Author Topic: A Lesson learned  (Read 3046 times)

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Offline Clayton

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A Lesson learned
« on: September 15, 2011, 08:26:59 pm »
A Lesson Learned
I was just reading Martin’s post where her said it was a bit quiet and how the site needed some new members or present members to post more so I thought I would tell you my story, I wrote it in the box provided, corrected the spelling and clicked the post button and a sign came up and said that other posts had been put up while I was writing ,did I was to view them, so I did, and when I came back my letter was gone, buga, In case you haven’t guessed yet I’m new at driving these here computers, self taught and all that, anyway I decided to have another go by writing in another place and copy and paste it into this site, so here goes.
I have had a couple of bits and pieces to say here and there on this site but I never really introduced myself properly, I guess I just butted in, so I’ll start from the beginning .

My real name is Leeroy ,I’m 62 and a semi retired farmer/earthmover living in country South Australia 8 kilometers from the nearest town and that’s about as close as I ever want to get to a town haha.
My 16 year old daughter lives with me and in late 08 she said to me ,out of the blue, Dad when are you going to get a girl friend, well, duno I said, but it did get me to thinking.
I had been keeping my eyes open over the last few years but no woman really got my attention so I started looking online. I was put off looking locally, in Australia I mean, I did not come up to scratch with these women’s wants and needs  so I looked further afield , I had always had a hankerin for Asian women, there is something about their eyes that fascinates me, and their dedication to husband and family and the more information I found on the net the more interested I became.
At first I never gave China a thought, I thought there was a shortage of women there for the local men, and there is, but as I found out they are not interested in divorcees or women over about 35, fussy bugers, but that’s alright ,the more for us blokes.
Like the rest of you blokes ,when I stumbled onto the Chnlove site I couldn’t believe my eyes, and even when I narrowed the list down to within the appropriate age group I still had 1400 odd to choose from. I finally got down to just one lady and communicated for about two months until she said to me after I sent her some photos of the area around her that she could not live in such a remote place ,so I thanked her for her honesty and moved one.
After that experience of paying translators and the lack of privacy I decided to choose a woman who could speech some English and her physical beauty was not so important, well you know in there profile where it tells how much English they speech , well I know now that a ‘little’ means ‘sweet F A’ and those admiration letters, I picked out one that stood out from the rest and as it turned out it was her actual words and that is what got my attention.
This lady from Shenzhen responded to a cupid note I sent and that sent the ball rolling, we hit it off straight away but after a while I got the feeling that this woman my just be a bit above me , big city, high profile job, good wages , lots of friends, she had the works but as she informed me when I questioned her, all that meant nothing to her without a life partner so we continued on our merry way and formed quite a bond and it did not take long for me to have feelings for her.  I first visited Yan in March 09, boy , what a culture shock, I had gone there with the idea of having an adventure and if we did not work out it would be a holiday ,  For a bloke like me to go overseas an especially to a non English speaking country by myself well that’s what I call stepping out of one’s comfort zone, I knew there were a lot of people in China but bloody hell they’ve got more people in some cities than we have in all of OZ.  So I spent 9 days there and she visited me every day and take me window shopping and site seeing, the usual thing and I knew she was attracted to me because during my stay her mother who lives in Wuzhou broke her hip but Yan never bolted, she had two brothers who could look after her mum for a couple of days until I went home.  I learnt what traditional means ,when a Chinese woman says she is a traditional woman it means no hugs no kissing no holding hands and that sort of thing. This surprised me a little because in her letters she would always send me kisses and hugs and she was going to run into my arms when we first met, maybe they were not her words after all.
Anyway we had a really nice time together and when it came time for me to leave ,I grabbed her ,gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek and whispered in her ear “ I love you’ and she responded with the same and I went home a happy bloke.  Geez, I’m trying to compress this post but it’s getin away from me a bit.
We continued corresponding for another 7 months and in that time I couldn’t find anything about Yan that I did not like so I went back to China again and we got engaged, went to Wuzhou and met her mum and brothers and countless friends and we had   wing ding at a really nice restaurant with the big round tables and all the glits and glamour. The manager there is a friend of Yan so I think I might have got a little discount because it only cost me 120 AUD to feed about 20 people.   
That was another 9 day visit and my last, I thought, we had intended for Yan to come to Australia and we would marry here and the immigration agent we used thought that was a good idea because he told me that if she wanted to get a visitor’s visa he would not help as he thought she had no chance of getting one. So we went through all the bull dust and jumped through hoop after hoop as you all know only to be knocked back because we got a couple of answers wrong and they called Yan a fraud
Back again to China in march this year, I thought ‘I’ll show those barstards who’s a fraud, I won’t bore you with details but we got married, you all know the procedure, anyway I stayed two weeks this time and we really got to know each other very well. We stayed in a hotel gust down the street from her mum and one of her brothers lives in a flash apartment next door so we spent a lot of time with family, yes they made me feel like part of their  family, just like Yan will be here. It’s amazing how well we communicate , we haven’t used a human translator since the first day of my second trip, we use one of those electronic jobs when we need to clear something up but other than that we get by really well, and we have lots of laughs . I got to see a bit more of Chins this trip , we had to go to Guangzhou because my singles certificate was a few days out of date, that was interesting, we traveled on a overnight bus with beds in it, I did not sleep much, I was too busy staring out the window, I’d love to tour through China by motorbike I recon it would be fantastic
I absolutely Love visiting China but I could not live there ,at least not in the cities so if she gets knocked back again I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do,  Yan lodged her second application two months ago so mow we are waiting for her call up to interview, we have both learned off by heart, names, dates and all relevant things but I bet they throw in a couple of curved balls just to trip us up.
Anyway Gentlemen, that’s a rough outline of our story and of course there are a hundred in-between stories, enough to write a book , actually if I could write better I would write everything I could remember about this epic journey ,put it in a book form and save it for my future generations.
So from now on maybe I might have more to say, in the past I have felt like I’ve been stickin my nose into other peoples conversations, and when I work out how to make the photos smaller I’d like to show off my missus to you all.

Cheers for now

Leeroy
This is the way to go

Offline shaun

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2011, 08:59:46 pm »
Leeroy.  I'm glad you told us about you and your wife.  Don't be such a stranger.  I'm sure you have plenty of good advice to give here.

Offline Clayton

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2011, 10:02:48 pm »
OK thank Shaun, i;m about to talk to Yan now .
see ya later
Leeroy
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Offline David E

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #3 on: September 15, 2011, 11:06:14 pm »
Great story Leeroy...many thanks for sharing...

If you look in the Aussie Visa requirements thread on this forum you will find a list of questions that get asked at typical interviews...including some of the "curved ball" types. Maybe you should make sure that you both know the EXACT answers to all of them....then you should be OK.

Best of luck this time

Cheers...David

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #4 on: September 16, 2011, 12:55:36 am »
Thanks Leeroy , with Stories like this .. it would never be slow or boring here . If only more would bring themselves to tell their Story , as everyone I'm sure has an unique interesting to tell .

I / we all hope for the best for you and get your Wife where she belongs .. by your side . Good Luck and more of it .

Offline Willy The Londoner

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2011, 12:35:30 am »


My real name is Leeroy ,I’m 62 and a semi retired farmer/earthmover living in country South Australia 8 kilometers from the nearest town and that’s about as close as I ever want to get to a town haha.

Thats what I like to hear another 62 year old 'earthmover'.  Welcome to the club Mate.

I am sure its just farming you retired from and that your still moving the earth these days!

Willy
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Now in my 12th year living here,

Offline Clayton

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2011, 07:41:19 am »
Thanks for the tip David, I just had a look at your list of questions and i printed it to give to Yan, there's a couple in there that we had not covered .
She knows how to spell my name, sha does it often when we chat, but i think the subject of our conversations could consentrate more on studying for the interview.
 Cheers

Leeeroy
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Offline Clayton

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2011, 07:44:32 am »
Willy, Your not moving earth in China are you?
I moved a bit when I was there haha.

Cheers

Leeroy
This is the way to go

Offline Pineau

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #8 on: September 17, 2011, 09:00:38 am »
Sweet story Clayton.

I will keep my fingers crossed for your interview.

I have had trouble resizing photos as well. I found that if I open them with any photo viewer then use the screen capture function of QQ chat window they come out just the right size. I little round about way but it works and I have got good at it.

I have also found that if your going to write anything here more than 10 or so lines use a word processor then copy and past it here. I cant count the number of times I have lost a couple of pages of editing because I left the page to go look at something else.

Gerry
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Offline Clayton

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #9 on: September 17, 2011, 10:59:44 am »
Yeah Gerry, I worked out how to re size on QQ chat but I went to Google to findout how to do it for here, it's a bit of rootin around but it works. 
And about you loosing your pages, well I don't feel so silly now, ain't it a bugga when that happens.

Cheers
Leeroy
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Offline Chong

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #10 on: September 17, 2011, 01:59:25 pm »
Good story, you found your love. The immigration issue is just a minor bump, just consult with David and the other Aussies here for advice.

Good Luck.

Offline David E

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #11 on: September 17, 2011, 05:29:52 pm »
OK Leroy...just swot those questions  ;D ;D

The other points of interest that the interviewer places great weight on are:

That you have visited each other several times

That you have discussed in detail what your plans are for the year or so after Yan arrives in Aus....will she work, how will she improve her English, will she learn to drive...and stuff like that which demonstrates you have both done some serious planning for the future....which in fact you have already done I am sure.

How will you handle finances...joint accounts, housekeeping money, paying normal bills (utilities etc).....will you enter her on your Property Title......stuff that demonstrates your committment to the future relationship.

Go for it and give them heaps.... ;D ;D ;D

David

Offline Clayton

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Re: A Lesson learned
« Reply #12 on: September 19, 2011, 03:34:39 am »
I just finished talking with my wife and I'm happy to say the questions i ran past her that Davide E  pointed out to me she answered very well.  Some of them we had not thought of before but because we chat regularly we must have covered the subjects before, she is a very good student, i know it won't take her long to pick up the English language.
The only question she faulted on was ,Why did you pick an Australian husband, her answer, honesty, i told her that was really nice but not what the consulate is looking for.  So i came away from that chat feeling a lot more confident but i still live with this knot in my belly all day waiting for the consulate call.  I know now why they have such high security in the consulate .

Cheers
Leeroy
This is the way to go