Visa Vis

Boy, us Canadians don't know how good we have it.
With minimal hassle we can generally get into most any country we want. We'll complain if we need to get a visa beforehand, which generally amounts to an application.

Not so for Chinese (and other developing country) folks.

Canada is particularly wary of young, educated, English-speaking people hopping over the True North Strong and Free border for fear that people might decide to stay.

So they dug up some red tape and strung it around.

To tell the truth, i haven't been too careful figuring all this stuff out, 'cause there's not much i can do for a lot of it.

What i have had to do has involved things like getting all appropriate and strangely inapplicable info details into my parents' letter of invitation for Q. i secured the current 3rd party confirmed financial statements of my parents' incomes. Collected my dad's proof of citizenship and immigration status. i am currently hassling Q and my dad to start emailing each other so we can print off the emails so as to "prove the correspondence" between inviter and invitee. Trying to get an early contract from work so as to have proof that i too am returning to BJ for Sept. And other less exciting details. I also should try and find pix of Q and i together and maybe try to hack together an album so as to "prove" our relationship.

Q doesn't seem too worried about it, compared to, say H and her BJ bf who is also planning to go to Vancouver this summer. He's actually got his parents to "sell" him their car and put 1/2 their apt under his name, so as to show he's got assets he should be unwilling to leave behind. H has also put together a sickeningly sweet photo album as mentioned above. Unfortunately, it's true i don't have so many of that kind of photo. Generally not my shooting style, which i never thought was a problem until presently :P

Anyhow, it's only a couple months before the plane departs, so hopefully this stuff all pulls through w/ minimal hassles. Feel free to cross fingers for us.