Menu
Expat.com

Departure is tentatively set

Post new topic

SteinNebraska

Well, we finally got our immigration visa appointment at the US Consulate.  It's November 2.  I was planning on going back right after the school year finishes but the appointment came earlier than I hoped and the 6 month validity period from the date of the visa issue or medical exam is going to prevent that.  They go for their medical evaluations and vaccinations tomorrow.

We waffled on cancelling the appointment and rescheduling but that's a bit risky.  Our two year anniversary is also on April 28 which would get my wife and her daughter 10 year green cards instead of the provisional 2 year cards so we will have to adjust status.

But, at the end of the day, all three of us are ready to just go.  Now our plan is to go around the middle of March.  Her daughter would attend the small school in my small hometown for two months and then we can start looking to buy a new house in the city in the district where we want her to go to school.  There's a large Vietnamese population in Lincoln and the school I've chosen is about 10% Vietnamese so she will have some familiarity.  The neighborhood I want to buy a house is 40-50% Vietnamese.  There's a large Vietnamese grocery store, restaurants (although a large bowl of pho will run you close to 300,000VND!) and shops.  It will help them feel at home a little bit.  Most of us know what it's like to move to a brand new country and this will help them to adjust.

So, we will have to adjust status in two years.  It's not that big of a deal.  We also will be able to stop paying for two households when we move back so we will save on that end.

My wife is hoping that COVID is more under control by March.  I'm not too worried about it but she is.  Nebraska isn't in bad shape when compared to a lot of the US.  It's also likely there will be vaccines available by then.

A march departure splits the original June intent and also the December thought that we had to go in time to start the school year mid-year.  But moving to cold Nebraska in December would be a shock to them first of all, and second it would be a difficult time to find and buy a house, sell my house and move, all around the holidays and get it done in time to enroll in school because must live in the district to do that.

So March is the "just right" of these three bears.  It gives us an extra 2-3 months to find a new home and move at our convenience and the weather would be better just coming into spring.  My company will be happy to have me home sooner as I've already been gone longer than we all originally planned and I haven't been able to make the bi-monthly return visits since December.

Our longer term plan is to go to US, have her daughter finish high school and enroll in college.  Right before then they will have more than their 3 years in country needed to apply for citizenship, depending on how many summers they come back to Vietnam.  Once she is in college and citizenship is established I'll retire and we can then spend winters in Vietnam and summers "somewhere" in the US.  Definitely not high tax Nebraska but somewhere favorable to retirement for taxes and relaxation.  We may go to NW Ontario Canada for the summers instead.  I'd love that but that remains to be seen.

As I've told my wife many times before, while I like Vietnam I hate HCMC.  Too dirty, crowded, noisy and just not a good fit for this country boy.  We now have five months to buy property in Lai Thieu which we have agreed upon for several reasons.  Traffic and congestion is much improved but still big enough to have pretty much everything, still close enough to HCMC because even when I "retire" I'll still have my company here and will need to work a couple of days a week.  Most of my suppliers are within 30 minutes of Lai Thieu.  There are some in Long An but no matter where we would end up I won't be close to all of them.  On top of that the location actually lops off the worst traffic-snarled 45 minutes of the drive from District 2 to our farm where we will have our lake house for and her family's home in Binh Phuoc.

It's all coming together.  I'll miss the weather and cheap beer, but being in HCMC, not much else.  I am looking forward to the next chapter in US and the following chapter of retirement.

Ciambella

Such exciting news.  I'm very happy for you and your family.  Congratulations!

MikeTVN

Good luck to you and your family. Nice story.

andidips

Wonderful news. Feel very happy for you and your family.

If I ever end up getting the assignment and come over to VN, the first guy I would have invited for a drink would have been you. Now, would look forward to your occasional visits. All the best and Good luck.

Mark Tat

Best wishes for a happy future!

pppham40

Thanks for taking time to share your experience.  Best wishes to you and your family.

gobot

Great to have a long range life plan, and a short range epidemic-coping plan to help pass the time until you can escape Vietnam. Good luck in March.

SteinNebraska

gobot wrote:

Great to have a long range life plan, and a short range epidemic-coping plan to help pass the time until you can escape Vietnam. Good luck in March.


Thanks.  They got their medical results back in their sealed envelopes so one week to the interview and then we are done.  I filed the initial application paperwork in July of last year so 18 months total to get it done.

SteinNebraska

Well, that went quickly enough.  Just purchased a new villa lot just north of Lai Thieu.  Really nice street and neighborhood.  Several large villas built already.  One is single story and looks to be about 600 meters in size with a pool and the other is probably 500 meter footprint but two story.  Some smaller ones already built and a nice sized two story being built right now across the street from our property.  We bought one of the smallest properties on the street (10x42).  Many are 600-1000 meter lots, some close to 2,000.  No attached houses, no tube houses, no dogs and the only chickens that I heard are on the land we bought (small 150M house that we are going to tear down).  By the time we build I suspect it will be pretty well developed.  The lot that is right next to ours is 600-650 meters and just sold a week or two ago.  I suspect it will be a nice house as well.  Pretty stoked to have that finished before we leave.  Looking forward to building as soon as we get back in a few years.

Driving in Lai Thieu is amazing.  I can't believe how different it is from HCMC.  Roads are wide, traffic is almost non-existent.  I kept commenting to my wife that it's like driving around HCMC on Tet.  It's so comfortable and stress free.  It's ALMOST like driving at home.

SteinNebraska

I compare this to the neighborhood we rent in now.  It's a nice neighborhood but nothing special.  All attached tube houses.  A 7 x 20 house half a block away just sold for 22 billion and we met a guy at the local Bun Bo half a block down the street that was buying the 4 x 20 tube house behind ours and over one for 12 billion.  It's not D1 pricing but still really stupid pricing at least to me.  That's 275,000,000VND per meter!  I just can't wrap my mind around that.  And it's been high here for a while.  My wife is friends with the lady that has the Bun Bo.  She bought that lot next to her house three years ago to make the open air restaurant.  It's a 6x20 and she paid 10 billion for it back then.  But, maybe she's not crazy.  If the 7x20 sold for 22 billion and a 4 x 20 sold for 12 billion she's probably up to 15 billion in three years.  I used to think all of these crazy prices were just asking prices to shut people up but they are actually selling.  So 50% increase in 3 years doesn't sound bad.

My wife said on ours that she feels confident that the neighborhood and location are such that when we come back in five years if we decide we don't like it we should be able to double our money. 

The good thing is we have kind of now "set our floor".  If the prices go up only 20% that means comparable properties should have gone up the same and we could sell and buy again if we had to with the same money.  If somehow it doubles then other proerties would double but we could still sell and buy again with the same initial investment.  That's what I mean about setting the floor.  We have bought our cost of entry.  If we keep it, great.  Still OK at that price.  If we need to sell we should be able to "trade" the value for this one for another one in the future should we need to.

MikeTVN

SteinNebraska wrote:

Well, that went quickly enough.  Just purchased a new villa lot just north of Lai Thieu.  Really nice street and neighborhood.  Several large villas built already.  One is single story and looks to be about 600 meters in size with a pool and the other is probably 500 meter footprint but two story.  Some smaller ones already built and a nice sized two story being built right now across the street from our property.  We bought one of the smallest properties on the street (10x42).  Many are 600-1000 meter lots, some close to 2,000.  No attached houses, no tube houses, no dogs and the only chickens that I heard are on the land we bought (small 150M house that we are going to tear down).  By the time we build I suspect it will be pretty well developed.  The lot that is right next to ours is 600-650 meters and just sold a week or two ago.  I suspect it will be a nice house as well.  Pretty stoked to have that finished before we leave.  Looking forward to building as soon as we get back in a few years.

Driving in Lai Thieu is amazing.  I can't believe how different it is from HCMC.  Roads are wide, traffic is almost non-existent.  I kept commenting to my wife that it's like driving around HCMC on Tet.  It's so comfortable and stress free.  It's ALMOST like driving at home.


Sounds very cool. I assume you mean by 'tube house' you're talking about the shotgun or row home type houses that are everywhere? I see a lot of open spaces where you've bought. I assuming there's not much land with your house. Like a zero lot line?

SteinNebraska

MikeTVN wrote:

Sounds very cool. I assume you mean by 'tube house' you're talking about the shotgun or row home type houses that are everywhere? I see a lot of open spaces where you've bought. I assuming there's not much land with your house. Like a zero lot line?


Yes, I was talking about attached row houses.  All of the houses in this area are detached with at least some space between each one, some more than others.

You can build to the zero lot line but it depends on how your land is marked in the red book.  There is a set area where you can build marked on the plot.  For instance ours has a 100 meter area where we can build but that's generally set as a minimum when the lots are established.  You can apply and pay additional money to move it or enlarge it.  In our case right now it will cost 2,000,000 per meter that we want to expand the current house location in the red book.  We can wait and do it later but the cost will most likely increase.  I'm researching plans to decide the floor plan and we will pay the fee before we leave to get it increased.

SteinNebraska

Just thought I would update that the visa interview was yesterday and we passed.

There were about 80 applicants in the morning group. I was the only US citizen attending the interview with their spouse, which wasn't surprising since the border has been closed.

The interviewer swore me in along with my wife and her daughter since I was there.  Actually I answered most of the questions.  The guy interviewing me grew up about 30 miles away from where I live in the US so that didn't hurt I'm sure.

Questions were:

How and when did we meet?
Does daughter have contact with biological father?
Do I live in Vietnam with my wife?  Can I see your lease? (the only proof he asked for)
What was your last argument about?

That was pretty much it.  No questions for 14 year old daughter.  He flipped through photos and said we were approved.  Didn't look at tax transcripts or even a copy of 2019 taxes since I can't get a transcript for last year.  Apparently someone tried to file for a refund on my SSN so when I filed my taxes online they said they couldn't accept an e-file due to the fraudulent filing and I had to file a paper copy.  Total interview time was maybe five minutes.

My only concern at all going into the interview is that we didn't have a letter from the bio dad saying it's OK to take the daughter out of the country.  He's not on the birth certificate and they have had no contact or support since less than one year old.  He didn't even comment on that so I'm assuming it's a non-issue.

So, everything is basically done.  Their passports should be back with the visas in 7-10 days.  They have one more round of vaccinations due in about two weeks.  They wanted them a month apart.

Ciambella

SteinNebraska wrote:

My only concern at all going into the interview is that we didn't have a letter from the bio dad saying it's OK to take the daughter out of the country.  He's not on the birth certificate and they have had no contact or support since less than one year old.  He didn't even comment on that so I'm assuming it's a non-issue.


The law stipulates that children under 14 years old can leave the country with only one parent's consent (Clause 3, Article 15 of Decree 136/2007 / ND-CP).  If she's younger than 14 and with her mother, it's above board.  If she's older than 14, it's a non-issue.

I'm very happy for you and your family, BTW.  Good things come for those who wait.

MikeTVN

SteinNebraska wrote:

Just thought I would update that the visa interview was yesterday and we passed.


So happy for you.

SteinNebraska

Ciambella wrote:

The law stipulates that children under 14 years old can leave the country with only one parent's consent (Clause 3, Article 15 of Decree 136/2007 / ND-CP).  If she's younger than 14 and with her mother, it's above board.  If she's older than 14, it's a non-issue.

I'm very happy for you and your family, BTW.  Good things come for those who wait.


Thank you.  She just turned 15 (Vietnamese method of counting age, 14 the US way) on October 23.

SteinNebraska

As an aside - through my entire life and two marriages covering 27 years I didn't have and never wanted to have any children.  Even 20 or 30 years ago people would comment to me "who will be there for you or take care of you when you are old?"  "How can you not have kids?".  I finally got to the point that I would tell them that I'm going to adopt a 17 year old Vietnamese girl (as old as possible to limit the actual parenting part but still young enough to adopt), put her through college and then I have a child.  This was all in jest at the time but here we are, 20-30 years later and I missed it by three years!

My wife's take on the whole situation was always presented to me as "mua một tặng một" :D I think I got a pretty good deal.

Yoda0807

SteinNebraska wrote:

Questions were:

How and when did we meet?
Does daughter have contact with biological father?
Do I live in Vietnam with my wife?  Can I see your lease? (the only proof he asked for)
What was your last argument about?

That was pretty much it.  No questions for 14 year old daughter.  He flipped through photos and said we were approved.  Didn't look at tax transcripts or even a copy of 2019 taxes since I can't get a transcript for last year.  Apparently someone tried to file for a refund on my SSN so when I filed my taxes online they said they couldn't accept an e-file due to the fraudulent filing and I had to file a paper copy.  Total interview time was maybe five minutes.

So, everything is basically done.  Their passports should be back with the visas in 7-10 days.  They have one more round of vaccinations due in about two weeks.  They wanted them a month apart.


Thanks for sharing!  Congrats!!!
Well?  So what was the last argument about?  Inquiry mind wants to know. ;-)

Ciambella

SteinNebraska wrote:

Thank you.  She just turned 15 (Vietnamese method of counting age, 14 the US way) on October 23.


Vietnamese law actually uses the correct 365 days per age (the US way).  Either way, the law allows her to leave the country with your wife whether or not the father was a presence in her life.

If he were an active parent, he could bring the matter to court but the onus is on him to prove that the child is better off with him or his family in Vietnam.  To response, all your wife has to do is saying that education in the West is better for the child's future.  That's it.

SteinNebraska

Yoda0807 wrote:

Thanks for sharing!  Congrats!!!
Well?  So what was the last argument about?  Inquiry mind wants to know. ;-)


I wanted to buy a phone for her daughter for her birthday the end of October. Mom said no, absolutely not.

Daughter did get phone for birthday.

Ciambella

SteinNebraska wrote:
Yoda0807 wrote:

Thanks for sharing!  Congrats!!!
Well?  So what was the last argument about?  Inquiry mind wants to know. ;-)


I wanted to buy a phone for her daughter for her birthday the end of October. Mom said no, absolutely not.

Daughter did get phone for birthday.


LOL.  IMO, every teenager should have a phone for safety's sake, if the family can afford it.  It's easy to set time limit and control the use of social media/risky websites. 

Social media didn't exist when my children were young, but I had a family agreement with them (everybody signed) re: the amount of time the TV was on and the acceptable shows they should watch while I was at work (I was a single parent for almost two decades).  It worked out perfectly for us.

Guest2023

SteinNebraska wrote:
Yoda0807 wrote:

Thanks for sharing!  Congrats!!!
Well?  So what was the last argument about?  Inquiry mind wants to know. ;-)


I wanted to buy a phone for her daughter for her birthday the end of October. Mom said no, absolutely not.

Daughter did get phone for birthday.


Stein 1
Wife 100

SteinNebraska

colinoscapee wrote:

Stein 1
Wife 100


I appreciate the vote of confidence but I doubt the ratio is that favorable.  :D

Articles to help you in your expat project in Vietnam

  • Dating In Vietnam
    Dating In Vietnam

    If you're considering moving to Hanoi, or Ho Chi Minh City, the dating scene may be of interest to you. ...

  • Making phone calls in Vietnam
    Making phone calls in Vietnam

    The telecommunications sector in Vietnam has flourished throughout the past two decades. Like many foreigners, ...

  • Moving to Vietnam with your pet
    Moving to Vietnam with your pet

    If you are planning to move to Vietnam with a pet, there are a number of formalities that have to be completed ...

  • Getting married in Vietnam
    Getting married in Vietnam

    Have you met that perfect someone who you want to spend the rest of your life with? Luckily, getting married in ...

  • Driving in Vietnam
    Driving in Vietnam

    Vietnam is known for four categories of lush and diverse landscapes, and one of the easiest ways to see firsthand ...

  • The most popular neighbourhoods in Hanoi
    The most popular neighbourhoods in Hanoi

    Formerly known as Thang Long, Vietnam's present capital city was renamed Hanoi in 1831. This enchanting, ...

  • Sports activities in Hanoi
    Sports activities in Hanoi

    We know there's a lot of attention on the drinking culture in Hanoi, but what about the options for a healthy ...

  • Working in Vietnam
    Working in Vietnam

    Anyone thinking about working in Vietnam is in for a treat. Compared to many Western countries, Vietnam's ...

All of Vietnam's guide articles