Forum	Title	Content	Member	Sex	Country	Date/Time
US Citizenship General Discussion	VSC Oath Taking?	Does anyone know if there is a naturalization calendar available for Massachusetts? Or, at least, how often the oath ceremonies take place? Do you have to go to the one allocated to you, or can you request to go elsewhere (e.g. if a ceremony is taking place in a different town but a month earlier)? Only, 2 months seems an awfully long time to have to wait to take the oath after the interview. If that is indeed the case, then I'm probably definitely screwed when it comes to having any remote chance of being able to vote this year... (I haven't given up hope yet!)	miri	Female	England	2008-02-01 10:54:00
US Citizenship General Discussion	CITIZENSHIP	It depends on whether you got your GC through marriage or employment. If through marriage you only have to wait 3 years (so you're good to go) but if it was through employment you need to wait 5 years, so you'll need to wait until 90 days before the 5th anniversary of when your GC was issued. This is a really helpful tool for calculating when you can apply: http://www.timeandda...te/dateadd.html I believe the sticky at the top of this forum should help fill in all the details. Edited by miri, 21 February 2008 - 12:14 PM.	miri	Female	England	2008-02-21 12:14:00
US Citizenship General Discussion	We are eligible to apply tomorrow correct?	Aye, I just applied myself (I got my GC on May 9th). A good tool for double-checking is this http://www.timeandda...te/dateadd.html (good for sanity checks!) Best of luck!	miri	Female	England	2008-02-21 12:10:00
US Citizenship General Discussion	Finally a US citizen	Congratulations! Hope the passport arrives soon	miri	Female	England	2008-02-22 15:41:00
US Citizenship General Discussion	N-400 document checklist	QUOTE (Vouge @ Feb 28 2008, 07:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well...sent out my N-400 today and now I'm already all crazy about it...keep thinking "what if I forgot to send this or this or they are going to lose my check and bla bla bla" Best of luck!!! Just keep saying to yourself that this is the last time you'll have to deal with the USCIS (it's what's keeping me relatively sane...)	miri	Female	England	2008-02-28 23:23:00
US Citizenship General Discussion	N-400 document checklist	QUOTE (Vouge @ Feb 19 2008, 12:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> QUOTE (miri @ Feb 18 2008, 11:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Fingers-crossed your I-751s are processed soon, although at least the I-751 doesn't need to be approved before you can filed for citizenship. If it makes you feel any better, it took them over a year to process my AOS (I was married in April 2004 and didn't get my conditional GC until May 2005...) Oh, and I wrote the cover letter myself Wow! Miri, I just looked at ur timeline and mine is almost the same....my interview for K-1 was in Feb' 04, we got married in April'04 as well and I got my first GC in May'05 and we're both from Boston...hehe Blimey! I wonder why it took them so long to process our GCs. It'll be interesting to see how long they take to process our N-400s -- I'm rather hoping that this application doesn't also disappear behind a filing cabinet... Maybe we'll be at the same oath ceremony!	miri	Female	England	2008-02-20 18:06:00
US Citizenship General Discussion	N-400 document checklist	QUOTE (Vouge @ Feb 14 2008, 06:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> QUOTE (ives_damian @ Feb 14 2008, 11:37 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ok this will sound really selfish but i'm glad i'm not alone!!! i sent the I-751 last year feb 2 and still haven't gotten an approval. really driving me crazy!! anyway i am going to send a lot of stuff with my N-400 application. i've been doing it little at a time, but basically i'm sending all the things you listed plus copies of everything that has both our names on it (bills, insurance, cars....) you think that's ok??? another question for you....are you going to write the cover letter yourself? i mean, like us, the non-USC need to write the cover letter or the USC?? i'm so confused. my hubby the USC wrote the cover letter for the I-751. thanks for the help, and i hope we stay in touch!!! Glad I'm not alone too! Yes, I'm going to write the cover letter myself, my husband wrote the cover letter for the I-751 as well, but now since I'm applying for citizenship by myself ( they don't need to sign N-400) I'll do it myself. I was thinking too to send all the stuff we sent for the I-751 and even more, but decided not to do so...I'll bring all of it for an interview. Good Luck and let's stay in touch! Fingers-crossed your I-751s are processed soon, although at least the I-751 doesn't need to be approved before you can filed for citizenship. If it makes you feel any better, it took them over a year to process my AOS (I was married in April 2004 and didn't get my conditional GC until May 2005...) Oh, and I wrote the cover letter myself Edited by miri, 18 February 2008 - 11:51 PM.	miri	Female	England	2008-02-18 23:50:00
Vietnam	sending medicine to Vietnam	Thank you! I just checked vietlinkglobal.com and it seemed like they don't offer shipping service to Hanoi, only HCM. While it is possible for me to send the gift to my relative in HCM and get it sent to my dad from there, I'd prefer less hassle unless it's the only way! Do you know of any other place like vietlink that will deliver to Hanoi as well?	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2010-12-03 11:36:00
Vietnam	sending medicine to Vietnam	Hi all, Does any of you have experience sending stuff back to Vietnam as gifts? I'm looking for recommendations/answers on which carrier to use, and how expensive the shipping/tax would be. I've been in the US for the past 5 years and have always sent gifts home with someone who was going there, but this time nobody is available and I want to send some supplements (shark cartilage and omega 369) for my dad to help with his joint problems. He just moved to Hanoi from HCM, so at least it's not some remote area. Thanks,	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2010-12-03 09:37:00
Vietnam	American men with Asian wives: what are your thoughts on living with her parents/ your in-laws?	Shrimp paste is one that just knocks me back out the door. I understand! I was shocked when my husband looked like he had no problem eating it (but maybe he was only acting in front of my family to please them, I'll have to ask him again to be sure ). I noticed that you're in the Boston area too, do you have any recommendation for good Vietnamese restaurants? We're (not too) recent transplants from the west coast, and I miss the abundance of good Vietnamese food there.	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2011-09-01 20:20:00
Vietnam	American men with Asian wives: what are your thoughts on living with her parents/ your in-laws?	Specifically in response to the bold part I highlighted, it's "un-American" (those that listen to Dr Laura Schlessinger and many other Christians) as well. But since you mentioned "un-Vnese", did you know that most Vnese parents will NEVER allow their daughters to live with their "future" husbands before the marriage vows? At least my own parents (and they have no daughters) and my in-laws and the majority (99%) of our relatives. Not only they won't attend the wedding, they simply refuse to recognize the relationship. And I can tell you it's NOT restricted to "old-fashioned/tradition" Vnese. According to Dave Ramsey, more than 90% of marriages in which folks live with each other before the vows will most likely end up in divorces later on. Dave Ramsey surely is NOT a VNese in any fashion. Sometimes some people "think" they're living in progressive, modernized world. Are they? I nowhere mentioned that living with your partner before marriage was a definitive "American" thing, as you seemed to think that I'd implied; you did not seem to disagree that it's not a Vietnamese thing, which is the entire extent to which I meant for that information to be interpreted. The only reason I brought that up was to demonstrate the process by which my husband and I adapted to living together, and why marriage for us didn't come with a huge need for compromise. To me, it's a matter of personal choice, we, Vietnamese or Americans or any other nationalities under the sun, in principles are all entitled to it as long as it does not affect other people's lives. And yes, I am aware how most Vietnamese parents would react to this matter, so I saved mine the headache by not sharing this information with them or any of our relatives (judge me on this if you want to, it's really not my problem). For you to understand my point any other way than explained above is simply out of my control, so I won't lose sleep over it. I congratulate you on committing to your principles, even if they're not the same as mine. As for the quoted statistics from Dave Ramsey, though I might not be convinced by his credentials on this subject, I appreciate your kind gesture in warning me that our marriage "will most likely end up in divorce later on," but please don't worry too much, because I'm not worrying about it at all. For your last question, I have neither an answer that can satisfy you, nor does it matter what my answer is. I only have one humble request that we keep the discussion focused on the original topic, but I also know that I have no power to moderate what you say on here. So yeah, please keep saying what you want to say, but from now on I will not honor off topic comments with a reply (other people might, I'm okay with that). Thanks and have a nice day	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2011-09-01 20:14:00
Vietnam	American men with Asian wives: what are your thoughts on living with her parents/ your in-laws?	Nuoc mam isn't going to be a problem. The first time they cut open a fresh durian your husband is going to freak out. It's an odor that very few "white as cotton" Americans are used to. Our house is a cultural mix. My wife and step-kids eat almost exclusively VN food, and they love to cook. I'm indifferent about most VN food, and I don't care for most seafood at all. They'll cook up a feast of shrimp, vegetables, maybe some fish, and rice of course. I'll nuke a bowl of Beef-a-Roni and grab a bag of chips. We'll all sit and eat together. For lunch, my wife and step-kids often cook and eat at home and I go to a deli or cafe with mother. I work at home, so I need a break away from the house every day. We do all go to restaurants, as well. My wife likes American style buffets because she can pick whatever combination of food she likes. My step-daughter likes Mongolian barbecue, Korean tofu soup restaurants, and an Asian fusion restaurant that I also think is really great. My step-son will eat anything, but he has a penchant for stuff I find pretty disgusting like dried squid cooked in a toaster oven. There's a Vietnamese chua in our town, and one of the monks comes to visit about once every week or so. My wife and the monk cook a soup with homemade noodles and tofu that's pretty darn good! When we're in Vietnam they usually order for me. They know my tastes, so I usually end up with some generic ga nuong or com chien or similar. My home's central room has been completely rearranged. Half of it is now a bona fide Buddhist temple, complete with a hand-crafted altar from Da Nang with abalone inlays. The living room furniture has been packed onto one side of the room. On a typical evening my wife and step-daughter will be in my room watching VN soap operas on TV, and my step-son will be singing karaoke in the living room on the internet with his friends. My mom and biological daughter are usually in their rooms plugged into the internet, but that was the same before my wife and step-kids arrived. I've used Rosetta Stone. It's about as good as any other. Byki is also good, if you purchase the premium upgrade. The only one I don't like at all is Pimsleur - they only teach you to mimic the sounds with no accompanying written text. You have no idea which sounds comprise which words. On the upside, they repeat phrases frequently without replaying the same recording, so you get to hear the phrase spoken many times. On the downside, Pimsleur, like most of the others, teaches Ha Noi dialect. I've learned almost as much by osmosis as I did when I was studying, but learning by exposure takes a lot longer if you're not immersed in it, and I'm a very long way from having even a basic grasp of the language. Still, I often get enough of a conversation to understand what's being discussed. The more "Vinglish" being spoken, the easier it is for me to catch on. I think you need to talk with your husband about this stuff. Marrying any spouse means marrying the family, as well. When you marry a foreign spouse then the family culture also comes with it. He doesn't have to become Vietnamese, but he at least needs to accommodate the culture and accept that it's part of his life with his wife. You could start with making your home a hybrid American/Vietnamese home. It looks like you have managed to attain the point of harmony in the daily life of your mixed culture family. I can't even imagine a completely Vietnamese family that will be able to make it a day with each other if they're the same as yours (kids from previous marriages of both of you, your mom and you two all living together). I think the key is the acknowledgement and respect for each other's differences, and it's something I want to achieve for my own family. For better or worse, I am extremely adaptable, plus we'd been living together for a year when we got married (very un-Vietnamese, I know) so pretty much no adjustment was needed afterwards. Nowadays we could pass for a normal American couple, unless someone asks me where I am from, for as it happens I speak English with a perfect standard American accent, and we've only lived in culturally diverse cities in the US where Asian-Caucasian relationships are sometimes the majority of what you see. It made things easy for us, but it could also make my husband let his guards down and become unaware that living with my parents/family can require a lot more adjustment/compromise than living with me (on a side note, my husband enjoys "mam tom," so maybe durian will be okay for him, while I can't stand it myself, ironically. I also think dried squid + Siriracha is delicious, and I'm going to steal the toaster oven idea from your stepson ) One thing I notice that could cause problem for us later on is that personal space/boundary is an almost nonexistent concept in a Vietnamese family. My parents might find it hard to accept that we sometimes will want to make important decisions without their input, or as mentioned in previous replies, that we might want to do our own things once in a while or even live in our separate space across the yard from theirs. Autonomy is something I have come to appreciate about living in America, so if my parents are unwilling to compromise on that,it might probably be the most contentious aspect of living together. Other than that, I can see many positive things about a mixed culture family. For one, it will be a unique, ever changing experience where everyone gets to learn something new everyday From your recommendations, I think I will get Rosetta Stone for my husband to help him get a head start on the language. It's funny because even though I, like most ESL people, struggled as first with English, now that I have become fluent I realized that it is probably the easiest second language to learn. Vietnamese is not monstrously difficult like some other languages, but it is quite challenging because of the lack of well-defined structures and the abundance of hidden nuances. I do appreciate my husband's eagerness to learn it, and will do my best to help him. Thanks for your recommendations, and good luck with tackling it yourself.	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2011-08-31 13:16:00
Vietnam	American men with Asian wives: what are your thoughts on living with her parents/ your in-laws?	Wow.. he hasnt lived yet.. hasn't been to VN? He's missin out. but that aside, he may be in for a culture shock as it sounds like much of the adjusting was done by you before you got together... Her family all live very close together. eat together regularly. MY FIL's side of the family didnt aknowledge our wedding until they met me. I understand where you are coming from as far as the culture and the expectations. In the states we seem to do things in the laziest ways possible. wash clothes by hand and take good care of them or throw them in the machine? My MIL would take a while to get adjusted to that much the same way my wife has. Your family is used to eating VN food every meal... your husband likely only gets it when you cook it or maybe a vn restaurant in town... We have had a few discussions on here about the culture shock of US food... We're trying our best to save for the trip, hopefully we will be able to make it next summer ( I would prefer going during Tet season when it's not as hot, but we normally have to TA during the school year, and airfare will be really expensive). My husband got a taste of Vietnamese family meals and social gatherings during our trip to Houston to visit my sister; he even held his liquor pretty well when people were pressuring him to drink. Still, I want to show him as much as possible during our trip to Vietnam. We both can't wait to go to Nha Trang to scuba dive If my parents live with us, they will most likely require Vietnamese food. My husband and I are diverse eaters, we love trying new restaurants and cooking new foods, on the other hand my parents didn't seem to like it very much when I tried to get them to taste Indian food . I LOVE American appliances, but yep my mom will never touch a dishwasher or an oven. She thinks they waste too much electricity/water, which is very far from the truth	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2011-08-30 20:54:00
Vietnam	American men with Asian wives: what are your thoughts on living with her parents/ your in-laws?	Not trying to be funny. You need to prepare your husband for the smells and sounds that would be a part of the parents moving in with you. I am assuming that your folks have a diet that consists almost exclusively of VN foods. That can be quite a change if that becomes the dominant aroma in the household. Also, if he would feel like an outsider in his own home ( the possible language barrier, meals). Discussing and visiting often enough to get a sense of what would be to come can only help you two to create a game plan. I know what you mean about the food smell. Yes my parents eat almost exclusively Viet food, with heavy emphasis on the "nuoc mam" . We will have to work out a system to minimize that, not only for my husband but for me as well. One good thing though, my parents have been living on and off in Prague in an apartment for almost two decades, and according to them their neighbors will call the cops if the cooking smell becomes too overwhelming, so I'm hoping they know how to cook Viet food without the smell lingering in the house Of course before any cohabitation can happen, we will try to do as much visiting as possible, depending on what we can afford (my parents have no issue with traveling expense, unlike us, so it might work better for them to come here) As far as the language barrier goes, my husband wants to learn Vietnamese to talk to my parents, but as a grad student his time is really limited. I try to teach him some once in a while, but I'm not a very patient teacher, and I'm also a grad student with limited time Has anyone tried Rosetta Stone for Vietnamese? Is it any good?	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2011-08-30 20:39:00
Vietnam	American men with Asian wives: what are your thoughts on living with her parents/ your in-laws?	@Hot Vit Lon: I sense a certain degree of disdain/disbelief in your comment, but I will choose not to be offended because in all honesty, I value your input to the discussion. Yes, marriage is complicated, even without external influences like parents, but why is it wrong to try to adjust and better yourself in it? I never claimed to be a traditional, loyal-to-her-parents Vietnamese lady, but I want to at least be a responsible daughter and wife who takes into consideration the feelings of my loved ones. What makes you think I don't discuss this with my husband ? And why can't one be an unsubmissive (if submissive is what you define as traditional) yet still grateful daughter? When taking my situation into a public forum (anonymously), I simply thought that this issue is quite common but rarely discussed, and that people might benefit from the input of others whether in or outside similar situations. I apologize if at times I slipped from being objective to being a bit whiny, if that's what annoyed you. While I am aware that money obligations to the wife's family is often the biggest issue in marriages of this nature (a white guy marrying an East Asian girl of less prosperous background, be that Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino,...), I can count myself among the fortunate in that my parents are financially secure enough to never require contributions from us. They paid for my US wedding, and are generally nice and accepting to my husband because they love me. Yet at the same time, parents often feel that a guy is never good enough for their daughter no matter what reality is like, and my parents sometimes act that out in a way that can be regarded as overly-demanding to my husband. I want to seek and maintain as much harmony as possible between my parents and my own family, and avoid any contention that might lead to the outcome in that article you linked (not that I think it can ever happen with my family because my husband and I are really mellow) by being considerate, and by active communication. If you have been reading my replies from the beginning, it is not difficult to figure out that I have already chosen my position in case of possible conflicts, though it never hurts to keep learning from others.	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2011-08-30 13:38:00
Vietnam	American men with Asian wives: what are your thoughts on living with her parents/ your in-laws?	@luckytxn : I shouldn't be laughing but I find your situation amusing because it is so similar to ours, except at least living with you MIL is not the only option for you, like it is for us . We're not religious so a civil wedding was enough, though the fact that our engagement was private (American style) and that he did not bring his parents to their house to ask for my hand still gets brought up once in a while (to me of course, but I don't tell my husband to save him from the "guilt"). I cannot even count how many times we were pressured to have a baby as soon as possible. To put it into perspective, I am 25, my husband is 24, we're both in grad school which will take another 4 years if not more, so having a baby is not even remotely in our agenda. My parents' reason for this is that if we wait too long to have a child, it will be unhealthy, to which I reply by saying that making babies is not the ultimate goal of our union, and that we're not against adoption (which is actually the truth) if it comes to that. As you can probably imagine, their blood pressure went through the roof everytime this conversation happened (lol, I just realized I'm a terrible daughter)	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2011-08-30 12:14:00
Vietnam	American men with Asian wives: what are your thoughts on living with her parents/ your in-laws?	Well my parents are educated (they both had been university lecturers before they retired early from teaching and went into exports and real estates), but that doesn't meant they are open-minded or easy-going. My parents are from the North, and moved to Saigon in 1979, so the old ways of thinking could have been a results of where they grew up. Living with them would be a huge adjustment not only for my husband but also for myself, even though I lived with at least one at a time until I was 18. There is no other alternative though, it will happen sooner or later, since we're already being guilt-tripped for leaving them in their old age fending for themselves , even though they are only mid 50s/60s And yes, the whole visiting fiasco was a shame. I would choose to live permanently in that bed and breakfast instead of the cramped space we have . I could see where she came from about wanting to be with family rather than a hotel, but I wish she would look at it from our viewpoint as well. She probably thinks our place is at big as my sister's 4 bd house in Houston, even though in reality it is tinier than her garage, thanks to the exorbitant rents in the Boston area	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2011-08-30 11:41:00
Vietnam	American men with Asian wives: what are your thoughts on living with her parents/ your in-laws?	@ScottThuy: my husband has never lived with my parents. As we met in college and got married in the US, he never visited Vietnam (we are saving up for the trip, hopefully next summer). Beyond the wedding, the only time he was in direct contact with my parents was when my sister had a baby in Houston, and we flew in to visit for a few days while my mom was staying there to help my sister out. He got along well with my family, but at the same time, he did feel like an outsider. It's understandable as everyone but him spoke Vietnamese; even though my sister speaks English she barely made an effort to talk to him, my brother in law was much nicer. Beyond being the translator for my mom and him, it was really difficult for me to be a culture bridge between them, because I sometimes felt like an outsider too. I'm much more comfortable around my husband than my parents and sister, for better or worse. I have talked to my husband about the future possibility of living with my parents, and he said he had no objection to it, but we never really discussed it in details. My parents seem to be set with the idea of living with either me or my sister, but my sister doesn't get along well with them like I do, so as of now they are leaning towards living with me. You are absolutely right, my family is not very inclined to compromise. I think my parents secretly wished that I had married a Vietnamese guy (they even made multiple attempts at setting me up with sons of their friends in the US), even though they could find nothing to complain about my husband outside the fact that he doesn't speak Vietnamese. I rebelled and decided to get married by myself, without the usual permission seeking routine, and am still occasionally reminded of my "guilt." I am afraid that when we live together under the same roof, this sentiment will be more clearly shown, and it will hurt my husband. My husband is extremely mellow and reasonable, so if there is a war between my family and him, I most likely will be on his side. That's so great that you would love to live with your in-laws! I imagine them to be wonderful, caring people. Are they living by themselves in Vietnam, or with other family members? The problem with my family is that there are only 4 of us, and we're not close enough to our extended family (very unusual for Vietnamese people) for my parents to live with them when they are older. @NigeriaorBust: it will be a while before we can settle and buy a house, but yes I did think about having a house with a separate in-laws quarter. Even if we could afford such a place right out of grad school, the potential problem with this is that my parents could view it as a sign of disrespects for us to want to have have some degree of separation (albeit minimal) from them. Not too long ago, my mom wanted to come visit us (my parents are loaded so traveling expense is not an issue for them), but dropped that thought immediately after I told her that she could stay at the nice bed and breakfast 2 doors down from us. No matter how I tried to explain that we live in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment that would be super uncomfortable for 3 people, she still looked at it as if we didn't want her to come :|	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2011-08-29 16:33:00
Vietnam	American men with Asian wives: what are your thoughts on living with her parents/ your in-laws?	Hello beautiful VJ folks, As we all know, there are more than one obstacles that people from different cultures have to overcome in order to build a happy life together, one of which is the difference in family dynamics: in the US, when children get older, they leave the nest and make their own home base somewhere else, and no matter how close emotionally the children stay to their parents, they typically live in separate houses, even in different cities or states, and maintain separate financial resources, lifestyles, and schedules. On the other hand, for a typical East Asian family, the eldest son or daughter (if there is no son) will remain with his/her elderly parents even after he/she gets married and has his/her own children. Multiple generations living under the same roof is the norm, and family members typically share their financial resources and obligations as a whole. We can go all day about the advantages and disadvantages of each setting, however, even more complications can arise when two cultures are merged. In my case, I am a Vietnamese born and raised, US educated woman who is married to a white-as-cotton, Texas born, Arizona raised, California educated American guy; and we're currently living in New England. My parents have only 2 daughters, no son, and so they depend on my sister and me emotionally. Even though at the moment we are not yet faced with the situation, in the near future when my parents get old, they will probably need someone to take cake of them, like most elderly people in Vietnam. I tend to be the more affectionate daughter, so I can see myself being their caretaker of choice when the time comes. As much as I want to fulfill my duties to my parents, I simply cannot ignore the fact that I will be putting my husband in a lot of stress by forcing him to live with his in-laws. If there is one universal thing across cultures, it is the sometimes not obvious yet always present tension between in-laws, even if they share the same culture. Even though my parents respect my choice in marriage, and my husband respects the culture where I come from, already I could see some small issues, such as the lack of frequent communications between my husband and parents, mostly due to the language barrier, but also because of the difference in expectations: in Vietnam, a son-in-laws is expected, even obligated, to extend pleasantries/regards to his in-laws on a somewhat regular basis, unlike in the US, where most of the time pleasantries are exchanged on a voluntary manner. I talk to my parents frequently, but they always ask why they don't hear from my husband more often. This is in no way my husband's fault, but once again, a result of the difference in family dynamics between the two cultures. I can only imagine that if we live under the same roof, this problem will become even more apparent, since the excuse of long-distance will no longer be applicable, while I can't imagine that my husband will talk a lot to my parents even if the language barrier is no longer a problem, as it is not in his habits to confide much in anyone else but his wife, not even his own parents. This problem will only be the tip of the iceberg, as clashes can stem from many other things: difference in tastes, habits, preferences for PRIVACY, and most frequently the methods for the UPBRINGING OF CHILDREN/GRANDCHILDREN. So, VJ people in situations similar to mine, what are your arrangements? What do you think would be the best solution to this particular issue? If you do live with your Asian in-laws, what are your true feelings about the situation?	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2011-08-29 14:06:00
Vietnam	Bringing 2 new iPads to Vietnam as gifts, plus an old personal one, would there be any problems?	Thank you all for your replies!   I have been informed about the "bill in the passport" procedure, but as a Vietnamese person I would hate to feed into the terrible corruption problem we have there. However, it's probably advisable for me to prepare some 5-10 dollar bills this time just in case, because we will be landing late in the PM and I really don't want to spend all night at the airport   I also planned on letting my husband carry most of the stuff, since he is caucasian. Should we go on separate lines at custom and pretend not to know each other, or is that unnecessary?	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2014-01-07 21:53:00
Vietnam	Bringing 2 new iPads to Vietnam as gifts, plus an old personal one, would there be any problems?	Hi,   My husband and I are going to Vietnam at the end of January to visit family. My mum requested that we bring her an iPad air, and also carry an extra one that her friend's son ( living in the US) wants to send to his mother.   For personal use, my husband will be bringing his own iPad air and Macbook Pro for work. I will have a kindle, a Canon DSLR with 2 lens and accessories, and a GoPro camera, all of which we will be taking back with us to the US.   This is in additions to a bunch of other small stuff (quite a few bottles of vitamins, few lbs of chocolates, a 1L bottle of Scotch, etc) that we'll be bringing for the family's use during Tet holiday.   Has anyone experienced bringing expensive electronics to Vietnam? Did you have any trouble at customs? Please advise.   Thank you and Chuc mung nam moi! (almost)	sealavender	Female	Vietnam (no flag)	2014-01-05 09:14:00
Europe & Eurasia (except the UK and Russia)	Türk Kahvesi *Turkish Coffee* Cafe*	Thanks everyone. I appreciate the warm welcome. I miss my lady very much and hope to have her here soon. Mya is from Kemer, Antalya. I met her while on vacation with friends. I had no idea I would leave my heart there. For Mariye, I call her my little kirpi. After running across a family of them together the first day we spent together. Funny I know. There is so much information to read up on. You have all been so busy. I will let you know if I have any questions. I appreciate the offer. Good luck everyone. Jack Welcome to you Jack and Mya! Glad you could join us. Where is your lady from in Turkey? Now, that you're an AmeriTurk, which term of affection do you use for her? Anyway, you'll have to let us know ... lol, or at least surprise her and let her know! Best, Mariye	Jack&Mya	Male	Turkey	2011-10-23 19:11:00
Europe & Eurasia (except the UK and Russia)	Türk Kahvesi *Turkish Coffee* Cafe*	Hi guys. I am new to visa journey. Mariye wrote a post on my page about this board. I thought I would give it a try. My lady and I are waiting on our petition to be approved. Good luck to all of us.	Jack&Mya	Male	Turkey	2011-10-20 16:11:00