ReRe_is_sweet
Maranduh
I'm from Canada and have spent about half my time in China on and off for the past few years. I had taught myself Chinese for about a year before I went, but I had my now husband to help me. My Chinese was good enough to get by on my own when I did end up traveling alone after a few months though. I very much love it and miss it when I am back in Canada. I hope we can spend some consecutive years living there in the future. I've spent 4-5 months at a time in China but now officially moved there, I was always on a tourist/visitor visa. My husband is in the process of immigrating to Canada and the paperwork is pretty complicated but with a lawyer to help us it's not so bad, there is also a very long wait, it's a long process.
Anyway I am so so so happy that I decided to study Chinese and then that I met my husband and went to China and everything I've experienced as a result and I would very very much recommend to anyone to spend some time in another country beyond vacation/tourism or even just learning another language and culture.
3nodding Wow! That's so amazing! Congratulations. What is the process of immigration like?
Thank you. We hired a lawyer to help us and she makes sure we have all the proper paperwork and tells us what would be helpful to our application and such and wrote a cover letter arguing in our favor. The papers get changed every so often so in the course of our getting ready to apply the forms were updated twice which meant she ha to alert us to that and give us the new forms, otherwise they would be returned and the process would be dragged out longer. Definitely worth it hiring her. I don't know what it's like for any other country but for Canada they have to approve me as a sponsor and make sure I can afford to provide for both of us and I sign a contract saying I am financially responsible for him and any debt he incurs, with or without my knowledge. On his side he has to provide proof of no criminal record, family information and proof of our relationship being genuine, pictures of us together and him with my family, pictures of our wedding, a copy of a wedding invitation, letters from his friends and family about us and pretty much anything else that can help to prove that our marriage is legit. It turns out to be a pretty big folder after all of that is put together.