A Chinese Town’s Imported Cambodian Brides



"They are our Cambodian brides," says one local woman. "Every village along the Chang River area has at least three or four of them."

About seven or eight years ago the first Cambodian bride appeared in Huanggang, a rural township with two dozen or so villages scattered along each side of the river. A villager went to work in Yunnana province bordering Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmarand a client introduced him to a woman from his family. She was happy with her new life in China, and spread the word to other women that they should come to Jiangxi.

Eventually, this riverside township, which used to be famous only for annual floods, has turned into China's most well-known "collection and distribution center" for Cambodian wives.

Huanggang has more than a dozen brokers specialized in bringing together Cambodian women and Chinese men. In the past three years, thanks to new Cambodian regulations that make it easier to marry foreigners, Jiangxi's official marriage registration department has handled more than 2,000 cases involving women from the Southeast Asian country. Large numbers of Cambodian women are also flocking into the neighboring provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang.


$400 USD Dowry

"I was willing to marry this far away from home," said Xiaoyan, a Cambodian woman who already has a strong local Jiangxi accent and a one-year-old son.


As one of the world's most underdeveloped nations, about one-fifth of Cambodia's population lives in poverty, recent figures show. That means some 8 million people live on less than $2.30 USD a day.

Xiaoyan said that in her home village the poorer you are, the earlier a woman gets married. She did not get married until she was 28, and chose a Chinese man because "the Cambodian men are too poor."


Today, China is overtaking South Korea to become Cambodian women's main destination for marrying a foreign man. Xiaoyan said she had no idea what China was like except that "it's a lot richer and bigger." Whereas marital violence is commonplace in Cambodia, she heard that "Chinese men don't beat their wives.“

Through a referral from a coworker at her factory, she was introduced to a Chinese man with a promise of a dowry for her family of $400 USD. "So my mom happily sold me!" she said, half-jokingly.

A Deception


"There are too many single men in the countryside," complained a truck driver. "For years Huanggang's birth control was extremely stringent."


After decades of the family planning policy, China faces a serious gender imbalance. The sex ratio at birth is 100 girls to 118 boys. It's estimated that by 2020, the country will have about 30 million bachelors, the majority from poor rural areas.

In Huanggang two types of men have little chance of finding a wife: the handicapped and the destitute. According to the villagers, local people marrying their daughters still follow the custom of asking for a dowry of 200,000 yuan. Even though it is a relatively rich village, some men still cannot find wives.

Xu Gang is a 37-year-old man from Huanggang. He is healthy, not too poor, has four years of elementary education and describes himself as introverted. After two failed relationships, he was determined to get married, so he accepted a matchmaker's proposition of a Cambodian wife. He said he regrets the decision.

Xu paid a finder's fee of 74,000 yuan, which put him in debt. A blind date was arranged. Though the intermediary said that the matchmaking "goes two ways," the man usually gets to choose the woman he likes first. Afterward, the woman visits the man's home and decides if she wants to marry him. If not, she can try again.

"In general, as long as the man has a house, the woman doesn't turn down the proposition of marrying him," said one villager.


It was not until a year later that Xu learned from another Cambodian bride in the same village that Suping had been cheated by an intermediary in Cambodia. She had been told that she was supposed to come to work in China, but she realized only after arriving at Xu's home that she was supposed to marry him.

Ticket Home



Xu said he and his family treated Suping as a "distinguished guest" after their marriage. He bought her new clothes, a mobile phone, and even subscribed to an international call service so she could regularly talk with her family. Suping was not expected to work very much, inside or outside the home.


Apart from eating and sleeping together, the couple could not find any common ground. Xu knew nothing about Suping's family.


After making friends with other Cambodians in the village, Suping started going out for entire days at a time. Xu said his home became like a free hotel for her. "We couldn't even argue," he said.


Money and Sex

There have been worse outcomes. Since the second half of last year, Cambodia's consulate in Shanghai has received numerous calls for help from women. Last month, it sent six women who had fled Huanggang home. Another 10 are hiding in a basement near the consulate waiting to return home.


But she wound up with a Chinese man, who forced her to work at home and did not allow her to go out. The man frequently raped her. When she fled to the police, they sent her back again. Very often she was not even given food. "I was just like a slave," she said.

He Yunxiao, coordinator at the UN's anti-human-trafficking office in China, said that since last year the Jiangxi police have uncovered several cases involving the trafficking of Cambodian women. They mostly involved coercion, and included women forcibly married to physically or mentally handicapped men.


"In essence, even if these women came of their own will, it's still a mercenary marriage," Wang said. "Such abnormal wedlock is inhuman. To put it plainly, one does it for money while the other is in it for sex."

Zhang Zhiwei, a lawyer and activist involved in rescuing abducted and abandoned children, said that China's serious gender imbalance is to blame both for individual marriage problems and broader social instability.



As for Xu, he continues to lament his loss, financial and otherwise. At the very least, he hopes Suping will come back to grant him a divorce. "I'll take whatever she can afford to compensate me and accept my fate," he said.