cool! I just had to say that. anyway.
Age. if your not comfortable dating your daughters friends then stay away. Also it may not make a difference to you now but as you get older it definitely will. I am an example. Read my story.
Language. My first time out it made no difference and the communications problems actually brought a sort of energy to the relationship and brought us closer together. No my second trek down this road I find it a real pleasure to have found someone I can speak to right off the bat. Her English is not perfect but the amount she knows makes things so much easier.
EMFs...Chnlove....This is very serious advice. Get away from the EMFs as soon as possible. Get direct communications with the lady ASAP. QQ video chat, telephone number. DONT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER. do not accept any lame excuses and buddy I have heard them all. There is no other way other than you intuition to tell you you are talking with a real person and right now I would say your intuition is not actually working correctly. I spent months and $1,000USD convinced I was in love with the lady on the other end of the EMFs and found out that she was an entire fake and fabrication from the photos to the letters....all faked by the agency. And I consider myself a really intelligent guy phttt he he!
When you are convinced that she is real and the one you want then you should start asking her about the fees. Introduction fees, success fees, marriage fees.
Good luck, gerry
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Wow, you are making me scared, Gerry. But also confident that I am on the right track. Yes, I am most certainly going to take it to QQ and video chat asap ... or at least rather than buying more of these credits.
But ... can you inform me more about these fees? I am a little confused there. Why should I ask the lady about the fees? Do you think she knows all about it, but not the agency? How much are we really talking about and who is getting this money? I will of course send you one of my famous flying brooms if you can spare some time informing me in this field.
Bergur.
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Iceland...fees vary from agency to agency. Some have a meeting fee, while others have a marriage fee. I have heard of members paying as much as 60 000 RMB, while I only had to pay 3000 RMB. Its all part of a contract that she signed.
Then there is another Chinese tradition...not all families do this, but there is also giving money to the parents in a red envelope. Keep reading through this forum, and you will see many references to this.
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Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. You just need to be informed and pay attention. Agencies associated with Chnlove almost always have some sort of contract with the lady about success fees. Be it introductions or marriage there is probably some sort of fee builtin to the arrangement. One lady in Shenyang had agreed to pay 30,000 RMB to her agency to deliver me to the altar. I narrowly escaped. Left Chnlove and went to CLL CLM and Blossom. They are pay sites but no fees. If you have already discovered an interesting Lady on Chnlove then try to isolate her from them as soon as possible. The translator in the middle is a revenue source and they wil resist all attempts to let her communicate without their help. Find out about the fees but dont sweat it until later. A lot can happen and yo can avoid the fees if you are creative.
Gerry
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Thanks. I will be creative if I am not creative enough already ;)
But can you, or someone, tell me ... The lady I am corresponding with has an Yahoo.cn mail account.
Do you think this account is monitored and viewed by the agency?
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CN. does not always mean the e mail is controlled by the agency that your lady is registered with.There is no way to know who receives the email until you are in direct contact with the lady.Then you can ask her for her email address.
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and.... a different lady, also from Shenyang (same agency). I demanded and got her email address but no phone or QQ number. I wrote to her at her Yahoo cn account and she replied to me in better english than I ever anticipated. I ran away and did not look back. Obvious to me, she was the translator or someone else in the agency.
If you can get her on the phone, that would be great. From there you can get her real email address and do a QQ video chat. Then you have the translator out of the picture.