Baby steps/getting started.

[trwme]

If you're worried about EMF cost then don't even consider getting a Chinese wife, this whole episode will cost you a lot of money and EMF cost is insignificant compared to everything else.

Right now is a different thing in my world than usual. I'm going through a costly custody battle. I just gave my lawyer another 1k last week. That'll be over within the next 5 weeks, one way or the other. I actually have enough money right now to make a trip over there and back, if I had the vacation time, which I don't. I'm trying to protect the money already set aside, every other bit of extra income is going to lawyer bills. After this stuff is over I won't give a rat's ass what an emf costs. I just have an attitude about being jerked around. I'm also in line for a promotion and a raise later this year too, if the supervisor at work follows through on his plans to retire. Money isn't going to be an issue, unless something unforseen happens.

I also already know all about the other costs you mention-at least, in relation to immigration issues. I've already done one immigration for a wife; did it all myself too, no lawyer. Paid all the fees, gave her the money to make the trip to the consulate, gave her the money to make the trip here. Unfortunately I then gave her the money to make the trip back home too, lol.

I realize there are other things related to agency fees and the like. Not too worried about those right at this moment either. That'll take care of itself if or when the time comes. First things first, I want to make a trip there, stick a toe in the water, see what it is about and if it is really for me. I want to have someone lined up to meet before I do, so I can get a better gauge of a face to face relationship with one of these ladies, as well as getting inside one of these agencies if possible and getting some experience on the ground with that.

Like the name of this thread, I am just at the baby step stage. I am taking things apart, looking at them, trying to figure out all the angles, seeing how all this works. I'll do that every step of the way. I've got a lot to do and a lot to learn before I ever bring one of these ladies here to live with me, if I ever reach that point.Vince, I'm getting a better understanding of what you said here, now that this has been discussed on this thread and that I've started seeing how this process really works by being in it. the very next emf to each of the women I am talking to is going to try to get at how they are receiving the letters-if they are. Especially the one in Wuhan, because as I said earlier on this thread, every emf I've sent her gets delivered within a few minutes after I've sent it, according to the delivery status message in my sent mail box. To me that either means it is being forwarded straight to her, and I can be reasonably confident she is involved in the responses, or else it smacks of something fishy. Maybe someone here can enlighten me further on what else could be possibly going on there.

[brett]

EMFs often get delivered by a mobile phone call - I know this is true because I was with my lady when one was delivered!

As to the costs, well the start of this is expensive but in the long term a frugal Chinese lady will save you 1000's of dollars, although you might have to get used to using toothbrushes stolen from hotels and travelling by bus instead of train :icon_cheesygrin:.

[David5o]

.

The majority of EMF's get delivered to the ladies by phone or email, As is the replies you receive back from your lady. Which is one of the reasons many of your replies are on the short side. That should tell you that the lady has narrated her reply over the phone to the translator. You'll find ladies email replies to the agency are longer and tend to cover a bit more fully your letter.

Telephone replies to the translator, leaves the door open for the translator to fluff things up a bit if she thinks the reply is too short in content. That can lead to trouble later on, as the translator rarely informs the lady what she has written to the man... This has been bourne out so many times by the Bros going over to meet there ladies, and finding out that the image of their ladies personality didn't really match her real self. Sometimes it worked out well for them, but others found the difference too great, and felt very much cheated!!

David.....

[Arnold]

.

The majority of EMF's get delivered to the ladies by phone or email, As is the replies you receive back from your lady. Which is one of the reasons many of your replies are on the short side. That should tell you that the lady has narrated her reply over the phone to the translator. You'll find ladies email replies to the agency are longer and tend to cover a bit more fully your letter.

Telephone replies to the translator, leaves the door open for the translator to fluff things up a bit if she thinks the reply is too short in content. That can lead to trouble later on, as the translator rarely informs the lady what she has written to the man... This has been bourne out so many times by the Bros going over to meet there ladies, and finding out that the image of their ladies personality didn't really match her real self. Sometimes it worked out well for them, but others found the difference too great, and felt very much cheated!!

David.....

This info is as valuable as is Maxx's 24 Rule . One of the great road blocks ( bump's ) in EMF communication .
Thanks David , can't put that out too often for the newbee's .

[trwme]

.

The majority of EMF's get delivered to the ladies by phone or email, As is the replies you receive back from your lady. Which is one of the reasons many of your replies are on the short side. That should tell you that the lady has narrated her reply over the phone to the translator. You'll find ladies email replies to the agency are longer and tend to cover a bit more fully your letter.

Telephone replies to the translator, leaves the door open for the translator to fluff things up a bit if she thinks the reply is too short in content. That can lead to trouble later on, as the translator rarely informs the lady what she has written to the man... This has been bourne out so many times by the Bros going over to meet there ladies, and finding out that the image of their ladies personality didn't really match her real self. Sometimes it worked out well for them, but others found the difference too great, and felt very much cheated!!

David.....

Well, from what you said here I must conclude my lady friend in Wuhan is receiving emails and writing her own responses, which are then translated and sent to me. As I said, when I send them to her they pass into the delivered status very quickly, every time, within a few minutes. Every one of her replies has been long, focused, and replied to every question I asked and comments I've made. There's no fluff. There is an ongoing romantic context back and forth too, a little story we've been building between us in the last few letters. It is like I am talking to her directly. Very intimate. With this one, I've had an ongoing side conversation with the lady who is translating for us from the very first EMF. Every EMF I write the translator a short note at the beginning, and every response back from my lady friend has contained a nice reply back from the translator at the end. And those are very friendly and positive.

If I am understanding what you said correctly David, I am very glad (and a bit relieved), because a LOT of sparks are flying there. In fact, I am getting pretty close to shutting down the other contacts and focusing just on the lady in Wuhan.

[David5o]

Roy (trwme)

Always always a good idea to have a good communication with your translator at these agencies, they can ease the your journey's path no end, there's no question about that!!

It would seem that the communication path is via email between your lady and the agency/translator, probably via her work computer. One way to test that, is to send an EMF outside of office hours. If you have to wait till the following day, then you know that her computer is office/work based. That's not to say that she doesn't have her own computer at home, as many do!!...  

Can't see that your doing anything wrong right now Roy, follow your instincts, continue to use your commonsense, and any other tool that you can muster and see where it leads you... You never know, ...you may just have found your next and last wife !!!  lol!!!

David....

[trwme]

lol, well David, we have rivers to ford, bridges to cross, obstacles to overcome not to mention the pacific ocean to navigate before we are out of the woods to last wife status! I'll have to admit to a, ummm, certain level of excitement and see the potential perhaps for that. But common sense and the sound advice of the brotherhood here dictate not getting too far ahead of myself. Crawl before you walk, walk before you run, run before you try to jump too far ahead. We've established a rapport, I have gained a lot of confidence in our translator Cecily (and I think won her over judging by some of her comments), and have received some 'normal' everyday pics that show a woman not too different from the profile pics. Next step is webcam and private contact, but I have plenty of emf credits, so I am not going to push that for a while. I'm trusting my instincts and keeping my eyes open, and if I'm wrong I'll learn from it and apply the lessons the next time.

All the advice I've received here has been a big help, even including (and maybe especially) those who challenged me and slapped me around a bit with the reality of the situation. Still a long way to go, and I hope for and expect more of the same. The payoff at the end will be worth the lumps to my ego!

[ttwjr32]

good luck with your lady

Ted

[trwme]

good luck with your lady

Ted

Thanks Ted! I haven't decided 100% to close down the other emf exchanges yet, but as you can tell I am leaning very heavily that way right now. This one just has something extra. We have this little ongoing story of a man and a woman we are bouncing back and forth at each other that gets threaded throughout each letter-kinda of talking around commitment things through these third person characters. 'I know this man who is looking for this woman, do you know her?' or 'I know this woman who is looking for this man, do you know him?' through all sorts of permutations and switches in perspectives. A lot of the questions and answers end up refering back to this story or done in the context of it. It's become the backbone of our correspondence. There is no way this is the product of the translator. I'll get to the bottom of how she is getting and sending her letters shortly, I hope. I asked her about this in my last emf to her, sent tonight.

As a sidenote to this, I can now verify what Willy said, at least in relation to the lady I've been writing in Tieling. She gets my letters read to her over the phone, and then she tells them over the phone what to say in response, they write it down and translate it and send it to me. I also want to correct something I said earlier too; I stated that she lived in the city where her agency is located, that was wrong, her agency is in Changchun and she lives in Tieling.

[ttwjr32]

i just wonder if the translator really does tell evrything she said or
do they put their own spin on it? when i was on their it seemed like
it took to many letters to get answers so i quit that place and went elsewere
to find my wife.

[trwme]

One thing that needs to be added to my op in relation to this thread is;

Maxx's 24 hour rule As I understand this rule, I'd paraphrase it this way; If your lady says something that confuses you, angers you, or makes you wonder, or you just generally are not sure what it means, do not respond to her on it for 24 hours to give yourself a chance to think it over and get some advice from the brothers here.

I'm feeling the need to employ this rule on a couple of things in relation to my lady friend in Wuhan. So I'll explain them here and go through the process, lol.

In the course of discussion, I asked her about her family. she responded with the following;

About my family, my parents still live healthy here in Wuhan. They live not far from where I live, I usually go to visit them in my spare time. I have two sisters, I am the youngest child in my family. Now they both had their own family, we are very close to each other.

Then in my next letter to her, I asked her about sending me some everyday pics of herself (which she did send) and perhaps some of her family. She responded to that with the following;

My dear, you know that I live alone with (her daughter) now, my family didn't get together often, I have pictures about my family, but those were taken long long ago.

On the one hand she seems to say her family is close and see each other at least sometimes, on the other the second response seems to say something different. Maybe something got lost in translation here? After thinking about this since first noticing it, it doesn't seem as off now as it did at first-the 24 hour rule worked for me.

The second thing may be nothing, but not knowing the culture I thought I'd better ask before answering this one JUST in case. She asked me the following in her last letter;

Maybe you can give a nice English name to me and to (her daughter)? haha... Will you?

I am wondering if there is some signifigance to this request I better think about before I jump in and say yes, lol. Since it was a question from her, I didn't ignore it, but I finessed it so I didn't give her a yes or no answer-asking instead what the meaning of their chinese names is.

[Lee357]

One thing that needs to be added to my op in relation to this thread is;

Maxx's 24 hour rule As I understand this rule, I'd paraphrase it this way; If your lady says something that confuses you, angers you, or makes you wonder, or you just generally are not sure what it means, do not respond to her on it for 24 hours to give yourself a chance to think it over and get some advice from the brothers here.

I'm feeling the need to employ this rule on a couple of things in relation to my lady friend in Wuhan. So I'll explain them here and go through the process, lol.

In the course of discussion, I asked her about her family. she responded with the following;

About my family, my parents still live healthy here in Wuhan. They live not far from where I live, I usually go to visit them in my spare time. I have two sisters, I am the youngest child in my family. Now they both had their own family, we are very close to each other.

Then in my next letter to her, I asked her about sending me some everyday pics of herself (which she did send) and perhaps some of her family. She responded to that with the following;

My dear, you know that I live alone with (her daughter) now, my family didn't get together often, I have pictures about my family, but those were taken long long ago.

On the one hand she seems to say her family is close and see each other at least sometimes, on the other the second response seems to say something different. Maybe something got lost in translation here? After thinking about this since first noticing it, it doesn't seem as off now as it did at first-the 24 hour rule worked for me.

The second thing may be nothing, but not knowing the culture I thought I'd better ask before answering this one JUST in case. She asked me the following in her last letter;

Maybe you can give a nice English name to me and to (her daughter)? haha... Will you?

I am wondering if there is some signifigance to this request I better think about before I jump in and say yes, lol. Since it was a question from her, I didn't ignore it, but I finessed it so I didn't give her a yes or no answer-asking instead what the meaning of their chinese names is.

My two cents on this is first she is trying to be nice to you about family photos. she does not want to give them yet as you are not an accepted part of the family yet and she does not want to outright refuse your request. Her first response is probably correct and the second about the pictures is also correct you can't have them yet. I have no advise on the English name thing as I have never encountered this before.
Back to the pictures I do know that in their culture family is sacred and until you are accepted as part of the family she will be rather general in responding to your questions about them. She will try very hard not to tell you to much and at the same time not have to be forward and tell you it is none of your business unless she has to. My advise is to just let the picture thing drop and move to other subjects of interest to you both.

[trwme]

My two cents on this is first she is trying to be nice to you about family photos. she does not want to give them yet as you are not an accepted part of the family yet and she does not want to outright refuse your request. Her first response is probably correct and the second about the pictures is also correct you can't have them yet. I have no advise on the English name thing as I have never encountered this before.
Back to the pictures I do know that in their culture family is sacred and until you are accepted as part of the family she will be rather general in responding to your questions about them. She will try very hard not to tell you to much and at the same time not have to be forward and tell you it is none of your business unless she has to. My advise is to just let the picture thing drop and move to other subjects of interest to you both.

Actually, I had thought of that, so thanks for confirming it. I'll let it drop. Have much to learn culturally :~)

[JimB]

About the naming of them.  I have seen it both ways.  One is a come on. Ex: give me your English name for me so we can be closer faster type of thing." and that usually follows by I love you. That I have seen really early in the process.  That is "usually" the start of a con.  (Not always but most of the time I have seen.) The other thing is that she truly likes you and wants you to have the honor of naming her.  I named my wife, but not until we had met.  Now I have named her whole family and they have given me a Chinese name.  So I cant give you any real accurate insight to it.  Now most of the women/girls under 30 have already been given their English names.  Every single one I have met thirty and under already have it.
About the pics, I absolutely believe they are correct in that.  You are NOT a part of the family yet so you will not be given really private information on them as yet.  Just some general things.  Dont be dismayed by it.  That is normal.  You are doing Ok.  you are moving forward with your eyes wide open.  great start.
It is great to look for the red flags, but dont go too deep and try to analyze everything.  You will drive yourself nuts doing that.  Sit back and enjoy it.  But dont put too much stock in anything you get from EMF's.  You wont get the true woman until you get to private e mails.  Ask most every man here that has been through it.  There are a ton of threads pertaining to that very subject.  Just read anything that has EMF's in the title.  You are doing fine.

Jim

[trwme]

Hi Jim,

Thanks so much for you input here. I had wondered if the naming thing could be a sort of committment, maybe like a pre-engagement type thing? She has asked if I'd give not only her, but her daughter 'good english names' as she put it. She is 41. The only name I had ever considered I might give one of these ladies is a last name, lol, so it kind of caught me off guard when she mentioned it.

To be honest, we have gotten really close already, or at least it seems that way. I have read many of the threads you mentioned though. So while I am enjoying the chemistry that is there in our emfs, I am also aware that may or may not be there when we get to more direct communication, or when 'face to face' time comes.

I've asked her how she gets my letters, and she told me that our translator reads them to her over the phone (she says she insists on every word I send being read to her) then she usually goes to the agency to write out her reply and have it translated and sent, although on occasion when she is short on time she writes it down and then calls it in to our translator. That fits what I've seen in the letters she has sent so far, they match the length of what I send (which are pretty long as you can guess by my posts on this forum!) and no detail is left unanswered or responded to. Little comments made in earlier letters are alluded to a couple of letters later. And while everything is responded to, it is not always in the order they were written in, i.e., sometimes things I said in the middle or towards the end of an emf are the first things she starts her next letter with. All kinds of little signs like that tell me this is a genuine conversation she and I are having. Time will bear that out though.

On the family thing, I've decided to be reactive instead of proactive. If she invites a comment or question by mentioning her family, I'll bite, otherwise I'll just concentrate on other things. I just have to let her invite me in at her pace. Plenty of other things to discuss and work on anyway. She did tell me in the letter I received last night that she has told some of her family about me, I am guessing she means her sisters. She also in a sly way asked me when I might be coming to see her.

I'll keep my eyes open, and keep running things past you guys here. I am having a hard time finding red flags though, and if it keeps going this way I think I'll be running up a white flag sometime in the not too distant future methinks.