Nearly all Chinese immigrants to California were young men with almost no women. Their wives, families and relatives remained in China. The Chinese tended to congregate in heavily male small semi-isolated "China Towns" wherever they settled. One of the primary problems they encountered in California was the acute lack of Chinese women—almost none initially immigrated. This "problem" was somewhat alleviated when recruiters ending up procuring or "buying" Chinese prostitutes and shipping them to the United States. There they went to work in brothels or were "bought" by wealthy Chinese. Some of the more affluent Chinese in California could "buy" a Chinese mistress for about $300 to $500. The large population, the common condition of extreme poverty in China and the low status of women in China made recruiting or "buying" women for this "profession" fairly easy in China.