Found her in my own back yard

[y2catalyst 3]

The following from my profile on Candle for Love site. "Hi, my name is Rob and I have been communicating with my Fiancée Zhou since April 2009. I went to visit her in Chongqing for 2 week in October 2009 and soon after filed for our K1 Visa. The time has finally come and her interview is scheduled for July 30th 2010".

Now it is April 2013 and I thought I would look back at may Candle for Love site and it seems so long ago when I wrote the comments in my profile above. A lot has changed, I could never bring myself to visit this site or Candle for Love site after my negative post about the denied visa and the blow I felt to my guts after what I took seriously my relationship with my Fiancée Zhou and the K1 Visa being denied (white paper) July 30, 2010. With my investment of time and emotions exhausted, my next step was to go back to Chongqing to get married and try a marriage visa, by then my Fiancée Zhou's emotions were also exhausted the and pressure from the family not wanting her to leave ended the relationship. There are times I feel regret or feel sad about the bad experience with the K1 visa and Zhou, who I was so invested in emotionally and feel remorse for her feelings, I hope maybe she will be rewarded with the love she is hoping to find.

Time passed after the denied visa and I managed moved on, still burned emotionally and frustrated by the whole visa experience I remembered my favorite treat when I visited Chongqing called Hot Pot which is very famous in that Providence. I asked a Cheese Colleague of mine if there was a place that served Hot Pot and he mentioned a restaurant in China Town. After a few months passed I was in the area of China Town so I paid the restaurant a visit and ordered my Hot Pot. While I was enjoying my lunch I noticed a very stunning lady across the walkway dividing a hair salon from the restaurant where I noticed her working. Well, I surely had some time for a haircut, after lunch I walked in the salon and I was lucky enough to get this attractive lady named Lan to cut my hair. All the hair dressers in the shop were very friendly and the owner very engaged in conversation with me when I mentioned I had been to China before. Lan was very quiet, I tried to have conversation with her but was difficult, she was polite but she didn't say much the 1st time I saw her but I did learn she had been in USA for 2 years and I was welcome to come back for a haircut anytime. "Long story short", even though China Town was 45 minutes from my house I made it a point to visit Lan almost every other week for a haircut and our conversation became longer but never really engaged to the point she would consider anything of me other than a customer. After 3 months of visiting the shop, on my next haircut appointment I learned Lan went back to China for two months. After 2 1/2 months I received a call from the shop owner telling me Lan had returned and to come back to visit her. 3 weeks passed and I decided to go and visit Lan at the shop, as Lan prepared to cut my hair I asked if I could take her to lunch or dinner sometime as I did before on a few previous occasions but she responded as she did before "no thank you but you are welcome to come for hair cut". (I was starting to think the Visa process was a far better approach, just kidding). After a short pause Lan said, "you come back the next Saturday for dinner, can you take 2 friends that work in the shop for dinner too"? IT WAS ON! I came back the following week, my hair kept getting shorter and shorter but worth it, I took her and 2 friends for dinner the following Saturday. The following week we had arranged another dinner with a different friend, after a haircut of course. In the following weeks Lan introduced me to her friend of many years who had come from China long before her. I had dinner at her friend's house on many occasions meeting her friend's husband and children. After the many dinners and haircuts I learned Lan came over to USA on a Marriage Visa but was divorced after 1 year which was all together a very different story from mine but Lan also had a difficult experience.

After a month Lan and I dated normally, introducing her to my family, close friends and as time passed we naturally became a natural couple. I took Lan back to China so I could meet her family 2011 when I proposed to her there. When we returned back to USA Lan moved to my home and we got married a year later, May 2012 and now heading back to China later in 2013 to celebrate with her family. Everything came full circle, Lan is very traditional, she is very funny, loves my grandkids and my kids and likewise they all lover her, and my mom adores Lan. Lan is still quite by nature but she is still a wife that has normal expectations which I respect, she keeps me straight and I am glad she can hold her own. Did I mention, I am saving a lot on my haircuts now and I don't have to drive at all .

What an experience, As time goes by I learn more about Lan and I love her more from the 1st time I proposed. I found what I was looking for in a relationship, we continue to grow together not apart. Even though my previous experience took me to China and hers to the USA through different Journeys to find us together over HOT POT, wow, I never expected this or to have someone to love me as much as she does, Lan calls this "yuanfen".

I know there are many disappointments like mine with the visa struggle and all, but Thank you to those that know my story and hoped me the best because I found the best and in my own back yard

[Robb&Ann 101]

very nice love story. .btw I found Candle for Love site few hours ago before I saw ur post.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Robb&Ann

[Bayareaguy 156]

Yeah, if my current k-1 didn't work or for some reason, there will not be another. Never again.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

What a sweet story. It's funny how fate can sometimes work things out so that where you actually end up is better than where you thought you would be. Congratulations and good luck to the two of you.

[Darnell 8,479]

Hello Rob ! Thanks for the followup ! I was thinking of you earlier in the month, posted something on your wall.

Congratulations ! Yay !

[y2catalyst 3]

Would like to address a comment on fantasy from post on similar forum. "Look a little closer to home unless you are interested in the fantasy trips that won't last very long." Can I explain how the journey started for me, Chapter 1?

There are many common reasons to look abroad for a relationship and the situations are as unique to each individual involved and there are usually 2 or 3 outcomes; works out great and happy life; works out great then a divorce; or those like me who gave it a shot and didn’t work out from the perspective of the visa process by caving into the stress of a K1/K3 denial ripping us apart. Call it fantasy call it fate, you decide fate or fantasy, here is Chapter 1.

Before I tried the K1 visa I had no idea I would ever go to China or considered it. I have been to several countries in my past and China wasn’t on my list, not that I did not like Chinese people, it just wasn’t a place I was interested in visiting. After 23 years of marriage to my Caucasian American wife, two great kids the marriage found its end several years before the divorce, by then leaving me with the house and my son who was 16 at the time, and of course a nice payout to my ex to start her new life (worked out for her to). For a few years after divorce I was so busy with my son keeping up with his year round high school sports which left me little time for a relationship. As the window was closing where my son would soon leave to college I decided it was time for me to date. I decided to join a dating site and after a handful dates seemed very much like a revolving door (无聊), I wanted that meaningful and deep relationship I didn’t have for 23 years in my 1^st marriage. One evening, as I casually browsed through my daily top matches on the dating site I came across an Asian lady's profile that explained she was raised in the States detailing her likes, dislikes, her this & that’s, her expectations and demands sounding like much of the profiles I came across which I also had for 23 years in my last marriage. I remember reading her last comment was intriguing and changed my life (as much as it could as old as I am), her comment “If you have an Asian fetish go look in China”.

Well I never had an Asian fetish and I never consider looking outside the States and epically China but it dawned on me that both my older brothers are marred and very happy with their Pilipino wives, I said heck I will give it a shot, go Asian! Much to my surprise on the dating site I could search in China and wow a laundry list of very beautiful Chinese ladies. Their profiles were far different then the American profiles and if you call it fantasy so be it, I was curious. I read carefully through profile after profile and found a few that I thought I would reach out and start a conversation. Then there was the one, the one I went to Chongqing for, man o man was she the Joy of my life at the time and I even call her Joy when she asked me to suggest an English name for her. Our conversations started by email then after a month a few calls, she could actually communicate in Basic English where we could actually understand one another. We talking while using internet chat tools at the same time which gave more clarity to our conversations. After a month just as I was feeling this fantasy wasn’t progressing very well, on the next phone conversation we had I just decided I to sing to her a song by Leo Sayer “when i need you” (since we were so far apart & I like to sing, haha). That’s when it happened, we just connected from that point on, she just listened and when I finished she had the most contagious giggle and in her sharp almost childish Chinese voice gave her approval saying this was her favorite song in English. I was like, “what?” how would she know that song, but she did and she even pulled it up on her computer and sang along with it while I was listening. We talked more than most married couples do when they are together, I would call her on the drive to work, I would call when I finished my day before bed and any chat on the computer on our open times in between.

For the next several months Joy (Zhou) and I talked, chatted, sang, laughed and I listened to stories of her daily life, some extremely funny, some sad, some exciting and her days of boredom or struggles. Joy is so charismatic with such a wonderful sprit I was sold, she was real, I bought my ticked to China and met her after 6 months after connecting with her “when I need you". This may have been the fantasy part of my story, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I went to Chongqing to meet my mail ordered bride, I even started to question myself as to what the heck I was doing. That was all erased when I gathered my bags and walked towards the exit point where several people were waiting for arriving guests and when I turned the corner she was screaming my name and I was in disbelief that I actually would go that far to meet someone who might be my wife. I went to her, we awkwardly hugged, stared in each other’s eyes thinking is this real, is this fantasy. We gathered ourselves and I took a cab to the city, dropped my bags at the hotel and we went for dinner getting acclimated to the whole situation. I had 3 weeks with her in Chongqing, the whole experience of China in the city I was a guest to, meeting her sister, parents, and her son. I remember going to the school where she waited for him and walking him home, I remember her parent’s hospitality, I remember going to Karaoke (kala) with her friends singing all night long, the massages, the disco and of course hot pot, this was all so real or was it fantasy. I was sold, I would ask her if she would want to pursue the K1 visa and formally be engaged and she said yes and I even came prepared with a ring. The remainder of the trip was gathering all the legal docs I would need from her translated to English to start the K1 visa process when I returned to the States and of course more hot pot.

When I returned to the States engaged, I didn’t question if I was in love, I was in love, (or was I desperate after 22 years of marriage not having that loving feeling). Anyways, I started the K1 process and we continued to talk and talk and talk and on July 30^th, 2010, a date I looked forward to for the longest time. Nothing in our paperwork or otherwise was out of line and she was given a white slip at her interview in Guangzhou, the interviewer barely gave her the time of day. For me, the emotions of being denied, for what, was the past year & a half of my time and personal connection with my finesse a joke to the US Immigration to decide what was best for me. I never in my life felt I wasn’t in control to the point where I had no rights while doing nothing wrong. If I make a mistake I deal with the consequences, this is true as a child and as an adult and I had Uncle Sam deciding my fate for me, well that is how I took it at the time, man I was pissed.

From there you know from the beginning of my story in Chapter 3 (I found her in my own back yard), Zhou and I did not take the next step and try marriage and the K3. I did not go to China the 1^st time for a fantasy, I went there for a wonderful person who I loved with such chorizema, passion and Joy. I owe her in so many ways, she changed the direction and fate in my life. This is my Ode to Joy (Zhou), she was as real as the keyboard I typed on, in person and lead me to my density with my with my now wife Lan who I realize now is more perfect for me, (Chapter 2, letting go of the guilt, maybe I will share that chapter next year, right now I am enjoying my wonderful wife and don’t want to regress). If you find each other in your own back yard or from another country it should be you to decide your fate weather the relationship lasts or it doesn’t. As pissed as I was on July 30^th 2010, my fate was left up in part to Uncle Sam. With all that, I also would not change my China experience for nothing, a roller coaster ride for sure, ups and downs not knowing how long the climb to get top to just to be let down, the thrill of the next turn and the emotions left in my stomach, but at least I have lived, experienced the fantasy and have a story to tell, much better than taking the merry-go-round. When the coaster stopped on this story I know I ended up with my “yuanfen” my wife Lan.

Now I am living my reality, so hop on your roller coaster and see where the fantasy takes you.

In a few years when I am ready to contemplate the subject, I think my next post will be asking advice on the "pros & cons of pursuing US Citizenship for my wife" till then keep it off topic :-)