Posted on 07/28/2010 7:47:50 AM PDT by PGR88
Nanjing dance school owner Dai Wensheng probably epitomises the complex love-hate relationship between China and Vietnam better than most in an officially designated friendship year that marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two neighbours.
Dai, 42, first visited Vietnam in September and returned home with a Vietnamese wife. He has since become a marriage broker, leading hundreds of bachelors on trips to find Vietnamese brides, after stories appeared in the mainland media about his shortcut to romance.
To tens of thousands of bachelors from across China who cannot find wives at home because of the widening gender imbalance and skyrocketing house prices, Dai is a pioneer blazing a trail to a land of young, obedient and affordable women, all longing for a life north of the border.
The demand for them is huge in a country expected to have 24 million unmarriageable bachelors in 2020.
But to many Vietnamese, he is an unwelcome visitor who is bringing shame and trouble to their nation.
The two views of the one man pretty much sum up decades of complex and sensitive Sino-Vietnamese relations, torn between fraternal alliances and historical suspicion.
Li Li, an attendant on a long-distance bus between Nanning , Guangxi province, and Haiphong, the third largest city in Vietnam, says many freelance marriage brokers and bachelors board her bus and set out for Vietnam each week.
Dai operates out of Haiphong's Thanh Long hotel and arranges blind dates with Vietnamese women. Complaints by local residents about his activities have been increasing.
"Thanh Long is a small hotel and was unknown to the public before, but now it's notorious," Ruan Chi Van, 21, a Vietnamese woman whose boyfriend is a Haiphong policeman, said. Ruan said mainland men frequently checked in and out and had attracted many Vietnamese women.
"My boyfriend and his colleagues thought there might be transnational prostitution going on there," she said. "They rushed to the hotel and caught the illegal matchmakers and the Chinese men.
"I heard the Chinese man had been fined at least US$5,000. That's really uplifting, to hear the Chinese being held to account. What they did in our country is so foul and wicked."
An official from the Chinese embassy in Hanoi said it adopted a hands-off approach to civil affairs.
"We won't support it openly," he said. "But it should be OK if they have all the required [marriage] certification done."
Hostility among Vietnamese has risen along with negative reports about the cross-border marriage trade. One mainland tourist, Kou Liyue, said he was assailed by a taxi driver in Ho Chi Minh City in May.
"The driver was angry. He asked me in English why China has always been making trouble for Vietnam. He said we Chinese have robbed Vietnam of everything: its territory, wealth - and now its women," Kou said.
No other Southeast Asian nation has a relationship with China quite as complex as Vietnam's. The country bitterly recalls 1,000 years of Chinese occupation in ancient times - and a brief border war in 1979.
Decades later, the two nations, at least in public, call each other friend, despite tension over conflicting territorial claims in the South China Sea.
But there are signs of continued antipathy within official circles in Vietnam. The country's US$55 billion high-speed rail programme may be an example. Hanoi is sticking with a costly Japanese railway system rather than opt for a cheaper Chinese one that could be ready much sooner.
The Chinese-language magazine Yazhou Zhoukan says some Vietnamese politicians oppose the adoption of Chinese high-speed rail technology because of fears that China might use the line to invade Vietnam. Last year, a plan to let a mainland company build a bauxite mine in Vietnam triggered a rare public outcry from more than 130 Vietnamese intellectuals. In a petition to the National Assembly, they said the environmental and social damage would far outweigh any economic benefit.
The most prominent opponent was General Vo Nguyen Giap, 97, who led Vietnam's defeat of French colonial forces and then the US-backed South Vietnamese regime.
In open letters to the government, he warned of the danger to the environment, to the lives of ethnic minorities and to the country's "security and defence".
Such concerns have not stopped a surge of mainland investment in Vietnam. But the influx of mainland people and capital seems to be increasing Vietnamese resentment.
"There are more and more Chinese people travelling and living in Haiphong. They just come to Vietnam to use our labour, resources and land," Ruan said.
"They look much richer than us. Made-in-China products are everywhere, but many Vietnamese don't like Chinese. To us, they just eat up everything and leave nothing."
Some mainland scholars echo Ruan's comments.
"Many Chinese think the relationship between China and Vietnam is a kind of affiliation," said Xu Yingwen, a professor from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at Jinan University. "That's why reports about Vietnamese brides and labourers are popular on the mainland.
"Each strong country will try to pursue profit and increase its influence on its neighbours. But it will definitely encounter protests and rejection if it cannot treat the weaker side equally."
That's what happens when you murder female babies.
” land of young, obedient and affordable women, all longing for a life north of the border.”
i remember people used to go to former soviet eastern bloc for something like this.
LOL!
Can't find a wife because of house prices?
Yes, “naked marriages” (not what you think) are frowned on by Chinese girls - no house, no diamond, and no car means no wife. The biggest problem is the house because of the Chinese RE bubble, which is far larger than here.
Okay, thanks. I thought it might be something like that. With the shortage of young Chinese women, such as there are can value themselves highly.
Oops - looks like you done threw out the wrong imperialists.
How long before some young Chinese man asked for asylum in the US because Chinese government policies and cultural preferences for male children have denied him the opportunity to find a wife?
This problem will soon spillover into every nation where the Chinese have immigrated and have sizable communities.
The highlands birth rate underscores the development problems in this region where minorities are concentrated. However a bigger problem for the nation at large is a wide and growing gap between male and female births. Nationwide there are now 110 male to 100 female births compared with a natural 104/100 ratio. The imbalance is extreme in the most populous region, the Red River delta where it is now 115/100, approaching Chinese levels. Indeed the difference between Red and Mekong deltas would seem to reflect a cultural difference between north and south.
Hey, we could send them millions of "progressive" young women!
Win - win!
This is the standard tale of gold-digging women catching on with the “globalization” trend.
China has more women then men, so most young Chinese women wants to bag a man who can somehow uplift them into the “middle-class”. Meaning men who can afford to buy them a house, a car, laptops, take them on vacations....etc. This kind of a lifestyle requires a man capable of earning 10-15K USD or above a year. So unfortunately this leaves out at least 30 million young Chinese men as the “losers” in this game.
In comes millions of women from countries like Vietnam to pick up the slack. An average Vietnamese guy in his prime can only expect to earn around $1000 dollars a year. A “bottom of the barrel” Chinese guy would earn around $4000 dollars a year. So despite centuries of ethnic conflict and Vietnamese government propaganda, the Vietnamese women are voting with their feet so to speak.
So says an English-speaking Chicom running dog or should I say mouth-piece paid to spread Chinese propaganda on FR.
Dude you stink as do your masters. Don’t pretend your “American”. We know where your loyalties lie.
No propaganda, just plain economics at work. Nobody is pointing a gun to their heads and forcing those young vietnamese women to shack up with ugly Chinese guys with $$$.
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