Over a glass of sauvignon blanc in my Shanghai loft, Christine struggled to find the right words in her faltering English. She pulled out her pocket translator and showed me a phrase on the screen: matron of honor. I hesitated.
"Please?" she said.
"Of course!" I hoped my response didn't sound too forced. I hadn't included Christine in my own upcoming wedding, but I was more concerned with the fact that I'd never tried to talk her out of her engagement in the first place. I had just agreed to be the maid of honor for a mail-order bride.
We often studied together at one of our homes. She lived in a colorless neighborhood in the south of Shanghai, sharing a cramped three-room apartment with a roommate. One day, when the vocabulary word xiànmù, or "to envy," came up in my Chinese book, she repeated it: "I envy you."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you marry."
Several months later, after quitting her job and disappearing for a while, Christine reached out. "I have boyfriend," she said. "We will marry." She explained that she'd been to Hong Kong to meet a Chinese-Canadian divorcé in his mid-40s whom she'd flirted with on an Internet dating site. They stayed in a five-star hotel, ate at pricey dim sum halls, and expanded her wardrobe — all on his credit card. She had agreed to marry him, and he had promised her a car and a $3000 wedding dress — unthinkable for most brides in Shanghai, where the average monthly income is $300. At his request, she would enroll in cooking and English classes full-time until the wedding.
As I pressed her for more details, the website where they'd "met" began to sound more Buy-a-Bride than Match. It was for people "ready to marry immediately," Christine admitted, and Chinese men weren't welcome — only foreign passport holders. I got online and learned more than I wanted to know: The men were required to have a considerable income; the women were told to post pictures in which they appeared "attractive and happy." (Christine showed me professional photos of herself smiling in black lingerie, her hair falling seductively over one eye.) Testimonials celebrated Asian brides as "petite, soft, and gentle," and one guy added, "They don't bust your chops when you are home a little late or forget an anniversary."
Seeing it written so plainly hit a nerve. Was that all marriage was to her, a business arrangement? In my mind, Western men who bought foreign wives were insecure losers at best, creeps with fetishes at worst. Christine deserved more.
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