The Regrets of a Foreign Bride

Buy a wife from Vietnam for only 6000 USD.
1. Guaranteed virgin
2. Guaranteed to be delivered within 90 days
3. NO extra charges
4. If ran away within a year you get another one for FREE

Quảng cáo tại Trung Cộng:

“Mua 1 cô vợ Việt Nam giá 6,000 USD
1. Bảo đảm còn trinh
2. Bảo đảm giao hàng trong vòng 90 ngày
3. Không phụ phí
4. Nếu cô ta trốn đi trong vòng 1 năm, thay thế 1 cô khác miễn phí.”

Grooms kneel in front of their brides during a mass wedding ceremony in Taipei, Taiwan.

"I cried so many times, it was selling human meat!" says Autumn Fan of her experience of being vended by a marriage broker. Fan had been one of about one hundred young women offered to a group of Taiwanese bachelors during a matchmaking trip to Vietnam. Twelve at a time, the girls were seated on a sofa for the men to eyeball.

"I wasn't particularly happy or sad about being chosen," says Fan, who was 19 at the time. "My mind was just blank. I had no idea who this person was, what my future would be." They had dinner, a silent date for lack of a common language, and then she married the foreigner so her parents could earn $1,000. Her three sisters later made the same choice.

As less desirable men find themselves snubbed by Taiwan's sophisticated women, one in four grooms in Taiwan now marries a bride from Southeast Asia or mainland China. "There's a strong urban bias in Taiwan," says Professor Hsia Hsiao-chuan of Shih Hsin University's Graduate Institute of Social Transformation Studies. "That means farmers and blue-collar workers have a hard time finding wives." But the rejected and dejected are treated like kings by professional matchmakers, who take them on trips to browse for brides in poorer parts of Asia.

Like any other, the resulting marriages can be heaven or hell. "The husbands fall into two extremes," says Keh Yu-ling, director of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation which serves the new immigrants, "simple shy guys who dote on their wives, or men with no respect for women." Fan had a taste of both. Her husband was sweet, she said, until he lost his job and began abusing her. When he broke her rib, she divorced him. Fan is grateful, however, for her freedom and the custody of her daughter. Of her ex-husband, she says, "We do our part as wives and mothers, but when they're unhappy, they say things like 'I bought you.' Why couldn't he say he married me?"

Hsia blames the ruthless dealers: "They push men to buy a product and even teach them how to control their wives". Ads with lines like "Vietnamese Wife for $6,000," "Guaranteed Virgin" and "Refund for Runaways" were rampant before the government regulated content. Even then, more recent ads promised: "Vietnamese make ideal wives: pretty, tidy housekeepers, obedient."

For railway worker Lee Shuang-chuan, they were also disposable. He derailed the train that carried his second Vietnamese wife. As she was recovering from the "accident" in the hospital, he injected her with deadly snake venom — it turned out he had taken out a $2 million accidental death insurance policy on her. As police began zeroing in on him as a murder suspect, Lee hanged himself from a tree. His first Vietnamese wife died of "a snakebite" four years earlier.

Lee's case, as well as public outrage over reported instances of virtual slavery, have drawn attention to the vulnerability of foreign wives here. To prevent the women from being purchased like commodities, Taiwan enacted a law last month cracking down on the foreign-bride industry and its advertisements. The law requires Taiwan's roughly 500 matchmaking agencies to become non-profit organizations and adhere to stricter regulation, or face recurring fines of up to $15,000.

Despite the new law, many Taiwanese have yet to embrace the roughly 366,000 Asian women who moved here to marry. Vietnamese wife Sho-chen complains that people on the street say to her, "You Vietnamese wives only cost $8,000, do you know how expensive a Taiwanese woman is?!"

Still, Taiwan does offer Southeast Asian wives free language classes and the opportunity to work or study upon arrival. Some have adjusted well: Mae-kwang, for example, whose delectably addictive Vietnamese restaurant near my home has three busy branches all within a minute's walk.

But many of the who came to Taiwan in search of a better life end up incurably homesick. Fan and her three sisters all regret their decisions to marry Taiwanese men. One of the sisters also got a divorce after her husband had an affair. Autumn Fan sighs, "If our family had more money, we wouldn't have done this. We always get together and talk about how much we miss home."

By Natalie Tso/Taipei

Còn gì để nói

 

Tôi đã gặp những người con gái nhỏ ,
Tuổi thơ ngây đôi tám thật dại khờ .
Em lớn lên trong câu hát giọng hò ,
Của ruộng lúa của thôn làng chất phác

Tuổi thơ em thơm hương đồng bát ngát .
Tâm hồn em trong trắng chẳng âu lo .
Bỗng tai ương kéo đến thật bất ngờ !
Trời giông bão theo sau là lũ lụt !

Gia đình em bỗng trở nên sa sút ,
Bỏ quê hương em lên chốn thị thành ,
Nơi phồn hoa em tìm kiếm mưu sinh .
Để giúp đỡ cho cha già mẹ yếu ,

Bỏ sân trường để lo tròn chữ hiếu ,
Có ngờ đâu cạm bẫy đã giăng ngang !
Kiếp hồng nhan đành nhắm mắt giữa đàng ,

Để thiên hạ mua vui trên thân xác ,

Đọc tin em lòng tôi thêm tan nát !
Xót xa giùm cho số phận hồng nhan .
Lòng hờn căm oán hận lũ hung tàn ,
Vì tiền bạc đã không còn nhân tính .

Chúng cùng với bọn chính quyền lừa phỉnh ,
Dụ dỗ em đi mãi tận nơi xa .
Rồi từ khi em lìa bỏ quê cha .
Lòng đau đớn khi nhớ về đất mẹ !

Từng đêm về em âm thầm rơi lệ ,
Đến bao giờ mới trở lại quê hương
Em hỡi em mang số kiếp đoạn trường !
Bao oan nghiệt đè lên thân gái nhỏ .

Đất nước mình bao giờ mới hết khổ ?
Hãy cùng nhau quét sạch lũ hung tàn ,
Cho gia đình xum họp tiếng ca vang .
Cho em nhỏ vui chơi cùng sách vở .

Ngọc Trân