Okay, forgive the rather offensive
title of this node, but I feel fairly ticked off about this whole issue, and that is the best term I could think of to describe it.
All over Asia, all these 60 year old American, Australian and British men always seem to have young, 20 year old girlfriends. I'm thinking, the closest those people will ever get to women that young back at home is at a brothel. Here, in Asia, they're everywhere. Go downtown in the weekend. You can't miss them. Fat, hairy old men with one, sometimes two, young, semi-naked young women, perhaps even teenagers, cuddling and doing all sorts of things that make me want to throw up.
Is it love? Highly unlikely. I know some of these women. They're doing this for a foreign passport. Apparently, they think it is worth going through all that self-debasement, a dysfunctional "marriage" and the inevitable divorce to get a little booklet saying something other than China on the cover. It disgusts me, what these women (and sometimes men, don't get me wrong now) are doing for an uncertain future in an alien country.
These relationships very often end up in violence. The women gets her passport and moves to America, or England, or whatever, then tries promptly to divorce. The man, deprived of sex, becomes very angry and proceeds to beat the beejesus out of the woman. The courts are usually not too sympathetic. This has happened too many times, and yet, the people here seem to be willing to go through the risk.
I don't know. Perhaps it's jealousy. Here I am, a 19 year-old Chinese guy, watching a good looking 19 year-old Chinese girl go off with a man three times my age because he has the ability to smuggle her out of China.
Wait a second. I have plenty of passports! Next time I go out clubbing, I'll hang my Australian, Canadian and American documentation around my neck and see if more girls proposition me. That'd be great if it worked. Maybe I should pretend I can't speak Chinese as well.....
Hello, I'm a foreigner. Come to Daddy!*
* - The ultimate expatriate pickup line
Segnbora-t: Yeah, I know what a trophy wife is, and I have certainly heard of Anna Nicole Smith. In America, it is for money. Here, it's for a passport. Same deal.