Well, that’s it !
This afternoon we went for our individual interviews with the vietnamese administration about our marriage. This is only needed when a foreigner wants to get married with a vietnamese. They do these interviews to try to screen out any marriage that might be a fake one, such as those organized by “agencies” to find wives for example.
For this interview, I had to hire an interpreter to translate questions and answers back and forth. I was a bit stressed about it at first, as it’s not just any “job interview” … this is my marriage we are talking about here! And from some comments we had read from people going through this procedure, some people had actually failed the interviews! But after a few minutes in there, everything was going alright, I even noticed the women smiling as I was explaining how I proposed to N. Which I hope is a good sign …
The interview was also shorter than I thought it would be, I believe it lasted around 20 minutes or so, and I was expecting to have to into much details , but that wasn’t necessary after all.
Here is a list of questions I’ve been asked, I may have forgotten a couple :
- How and when did I meet N
- When did I fall in love with her
- How many times did I come to Vietnam
- Have I met N’s family
- Has N met my family
- What do our families think about our wedding
- What do I do for a living
- What does N do these days
- Have I been planning the wedding
- When was our wedding
- Will my family come to my wedding
- Where will we live after our wedding
- Was I forced into marrying N
That’s all I can remember for now. I will update the list if I remember any others.
Another positive note about our interviews, the women doing them is the mother of one of N’s friends who is currently living in Lyon in France. So that might get us some sympathy ^^
With the interview over, we have now finished the administrative paperwork, all that’s left on this side now, is waiting. I believe they will be publishing our names for a few weeks, and if everything goes well, that should be it !
Now we need to continue to organize the engagement and wedding days.
Cheers!
That’s a thorough post, now i know which questions they asked u. They re basically like mine.fingers crossed for us ;)
Hey Anthony, I went for the interview today and it seemed to go well. It was a great help reading your blog entry beforehand, so thanks a lot! Our interviews lasted 40 minutes each, which was surprisingly long, but I think that’s due to the fact that the interviewer was writing all the questions and answers down as we were talking, because she asked almost identical questions to the ones you mentioned. I decided to chance it and do the interview in Vietnamese, without an interpreter, to add even more stress to the occasion, and it went ok despite my basic level, the questions were all fairly simple. Hopefully it’s now just a matter of signing on the dotted line in a few weeks! I hope you’ve been enjoying a happy married life since you post this blog entry!