My fiance from China now has a B1/B2 visa, which is a tourist visa. Is it possible to wed in the States and then file for the spousal visa? Yes, you can get married in the US while on a tourist visa. It happens all the time, and doesn’t always have anything to do with […]

Live from Las Vegas, what’s our next question? Joseph Clifton. My girlfriend is Chinese, she is not born in a hospital so she doesn’t have her birth certificate, but a household registry, which is an official Chinese document. Yeah, that’s a common situation. The short answer is no, of course if they’re not issuing birth […]

Hukou is built upon a history of family registries that dates back to the Xia Dynasty (2100 BCE- 1600 BCE). The modern usage takes this and is applied similar to the internal passport system used in the former Soviet Union. This internal passport identifies a person by regional city or village and there work status […]

Marriage in China is based on China’s laws regardless of nationality of the individuals marrying.  Getting married in China requires at least one of the applicants is either a citizen or has a long term resident permit. China requires applicants for marriage to meet minimum age requirements of 22 for men and 20 for women.  Additionally, if a […]

Chinese birth certificates are available in the form of notarial certificates (Chu Sheng Gong Zheng Shu or Chu Sheng Zheng Ming Shu). While some notarial birth certificates will list stepparents or adoptive parents along with natural parents this is not always the case. In some cases the certificates will list only the natural parents covering […]