How You Met Your Chinese Wife/Husband/Fiance and Where Are You From?

[LBeachey 45]

I can relate to the stares although I get them even when not with her since there aren't a lot of 6'4" white guys running around Chengdu. It's so bad that when we go out together, she tends to walk a little ways away from me because all the staring makes her uncomfortable. But that is only in China. When we travel outside of China she doesn't mind.

I am the same height and still get a lot of stares here in Dalian. Mostly when we go into areas that are not frequented by the expat community.

It is worse if you have small children, especially blonde, the Chinese are so fascinated by them, want to touch their hair and take pictures. I do think it is well intentioned but scares the heck out of the kids.

[Casprd 167]

Hey, Casprd, where was that second photo shot, the one with you on the raft? Was that Nanning? I'd like to go there!

P.S. Say in your timeline you got an RFE. What was it for?

That was in Yangshuo. About 6 hours or so by bus from Nanning. Normally the bus goes to Guilin first then you have to take another bus to Nanning, but if your wife is with you, she can probably get a bus that goes by Yangshuo and they will drop you on the side of the road. You can catch a tuk tuk into town then. This was the floating raft which I preferred to the motorized raft, but you can get to either one easily. Your wife can talk to one of the tuk tuk drivers in town and they will take you to the start of the raft trip and then wait for you at the end of the trip for maybe RMB 50 if I remember right. The rafts will try to charge you too much so just let your wife negotiate with them while you fight of the little old ladies trying to sell you water cannons. If you haven't been to Yangshuo then you need to get your wife to take you and while you're there check out the impression liu san jie show while there. Pretty amazing. One of the four impression shows in China.

The RFE was for my divorce papers. The day after I sent my package to USCIS I realized I forgot these so I expected the RFE. No big deal and only added about 10 days to the process.

[Casprd 167]

Me: U.S.... I have lived everywhere so I don't really have a "home" so to speak

Her: Chengdu

Myspace back in early 2007, I was going to China to study before university and wanted to meet a few people in random cities across China so I added her and a lot of other people... talked for the entire year online, met in early 2008, moved to Europe together in late 08/early 09, and have been marred for over two years now.

My wife is from Nanning, but she has lived in Chengdu ever since my first trip. Of all the places I've been in China, Chengdu is by far my favorite. I can spend all day just hanging out around Wenshu or Chunxi Lu watching the people.

[freetv 7]

My wife is from Nanning, but she has lived in Chengdu ever since my first trip. Of all the places I've been in China, Chengdu is by far my favorite. I can spend all day just hanging out around Wenshu or Chunxi Lu watching the people.

Plus you live in Tulsa, if I had to say I am from a particular state it would be Oklahoma, I spent a good amount of time growing up near Ponca City. I am still a sooner fan even though I go to the University of Florida... Haha

[Sam and Fen 41]

I am the same height and still get a lot of stares here in Dalian. Mostly when we go into areas that are not frequented by the expat community.

It is worse if you have small children, especially blonde, the Chinese are so fascinated by them, want to touch their hair and take pictures. I do think it is well intentioned but scares the heck out of the kids.

The thing about stares that I noticed the most in China was that the women were very friendly they always smiled or said hello.

Used to drive my wife nuts, so now every time we walk around and she sees a girl coming towards us she grabs my hand.

The men were a whole different story.

[FrankandLotus 0]

Me Shawano Wis.

Li- Shenyang

Met on International Cupid website March 17 2010, saw a lovely lady online and tried to chat with her, but for some reason I was unable to. sent her a note i was interested, a few seconds later she responded. since that day I have been hers. Met the first time in September, went back and married her in February. and now waiting like many of us.

[Dan & Juan 12]

Wow.

ME:

I have been internet savvy since the beginning of the non-mil internet. I was using email and bbs in the early 80's and then bitnet on the university systems also tied in to internet, such as it was. I always did what is now called social networking, meet and greets, culture exchange etc. Everything from Disney and soap opera usenet groups to bitnet relay meets.

I also have been employed in university settings for 25 years or so, including student work, and thanks to a lot of natural intelligence, and the dedication of some hard core catholic nun teachers, I was really good in grammar and writing and editing. I always would help students with papers, resumes projects etc.

Fast forward through internet explosion and the ability to communicate with people in almost any country and city in the world!

I quickly became a very popular target for people around the world looking for native english speakers willing to help with conversation and writing or some process. I met up with every age and gender and nationality and at one time was literally juggling hundreds of people most casual chats, others working hard to help with term papers or explaining whole line by line tv shows jokes, context etc. I made a lot of really good friends and acquaintances all over the world, many students who later would find success and still keep in touch. Funny thing is hundreds of people and never intention of romance or foreign hanky panky. Seriously, it was a genuine hobby and labor of kindness, not a scam to hit on cuties. I'm not saying there werent golddiggers trolling the internets looking for a sucker to latch on to, but genuinely I had a lot of good honest experiences with sincere people. Then one innocent "hello" changed everything.

HER:

School teacher in Guiyang looking to improve english skills while on holiday from school during winter break. I don't know how many people she tried to engage in english, but since this was common for 10 plus people to say hi to me every day, I was not looking for anything that happened to lead up to being married now for 3 years and really still blown away on how this could happen. I never thought it could happen like on tv where you fall in love like almost immediately, and especially difficult online on skype!

I still cant believe how lucky I am and really thank (insert preferred deity here) every day and now do believe in miracles, with more to come (L) (L)

[Matt&Cui 0]

Her: Beijing

Me: Denver

We meet while working together in Beijing in 2008. I was working there for the year providing venue power supply for the Olympics. She was a journalist at the venue I was stationed at, we meet eventually started dating and eventually married! Expecting our first child Feb2011!!!

met april2008 married december2009

[dave & joy 2]

Me New York( but work on cruise ships for over 8 years)

Her Shijiazhuang

We setting in Louisiana

We met through Asianpromise.com I was interested in meeting a Chinese girl to assist me in touring china.

We started talking through MSN chat and video. I was supposed to go to china soon but due to a job promotion we ended up talking online as friends for 6 months almost every day.

Needless to say we got to know eachother well so when I did make it to china in November 2008 we realized it was more then friendship.

I stayed one month in china and met her brother his wife and her parents.

A year later and my 3rd trip to china (2nd and 3rd trip were 2 months each) we got engaged. Within a year after that she came to work with me and we travelled all over the Caribbean and got married in grand Cayman. After getting married and spending another 2 months in china we went back to work and toured Europe! Joy then came home for a year to do some investing in china as i worked on her visa and our plans to settle down.. PS she was pregnant!

Months later here we are already dine with our 45 day old babies passport interview and now waiting until may 9 for joys interview then we move north of new Orleans to start a normal life whatever that is! Provided I find a job off ships!

PS EasyFianceVisa.com walked us through the entire cr1 process and we thank them for it. I see visa journey as very useful but feel if we did not use a service we would have wasted 'fun time' doing research and I would have lost more hair over details. I highly recommend them.

[hawkeyez 45]

Have any of you had trouble with the K1 visa because you met online?

[MuDelphi 159]

We had no problem. Met on QQ.

[dave & joy 2]

Just to mention as well I have been coming to china since 2008 been to over 10 places including Chengdu, Xi'an, Dali, Hangzhou, of course Beijing and many more. Joy and I hold hands and by American standards would be average in affection in public but we have never felt too many people were starring. We ride the Beijing subway often.

Only 2 times did I feel the requests door picture talking were a bit much. One year after the quake I was Jiuzhaigou. If you have not been it is awesome. A lot of people were there to see the valley but I did not see a single foreigner and many asked for pictures Joy and I joke that I have a fan club.

The other time we went at 5am to watch the flag raising in Tiananmen square and a lot of people asked for pictures and if I like yao Ming. But that was right after Tue Olympics.

[dave & joy 2]

Sorry to rant but the comments about staring got to me

[Darnell 8,478]

We get stared at a lot. I'm a handsome fella, my wife is gorgeous. Usually, if they want to take a photo, I ask for 10 RMB, and smile with my hand out. Once they start laughing, then we talk about why they are there (rarely a local stares at us, it's always the holiday crowd) and then we share tidbits of info about the place we are site-seeing in.

I don't worry about the stares. But each person is different, aye? She'll have the same issue with staring here once she moves, alas - maybe is same issue for your lass?

[Luigi 0]

My wife is from Zhengzhou, her hometown is Xinyang. I get a lot of stares, and a lot of unwelcoming stares. Those are the ones that sometimes annoy me. Other than that, I don't mind too much about the staring, but she does. She's an incredibly self-conscious person and always felt like the stares were people making fun of her.

Wherever I've gone, except for Beijing and Guangzhou I've gotten a lot of people staring at me, including Shenzhen, which is a little surprising, as I would have expected them to be used to a lot of foreigners (Universiade was going on at that time, too, coincidentally).

While my wife minds the staring (she's getting over it), I don't mind too much. Here, the young kids seem much more enthusiastic about me being a foreigner. No one has asked for a picture, but I get kids trying to talk a little bit to me, especially the two that live next door. I enjoy that, usually.