PRIVACY VIOLATIONS

[ILoveTan 0]

Ok all, I am now looking through my emails to and from Tan - more than 150 to go through in just 2 months. AAAAA. Nice, huh?

Here is my issue as I get more and more crabby about the whole situation. This stuff is PRIVATE. Just forget the sex talk, we talk about communism, the consulate, use dirty words, talk about money, talk about our secrets, make non PC jokes that outsiders would find highly offensive, etc ... this is OUR BUSINESS, that I would not share with anyone but someone I LOVED and TRUSTED.

Other than blacking out half of every email, which will just make them more suspicious, is there anything else I can do so they don't get inside my head (and that is a weird place to be, if you haven't already gathered).?

I can't even find one email where we didn't write something immensely personal. HELP. Any thoughts?

Further, our emails are about 90% in Vietnamese ... if I do use a few, do I have to translate them? This is taking hours, days, weeks to finish ... I am not even finished choosing our photos.

Thanks so much to all for any input.

ILOVETAN

[kilun 0]

I'm in your shoes now, ilovetan, even deeper than you. Our interview is close (Aug 8), and I've sent my wife in Vietnam the Yahoo! chat logs (hundreds of pages). Lots of baaaad stuff about communism and the NVC too...We bash the people who have been handling our visa application on a daily basis. Yes, some of our jokes are much offensive to some. I've decided to edit these chat logs, you know, filter out the sharp edges and points and make it boringly smooooth. We're all nice people hehheh

Anyway, good luck on your visa journey. Based on your story, I really feel that you two make a perfect couple. You'll over come every and all obstacles together.

Regards, kilun

[kilun 0]

And Ilovetan, it's not necessary to translate your emails. They always have vietnamese staff in the Consulate; they should be able to handle it with ease. My chat logs are viet too (my wife does not speak or read english). Think about it: they conduct most of the immigrant visa interviews in vietnamese, then why is the language of these emails a problem? It'll be a problem only if the petitioner's language is different than the beneficiary's language, and neither of the two makes efforts to improve their COMMUNICATION, which is a must to determine if the relationship is bonna fide.

[Melrose Plant 1]

Surely y'all are not the first to have this situation. As far as the privacy thing, I had to swallow pretty hard before I sent all that stuff off. The political thing was not a problem for us, because I'm married to a girl from paranoid Hanoi, and she never wrote anything bad about the government. We would SAY things now and again, but never leaving a trace. But then, they never looked at any of that stuff in the end (at the consulate, anyway). We picked and chose our emails/chats to send to USCIS.

[ILoveTan 0]

And Ilovetan, it's not necessary to translate your emails. They always have vietnamese staff in the Consulate; they should be able to handle it with ease. My chat logs are viet too (my wife does not speak or read english). Think about it: they conduct most of the immigrant visa interviews in vietnamese, then why is the language of these emails a problem? It'll be a problem only if the petitioner's language is different than the beneficiary's language, and neither of the two makes efforts to improve their COMMUNICATION, which is a must to determine if the relationship is bonna fide.

Ok 2 questions for ya kilun:

1. how do you EDIT chats? Are you blacking out things with a marker? (will take me 100 hours to read all of mine, but ok) or actually putting them in word and editing? If you put them in word, don't you lose the formatting (smiley faces, colored text, etc?) HELP.

2. I am the petitioner, I am not Viet Kieu ... I am white American but I SPEAK Vietnamese. You probably are aware how RARE this is. How do I prove it? The consulate is flat out not going to believe that some white girl wrote 10 page love letters in Vietnamese (but I did) - I am really really fluent (80%) and can read and write more than I even speak. I state in my letter that I have studied the language but you know that Americans can study Vietnamese for YEARS and never speak clearly. I met foreigners who had lived in Vietnam 10 years and didn't speak nearly as good as I do after only 2 years of study - and they don't read or write it. AAAA. PLUS, our emails and chats are without SYMBOLS ... will they really think some white person can understand Vietnamese without the symbols? (but I do)

As far as my chats and emails go ... ohmygosh, the whole damn thing with be blacked out if I start editing ... Tan writes about 2% in english and basically 3 words: That, even, f***ing. A sample email of ours may cover everything from communism, to dirty sex talk, to the devil, to .... uhhhh and we NEVER NEVER ask each other about the weather or our day. I don't have emails like: "Today I went to the supermarket and bought some new soy sauce. Later, I met my friends for coffee and we talked about my new hairstyle". Sorry, I just don't! What is he going to say about his day? "Today I ate PHO ... AGAIN."

Sample chat:

Tan: f***

Thuy: f*** you look sexy

Tan: f*** I miss you f***

Thuy: me too, f***, this sucks

Tan: aaaaaaaaaa f*** the f***ing rules - give me the pink motherf***er.

WOOHOO THE IMMIGRATION VISA PROCESS IS FUN!

Thuy

[kilun 0]

And Ilovetan, it's not necessary to translate your emails. They always have vietnamese staff in the Consulate; they should be able to handle it with ease. My chat logs are viet too (my wife does not speak or read english). Think about it: they conduct most of the immigrant visa interviews in vietnamese, then why is the language of these emails a problem? It'll be a problem only if the petitioner's language is different than the beneficiary's language, and neither of the two makes efforts to improve their COMMUNICATION, which is a must to determine if the relationship is bonna fide.

Ok 2 questions for ya kilun:

1. how do you EDIT chats? Are you blacking out things with a marker? (will take me 100 hours to read all of mine, but ok) or actually putting them in word and editing? If you put them in word, don't you lose the formatting (smiley faces, colored text, etc?) HELP.

2. I am the petitioner, I am not Viet Kieu ... I am white American but I SPEAK Vietnamese. You probably are aware how RARE this is. How do I prove it? The consulate is flat out not going to believe that some white girl wrote 10 page love letters in Vietnamese (but I did) - I am really really fluent (80%) and can read and write more than I even speak. I state in my letter that I have studied the language but you know that Americans can study Vietnamese for YEARS and never speak clearly. I met foreigners who had lived in Vietnam 10 years and didn't speak nearly as good as I do after only 2 years of study - and they don't read or write it. AAAA. PLUS, our emails and chats are without SYMBOLS ... will they really think some white person can understand Vietnamese without the symbols? (but I do)

As far as my chats and emails go ... ohmygosh, the whole damn thing with be blacked out if I start editing ... Tan writes about 2% in english and basically 3 words: That, even, f***ing. A sample email of ours may cover everything from communism, to dirty sex talk, to the devil, to .... uhhhh and we NEVER NEVER ask each other about the weather or our day. I don't have emails like: "Today I went to the supermarket and bought some new soy sauce. Later, I met my friends for coffee and we talked about my new hairstyle". Sorry, I just don't! What is he going to say about his day? "Today I ate PHO ... AGAIN."

Sample chat:

Tan: f***

Thuy: f*** you look sexy

Tan: f*** I miss you f***

Thuy: me too, f***, this sucks

Tan: aaaaaaaaaa f*** the f***ing rules - give me the pink motherf***er.

WOOHOO THE IMMIGRATION VISA PROCESS IS FUN!

Thuy

Hi, Thuy.

1. I copy the thing to word then edit it in there. Ofcourse, I'd lose the smileys, the audibles and all the fancy text, but I don't think anybody would care. The communication is clearly there, that's all that they want to see (if they'd ever). I don't use markers; it makes the whole thing look suspicious like, ok you've got sumthin' t' hide?

2. I've read your posts from the beginning (that's a lot of reading!), and I'm well aware of your situation. My personal opinion is: your case is sooo special and unique; that would only make it stronger in the eyes of the people handling it. I mean, what kind of money would make a beautiful and priviledged Californian girl to go into the tropical jungle and live with mosquitos? It's common sense to see that only LOVE would make you go a great length through that much trouble. It's not just wishful thinking, believe me. Just read through stories of the people form our very own VJ community; you'll see that TRUE LOVE, with persistence, will prevail at the end. If you wrote 10 pages worth of love letters in Vietnamese, have Tan bring them to the interview. It'll be better if you wrote them with your hand writing, I think. Again, there's no point in translating chat or emails. If you do that, they're not gonna believe Tan could read all that. Truth is, Vietnamese is the PRIMARY language of your communication, so you'd better leave it as it is.

Good luck to you both on your visa journey and your lives together.

BTW, I'm curious about whether you viet name has an accent mark. Is it Thủy (water), Thùy (tender), Thúy (deep), or Thụy (luck)

kilun (ki the shorty)

[ILoveTan 0]

And Ilovetan, it's not necessary to translate your emails. They always have vietnamese staff in the Consulate; they should be able to handle it with ease. My chat logs are viet too (my wife does not speak or read english). Think about it: they conduct most of the immigrant visa interviews in vietnamese, then why is the language of these emails a problem? It'll be a problem only if the petitioner's language is different than the beneficiary's language, and neither of the two makes efforts to improve their COMMUNICATION, which is a must to determine if the relationship is bonna fide.

Ok 2 questions for ya kilun:

1. how do you EDIT chats? Are you blacking out things with a marker? (will take me 100 hours to read all of mine, but ok) or actually putting them in word and editing? If you put them in word, don't you lose the formatting (smiley faces, colored text, etc?) HELP.

2. I am the petitioner, I am not Viet Kieu ... I am white American but I SPEAK Vietnamese. You probably are aware how RARE this is. How do I prove it? The consulate is flat out not going to believe that some white girl wrote 10 page love letters in Vietnamese (but I did) - I am really really fluent (80%) and can read and write more than I even speak. I state in my letter that I have studied the language but you know that Americans can study Vietnamese for YEARS and never speak clearly. I met foreigners who had lived in Vietnam 10 years and didn't speak nearly as good as I do after only 2 years of study - and they don't read or write it. AAAA. PLUS, our emails and chats are without SYMBOLS ... will they really think some white person can understand Vietnamese without the symbols? (but I do)

As far as my chats and emails go ... ohmygosh, the whole damn thing with be blacked out if I start editing ... Tan writes about 2% in english and basically 3 words: That, even, f***ing. A sample email of ours may cover everything from communism, to dirty sex talk, to the devil, to .... uhhhh and we NEVER NEVER ask each other about the weather or our day. I don't have emails like: "Today I went to the supermarket and bought some new soy sauce. Later, I met my friends for coffee and we talked about my new hairstyle". Sorry, I just don't! What is he going to say about his day? "Today I ate PHO ... AGAIN."

Sample chat:

Tan: f***

Thuy: f*** you look sexy

Tan: f*** I miss you f***

Thuy: me too, f***, this sucks

Tan: aaaaaaaaaa f*** the f***ing rules - give me the pink motherf***er.

WOOHOO THE IMMIGRATION VISA PROCESS IS FUN!

Thuy

Hi, Thuy.

1. I copy the thing to word then edit it in there. Ofcourse, I'd lose the smileys, the audibles and all the fancy text, but I don't think anybody would care. The communication is clearly there, that's all that they want to see (if they'd ever). I don't use markers; it makes the whole thing look suspicious like, ok you've got sumthin' t' hide?

2. I've read your posts from the beginning (that's a lot of reading!), and I'm well aware of your situation. My personal opinion is: your case is sooo special and unique; that would only make it stronger in the eyes of the people handling it. I mean, what kind of money would make a beautiful and priviledged Californian girl to go into the tropical jungle and live with mosquitos? It's common sense to see that only LOVE would make you go a great length through that much trouble. It's not just wishful thinking, believe me. Just read through stories of the people form our very own VJ community; you'll see that TRUE LOVE, with persistence, will prevail at the end. If you wrote 10 pages worth of love letters in Vietnamese, have Tan bring them to the interview. It'll be better if you wrote them with your hand writing, I think. Again, there's no point in translating chat or emails. If you do that, they're not gonna believe Tan could read all that. Truth is, Vietnamese is the PRIMARY language of your communication, so you'd better leave it as it is.

Good luck to you both on your visa journey and your lives together.

BTW, I'm curious about whether you viet name has an accent mark. Is it Thủy (water), Thùy (tender), Thúy (deep), or Thụy (luck)

kilun (ki the shorty)

Chao anh, em ten la Thuy (co dau hoi) nhung em kg chon ten nay vi y nghia la nuoc ... em chon ten nay vi y nghia la CHUNG THUY vi em chung thuy cho nguoi vn. Em tin ben trong em la nguoi vn ... em la nguoi my ben ngoai thoi ... hieu kg anh oi? ;-) Cam on rat nhieu anh ... anh viet message de thuong qua, cho em hy vong .. xin cam on

Thuy

Edited June 29, 2008 by ILoveTan

[Tyrobe 1]

And Ilovetan, it's not necessary to translate your emails. They always have vietnamese staff in the Consulate; they should be able to handle it with ease. My chat logs are viet too (my wife does not speak or read english). Think about it: they conduct most of the immigrant visa interviews in vietnamese, then why is the language of these emails a problem? It'll be a problem only if the petitioner's language is different than the beneficiary's language, and neither of the two makes efforts to improve their COMMUNICATION, which is a must to determine if the relationship is bonna fide.

Ok 2 questions for ya kilun:

1. how do you EDIT chats? Are you blacking out things with a marker? (will take me 100 hours to read all of mine, but ok) or actually putting them in word and editing? If you put them in word, don't you lose the formatting (smiley faces, colored text, etc?) HELP.

2. I am the petitioner, I am not Viet Kieu ... I am white American but I SPEAK Vietnamese. You probably are aware how RARE this is. How do I prove it? The consulate is flat out not going to believe that some white girl wrote 10 page love letters in Vietnamese (but I did) - I am really really fluent (80%) and can read and write more than I even speak. I state in my letter that I have studied the language but you know that Americans can study Vietnamese for YEARS and never speak clearly. I met foreigners who had lived in Vietnam 10 years and didn't speak nearly as good as I do after only 2 years of study - and they don't read or write it. AAAA. PLUS, our emails and chats are without SYMBOLS ... will they really think some white person can understand Vietnamese without the symbols? (but I do)

As far as my chats and emails go ... ohmygosh, the whole damn thing with be blacked out if I start editing ... Tan writes about 2% in english and basically 3 words: That, even, f***ing. A sample email of ours may cover everything from communism, to dirty sex talk, to the devil, to .... uhhhh and we NEVER NEVER ask each other about the weather or our day. I don't have emails like: "Today I went to the supermarket and bought some new soy sauce. Later, I met my friends for coffee and we talked about my new hairstyle". Sorry, I just don't! What is he going to say about his day? "Today I ate PHO ... AGAIN."

Sample chat:

Tan: f***

Thuy: f*** you look sexy

Tan: f*** I miss you f***

Thuy: me too, f***, this sucks

Tan: aaaaaaaaaa f*** the f***ing rules - give me the pink motherf***er.

WOOHOO THE IMMIGRATION VISA PROCESS IS FUN!

Thuy

Hi, Thuy.

1. I copy the thing to word then edit it in there. Ofcourse, I'd lose the smileys, the audibles and all the fancy text, but I don't think anybody would care. The communication is clearly there, that's all that they want to see (if they'd ever). I don't use markers; it makes the whole thing look suspicious like, ok you've got sumthin' t' hide?

2. I've read your posts from the beginning (that's a lot of reading!), and I'm well aware of your situation. My personal opinion is: your case is sooo special and unique; that would only make it stronger in the eyes of the people handling it. I mean, what kind of money would make a beautiful and priviledged Californian girl to go into the tropical jungle and live with mosquitos? It's common sense to see that only LOVE would make you go a great length through that much trouble. It's not just wishful thinking, believe me. Just read through stories of the people form our very own VJ community; you'll see that TRUE LOVE, with persistence, will prevail at the end. If you wrote 10 pages worth of love letters in Vietnamese, have Tan bring them to the interview. It'll be better if you wrote them with your hand writing, I think. Again, there's no point in translating chat or emails. If you do that, they're not gonna believe Tan could read all that. Truth is, Vietnamese is the PRIMARY language of your communication, so you'd better leave it as it is.

Good luck to you both on your visa journey and your lives together.

BTW, I'm curious about whether you viet name has an accent mark. Is it Thủy (water), Thùy (tender), Thúy (deep), or Thụy (luck)

kilun (ki the shorty)

Chao anh, em ten la Thuy (co dau hoi) nhung em kg chon ten nay vi y nghia la nuoc ... em chon ten nay vi y nghia la CHUNG THUY vi em chung thuy cho nguoi vn. Em tin ben trong em la nguoi vn ... em la nguoi my ben ngoai thoi ... hieu kg anh oi? ;-) Cam on rat nhieu anh ... anh viet message de thuong qua, cho em hy vong .. xin cam on

Thuy

For some reason I always thought your Vietnamese name is Thúy from your past posts. Thanks for your clarification, now I know it's Thủy (dấu hỏi).

I agree with kilum that you don't need to translate the correspondence. I did attempt to translate some of them to send to USCIS but I eventually gave up that effort. Also, you don't need to provide every single emails/chats. As for hand written letters, I would recommend to give them all. My wife found that the CO at HCMC didn't even review in details all the correspondece that we have. In fact, the CO looks for a whole circumstance of the case. Good luck!

[bora bora 1]

And Ilovetan, it's not necessary to translate your emails. They always have vietnamese staff in the Consulate; they should be able to handle it with ease. My chat logs are viet too (my wife does not speak or read english). Think about it: they conduct most of the immigrant visa interviews in vietnamese, then why is the language of these emails a problem? It'll be a problem only if the petitioner's language is different than the beneficiary's language, and neither of the two makes efforts to improve their COMMUNICATION, which is a must to determine if the relationship is bonna fide.

Ok 2 questions for ya kilun:

1. how do you EDIT chats? Are you blacking out things with a marker? (will take me 100 hours to read all of mine, but ok) or actually putting them in word and editing? If you put them in word, don't you lose the formatting (smiley faces, colored text, etc?) HELP.

2. I am the petitioner, I am not Viet Kieu ... I am white American but I SPEAK Vietnamese. You probably are aware how RARE this is. How do I prove it? The consulate is flat out not going to believe that some white girl wrote 10 page love letters in Vietnamese (but I did) - I am really really fluent (80%) and can read and write more than I even speak. I state in my letter that I have studied the language but you know that Americans can study Vietnamese for YEARS and never speak clearly. I met foreigners who had lived in Vietnam 10 years and didn't speak nearly as good as I do after only 2 years of study - and they don't read or write it. AAAA. PLUS, our emails and chats are without SYMBOLS ... will they really think some white person can understand Vietnamese without the symbols? (but I do)

As far as my chats and emails go ... ohmygosh, the whole damn thing with be blacked out if I start editing ... Tan writes about 2% in english and basically 3 words: That, even, f***ing. A sample email of ours may cover everything from communism, to dirty sex talk, to the devil, to .... uhhhh and we NEVER NEVER ask each other about the weather or our day. I don't have emails like: "Today I went to the supermarket and bought some new soy sauce. Later, I met my friends for coffee and we talked about my new hairstyle". Sorry, I just don't! What is he going to say about his day? "Today I ate PHO ... AGAIN."

Sample chat:

Tan: f***

Thuy: f*** you look sexy

Tan: f*** I miss you f***

Thuy: me too, f***, this sucks

Tan: aaaaaaaaaa f*** the f***ing rules - give me the pink motherf***er.

WOOHOO THE IMMIGRATION VISA PROCESS IS FUN!

Thuy

Hi, Thuy.

1. I copy the thing to word then edit it in there. Ofcourse, I'd lose the smileys, the audibles and all the fancy text, but I don't think anybody would care. The communication is clearly there, that's all that they want to see (if they'd ever). I don't use markers; it makes the whole thing look suspicious like, ok you've got sumthin' t' hide?

2. I've read your posts from the beginning (that's a lot of reading!), and I'm well aware of your situation. My personal opinion is: your case is sooo special and unique; that would only make it stronger in the eyes of the people handling it. I mean, what kind of money would make a beautiful and priviledged Californian girl to go into the tropical jungle and live with mosquitos? It's common sense to see that only LOVE would make you go a great length through that much trouble. It's not just wishful thinking, believe me. Just read through stories of the people form our very own VJ community; you'll see that TRUE LOVE, with persistence, will prevail at the end. If you wrote 10 pages worth of love letters in Vietnamese, have Tan bring them to the interview. It'll be better if you wrote them with your hand writing, I think. Again, there's no point in translating chat or emails. If you do that, they're not gonna believe Tan could read all that. Truth is, Vietnamese is the PRIMARY language of your communication, so you'd better leave it as it is.

Good luck to you both on your visa journey and your lives together.

BTW, I'm curious about whether you viet name has an accent mark. Is it Thủy (water), Thùy (tender), Thúy (deep), or Thụy (luck)

kilun (ki the shorty)

Chao anh, em ten la Thuy (co dau hoi) nhung em kg chon ten nay vi y nghia la nuoc ... em chon ten nay vi y nghia la CHUNG THUY vi em chung thuy cho nguoi vn. Em tin ben trong em la nguoi vn ... em la nguoi my ben ngoai thoi ... hieu kg anh oi? ;-) Cam on rat nhieu anh ... anh viet message de thuong qua, cho em hy vong .. xin cam on

Thuy

For some reason I always thought your Vietnamese name is Thúy from your past posts. Thanks for your clarification, now I know it's Thủy (dấu hỏi).

I agree with kilum that you don't need to translate the correspondence. I did attempt to translate some of them to send to USCIS but I eventually gave up that effort. Also, you don't need to provide every single emails/chats. As for hand written letters, I would recommend to give them all. My wife found that the CO at HCMC didn't even review in details all the correspondece that we have. In fact, the CO looks for a whole circumstance of the case. Good luck!

You do have to translate what you send to USCIS, correct? They can't read Vietnamese....

I only sent 5 e-mails from over the years - can you do the same thing? It leaves less to translate.

[Matt_Stevens 5]

If you want to prove you can speak Vietnamese, then have smeone shoot a video of you do exactly that. Speaking unscripted Vietnamese, for about two minutes straight. Send it in VHS and DVD form so that they can see it for themselves. Others have done this.

[brnidokiegurl 0]

You do not need every email or chat, just a scattered few thru out the times

[Melrose Plant 1]

Sample chat:

Tan: f***

Thuy: f*** you look sexy

Tan: f*** I miss you f***

Thuy: me too, f***, this sucks

Tan: aaaaaaaaaa f*** the f***ing rules - give me the pink motherf***er.

Hmmmmmm, sounds like he's ready enough for that move to Compton.

[Mr. Leggs 0]

your chat logs can be saved as text file.

[Jack & Xuan 0]

Hello Thuy,

I have seen in many of your post that you focus on the fact that you speak, read, and write Vietnamese. I am sure you are not the only or the first, as you put it "white girl" to have gone through this process that can do all of the same. I think you may be worrying a bit to much about how your (what I envy) ability to speak, read, and write Vietnamese will do to hurt your case. I would instead focus on how very much it will help your case. The fact that many of your emails are in Vietnamese and they are very personal is a plus. The question you asked about keeping them out of your head should be the biggest asset you have going for you. I think you want to do exactly that, pull them into your head, that way they will be more likely to believe your abilities. You asked how you can prove your abilities, I think that is a perfect way and I would suggest that you pick a few of these emails or chats that are them most personal and private and are also in Vietnamese and encourage Tan to have the CO to read them.

I do not think any of us can avoid the privacy issue. I was and still am very cautious when giving Xuan items like credit card and bank statements. If she looses them lots of bad things can happen. Now I am presented with mailing these items to her as well. We all have to put so much information in the packets that anyone could steal our identities. It is the risk we have to take to satisfy our governments. I have often joked that I should have just gotten her a plane ticket to Mexico and let her walk across the river like everyone else has. Or better yet, to Canada and just drive across the border somewhere. My advice would be to hire ME before you send in your I-129 and let him and Mr. Nam guide you. They seem to be the most talked about on this site and I have hired them myself.

Just my thoughts. And I really wish I had your skill in Vietnamese.

[chuckandkim 0]

Think BIG PICTURE!

What do you want HCMC to think of you and Tan? Your "love story"? Your background? Which will lead to a successful petition!

Chat LOG is NOT the only mean of proof of communication! Editting Chat log, why bother? Why not write up a whole new chat page to what you want them to see.... Then it comes to another thought: Why not write letters? Send hand written postcard and love notes or "Just Because" cards... You have to think like a C.O.... put yourself in their shoes "How do I know Tan and Thuy are for real, based on the evidence they show me?"

BTW, Thủy, just forget about your privacy when it come to this process. They want to know everything.... Be yourself, don't bother to edit chatlog as some have suggested, editing a log defeat the purpose of keeping one.

Not one single piece of evidence will make or break your case, it's the total package Thủy

Edited July 21, 2008 by chuckandkim