What a shame

Scary thought! Would explain much! But a scary thought just the same! :)

You obviously aren't paying attention! ALL of your activities are now subject to monitoring without your approval. Your private email on your computer at home is subject to monitoring. Your web surfing is monitored. Your movements are monitored. Your credit card usage is monitored.

You are the only one who changes the subject when confronted with your own crap.

writing/voicing

Seems there're some real interests in the very details of the process so I talked to the team member again to make sure all information were accurate. Here's the full story and the correction. Hope you wouldn't feel bored or confused.

First of all, the correction: the team made the visa appointment on June 4 for their July 3 competition and was scheduled the visa interview for July 20 (not July 2, sorry for the mistake in the original post.) So they didn't go for the visa interview at all. The visa deny scene happend to two boys who were in the team to go to watch and experience the competition and who went to apply the visa individually with the team leader. After the deny the team asked for help to the competition committee and received a supportive letter from a house representative(don't know from which state but should be the one where the competition is held. The woman in the team I talked to doesn't know much English.) The two boys went back to the visa office with this letter and got their visas. Then one of them finally decided not to come, so only one boy came to watch, but he can't participate in the competition because he's younger than 18.

The team requested the visa interview one month ahead for two reasons:

1)the visa office was closed in April and May and resumed in June. Why? Because the Chinese government suspended the operation of the visa application scheduling entity so no one could make a visa appointment during that time. Why did they suspend the scheduling entity? That's a looong and complicated story and THAT'S something REALLY political and I don't and can't tell you more about that here. 2)the team members had passports for official use. FYI, there're three types of Chinese passports: for private use, for diplomatic use and for official use. Basically if your trip abroad is organized by a government department or agency, you can apply for a passport for official use which will (supposedly) largely faciliate the visa application process. In this case, the China General Administration of Sport formed the team who would represent China. According to previous experiences one month ahead visa planning for official use passport holders is enough. Actually US embassy didn't even require a visa interview for official use passport holders before. The two boys had their private use passports because they weren't regarded as formal players.

That's the whole story. Seems to me now that the team is simply the victim of the political game between the two countries and they are definitely not the only victims. The team appreciate the competition committee's concern and help, wish good luck to all players and look forward to the next world championship in Spain two years from now.

Finally my personal apology for my bad joke in the original post. I didn't intend to imply any conspiracy theory or somethiing like that. I thought Americans would have a send of humor (black kind though) and if you could see my face when I was saying that, you probably wouldn't be that sensative.

The final finally: I hope you would agree with me we should stop this thread here. I just wanted to give a piece of information (plus my bad joke sorry again) to aeromodellers when I posted the original message and didn't expect it to extend to be a full political, economical, social, cultural, historic discussion. If anyone still want to voice their opinions on these issues, there are such designated groups at Google. Leave this group to R/C discussion please.

Have a good day.

Shin Gou

Such a narrow-minded view that shows total ignorance regarding our economy.

"Paul McIntosh" posted message IDon Tue, 6 Jul 2004 19:33:42

+0100

Evidence, please?

By the way, when this incident happened the Chinese had the championship cup which they thought they could bring to the competition. They sent it to the competition committee by express mail immediately when they knew they couldn't come. Hope the new champion can have the cup in time :)

Nah, not narrow minded but correct. If other countries really do feel we are being the isolationists the political jerks who wish to control us claim, the only way to change that is to give them a few months of actually acting like that. Then ask what 'we' are. Nobody said it would be easy or not hurtful to all, but I predict that the U.S. would get along better than some of the manure throwers claim and recover better that ever before. Think about it for a day or so.

SNIP

Never. Better information rather than political commentary is always welcomed. Too bad the wrong information was used as a basis for political horsemanure.

Thank you for admitting the 'complicity' of the Chineese government in their closing of the visa office. That sheds an entirely different light on the entire issue.

Agreed.

We DO have a sense of humor. Proof of that is in the fact that no good deed (closing of the visa office by the Chinese) goes unrewarded. That is just as black as your previous assertions.

Modelers come from all walks of life and all types of governments. That means that frequently we become the hostages of 'official' actions, intentionally directed at us or not. I know that, and now I think you know that.

Some people are too sensitive, and others look for any excuse for an argument. Humor is not always obvious when you are using the internet. One thing that would help is to use the smiley :-) to show you are joking.

Yep! Total ignorance! That's me!

Did I mention I hold an MBA? And did I mention that is the general field form which I retired early?

Not ignorance of our economy Paul. But rather a very good understanding of what such a move on our part would do to the rest of the world!

Sure nuff? And with the little bonus cards at the grocery stores, they now know your eating and drinking habits. Now if nothing else, your insurance company can spot your gluttonous ways early on and raise your rates before the coronary hits! :) And hey! The police can know when you're going to throw a party (by the booze you buy)! So they can sit near your house and tag the drunks as they leave the bash! Now that's really good for your reputation as a party animal!

Is this the point where we all run around in circles, screaming and waving our arms above our heads?

Seriously! They've had the ability for years and the basic problem still exists. They gather so much information that unless they have a reason to single you out to begin with, your data is simply lost in the information overload that is big brother watching!

"C.O.Jones" posted message IDon Tue, 6 Jul 2004 18:52:18 -0400

Don't forget wetting ourselves' down both legs.

The complicity of closing the visa scheduling office came from both sides. If you don't know the whole story, don't make a comment.

So think about this situation, if you want to make a call to make a visa appointment to the Chinese embassy and you find out they charge $8 per 12 minutes for that appointmetn phone number. If you finish the call in 1 second, you pay $8; if you finish the call in 12 minutes and

1 second, you pay $16, nothing in between. Oh, forget to mention in this situation you earn less than $200 a month (a simply math conversion: that's to say, if you earn $4000 a month, you should pay $160 per 12 min. in this case) What do you need to tell in the 12 minutes? Your name, passport number, the type of visa you are going to apply(tourist, student, etc.) and....you wait and write down your scheduled interview date. Sounds simple? But many many people were asked to hold after they gave the information and when they wrote down the date, they found they were just in the 13th minute.....

Now tell me, do you like this way? If you like it...well.. I don't know what to say.

But if you don't like it, this is exactly what happened at the US visa appointment call center in China. The US embassy outsourced the call center to a Chinese private company, but just one company, one phone number. How and why did the US embassy pick this company, no one knows and no comment from the US embassy when the Chinese media asked this question. In a comparison, the calling charge of the appoiontment phone number in Taiwan is less than 50 cents per minute and you can go find out the average salary in Taiwan.

When the appoitnment call center was allowed to reopen last month, the US embassy announced beginning this month, the calling charge would be $4 per 8 minutes. Congradulations to Chinese applicants! Now they save half and just need to spend 1/50 of their salary on a call IF they can have the date in 8 minutes.

That is just the information. The story behind is what I meant looong and complicated. It can be traced back to the US' fingerprinting requirement.....You got it? I hope you understand there's no good or bad guy or right or wrong when two countries deal with each other. There're only victimes,and unfortunately the Chinese R/C team was one of the victims this time.

Oooh an MBA!! Wow!

Lemme guess - University of Phoenix Online, where you basically write a check for your supposed degree?

Sheesh. Even Shrub can get an MBA.

OOOOOHHHH, an MBA!

The main difference now is that under the Patriot Act, the "authorities" need little or no evidence that you are doing anything wrong to pry into your activities.

Ah well. Names come and go, but islands take longer.

I don't confuse them.

Coming from you, that is hypocrisy of the highest order :-)