The runaway Vietnamese bride
- By Guo Yiming
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 10, 2015
An organized ring
Wang Xiaolan was arrested a fortnight later on marital fraud allegations. According to the police, she was actually 55, so 26 older than Niu, when they first met, and was head of an "organized ring" introducing Vietnamese women to Chinese bachelors in rural areas.
During her short-lived "marriage" with Niu, she introduced at least 18 Vietnamese women to local men with requests for expensive betrothal gifts; these women, in turn recommended other women to join the profitable business.
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| More and more men turned to finding overseas spouses, especially Vietnamese women, as the costs of marrying a Chinese girl continues to climb. [Photo/nen.com.cn] |
Most of them, and some other Vietnamese women in nearby counties, all disappeared around the same time as Wang's disappearance. Part of a scheme defrauding lonely men out of almost one million yuan (US$ 157,400), they were sentenced to several years in prison.
The gender gulf
Among the vast army of surplus males trying to find a female partner, Niu is not alone. The news that China will be home to 24 million excess bachelors in 2020 has caused panic among the country's young men.
According to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, there were 115.88 boys born for every 100 girls in 2014, a skewed gender ratio making it hard for poor bachelors like Niu to satisfy marital hankerings.
The marriage woe is resulted from a self-perpetuated demographic disaster that some experts describe as "gendercide", a phenomenon caused by the traditional preference of boys, exacerbated by families choosing to abort female fetuses after the introduction of ultrasound technology.
For bachelors in rural areas, the reality is much grimmer. "Many single women move to the big cities as migrant workers and get married there," said a director from the research office of the People's court in Guan County. "At face value, young women in the village are at a premium and they keep raising the bride price."
Lamenting the dwindling chances of finding a mate, more and more men turned to finding overseas spouses, only to find money cannot buy love.
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