Unions Across a Divide

Taiwan and China may be rattling sabers, targeting missiles and threatening war, but Wang Qing-feng isn’t letting that stop him from looking for love.

After his most recent relationship went sour, the 50-year-old Taiwanese telecom engineer decided to take his quest for a young, good-looking wife across the Taiwan Strait.

Arriving in this southern Chinese city, the divorce with modest biceps and a penchant for muscle shirts found no shortage of candidates. Thanks to a matchmaking service, dozens of women quickly lined up outside his hotel room, waiting for their 15 minutes to chat with Wang and decide if there was any spark.

He’s not alone. Despite years of hostility between Taiwan and China, a bridge between the two adversaries is quietly being built by thousands of cross-strait marriages every year. Nowadays, more than 20% of all Taiwanese marry a mainlander, about 55,000 annually, compared with 14% five years ago.

“If Chinese President Hu Jintao had a Taiwanese wife and Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian had a mainland wife, the world would be a lot better off,” said Yu Ming-ming, a matchmaker with Taipei’s Wedding Information Center agency. “I feel we’re a really important link.”

China and Taiwan have been estranged since China’s civil war ended in 1949, but in the last 20 years it has become increasingly easy for Taiwanese to travel to the mainland. In the 1980s, Taiwanese soldiers and disabled men in their 70s, finding it hard to get brides at home, started looking to the largely impoverished mainland.

As the wealth and education gap has narrowed, mainland women have become more selective. Nowadays most pairings match 20-something mainland women with Taiwanese men in their 30s to 50s. Zhang Jun-wei, 44, a well-off Taiwanese real estate developer, had four tall, young beauties turn him down recently before he met a 24-year-old masseuse who said yes.

The majority of couples meet on their own through friends or business dealings. For those like Wang without the time or inclination to do their own legwork, however, a vibrant business has developed. Taiwanese men pay $5,000 to $10,000 for a trip to the mainland, scores of introductions and help with the marriage certificate and related paperwork.

“We met one day and married the next,” said Huang Hong-ji, a previously divorced 35-year-old Taiwanese interior designer who recently tied the knot with mainlander Qiu Lina, 25, with help from Taipei’s Guiliu Communication Career Corp. “There are probably good women in Taiwan, but I didn’t have time.”

For mainland women, such pairings can offer a way to get ahead.

“Many Chinese women, especially those from rural areas, see marriage as a vehicle for getting rich,” said Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociologist at Beijing’s Renmin University. “In many ways it’s a business transaction, his money for her beauty.”

That said, not everyone thinks cross-strait pairings are such a great idea. Given China’s one-child policy, some parents of prospective brides fret about losing their only offspring to Taiwan, which can seem a world away. Occasionally the bride’s family will ask for compensation, or raise the fear that a Taiwanese earthquake or Chinese attack on Taiwan could put her in harm’s way.

“One girl’s family in Dalian demanded $60,000,” said Chen Yi-ji, head of the China-Taiwan Marriage Friend Interaction Web agency in Taipei. “But we knocked that down to $2,200. Like anything else, they’ll get what they can get out of you.”

Although China and Taiwan share a heritage and language, there are inevitable cultural barriers to overcome after half a century apart.

“Mainland girls, especially northerners, like strong, spicy food, while older Taiwanese prefer theirs mild,” said agent Yu. “Food is so important to the Chinese, it can break up a marriage.”

Taiwan is also much more traditional than China, which sought to erase much of its past during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

“Five thousand years of Chinese culture have been best preserved in Taiwan,” said Zhu Qing-zheng, head of the Taipei-based Thousand Miles to Marriage Agency. “Many mainland girls lack proper Confucian respect and will resist serving their in-laws, a long-standing part of Taiwanese culture. We have to give them lessons.”

Mainland women also often have to adapt to the more complex, traditional way that religious and secular holidays are celebrated in Taiwan, said Ye Wenyan, 49, a mainlander who helps recruit the young women. That can include everything from the way funerals are conducted to the need to make pig’s feet and long noodles -- symbolic of longevity -- on the husband’s birthday.

And while mainland brides are becoming more mainstream, Taiwanese society can still look down on them as bumpkins with funny accents.

“Colleagues say, ‘Why would you want a wife from China?’ ” says Ye Xing-hang, 37, a Taiwanese bureaucrat, who recently married mainlander Chen Yan, 24. “I’ve learned to ignore them. It’s my life.”

Then there are the immigration hassles the couple faces when she comes to Taipei, including a lengthy interview at the border designed to determine whether the relationship is genuine.

Taiwan recently tightened oversight of matchmakers amid reports of dishonest billing, gangsters using the business as cover to smuggle in prostitutes, and even mainland espionage. The island’s Immigration Department is rejecting more would-be wives at the border, particularly if the couple’s age gap is great.

Business remains strong, however, several agents said, adding that the crackdown may help weed out disreputable competitors.

The men start by filling out a wish list in Taipei. Mainland sub-agents beat the bushes for candidates who fit the criteria, including preferred blood types, auspicious horoscopes or age gaps considered lucky in Chinese numerology.

The vast majority of requests, however, end up focusing on the attributes of various body parts.

“We try and convince them it’s about personality,” said Tsai Jia-yu, foreign marriage consultant with the Thousand Miles to Marriage Agency in Taipei. “But they don’t always listen.”

This is followed by a five- to 10-day mainland search that typically involves three frenzied days of interviews with up to 100 women, a couple more days dating a few finalists, capped by a marriage proposal.

“Even if the girls don’t talk about it, it’s definitely competitive,” said mainlander Xie Yaxue, 23, recently married to 34-year-old Taiwanese handyman Fan Ming-kai. “In my case, all the other girls were prettier than me. I thought there was no way I had a chance. But he and I hit it off and he ended up picking me.”

Chinese tradition then dictates a meeting between the parents. Since his parents remain in Taiwan, however, the groom’s agent will often stand in for them, one of many roles that may also include dealmaker, marriage counselor and amateur psychiatrist.

Having known each other for less than a week, the couple then separates for up to four months while the Taiwanese paperwork clears. Most couples say they avoid talking about cross-strait politics given how divisive the issue can be, although some of the women say it’s a real change to be in a place where the leaders are elected.

“In China, you can’t vote. The leaders vote for you,” said mainlander Deng Chenglian, 27. “Here they vote and all the legislators get into fights. It’s great fun.”

As the number of cross-strait couples rises, some see a quiet but important political dividend in the making. “In ancient history, warring kings married daughters to the other side to calm things down,” said agent Zhu on a trip to Liuzhou with six Taiwanese bachelors. “In the same way, I think these marriages can also be an important stabilizing force between China and Taiwan.”

At a hotel across the street, Wang the engineer is slowly getting over his jitters as women flit in and out of his room for rapid-fire chats.

Candidates -- some dressed in ball gowns, others in jeans -- wait their turn in the hallway, by the elevator and in an adjoining room, reclining on beds, draped over bureaus, doing their makeup, fidgeting with cellphones. Each has received a brief bio detailing Wang’s weight, height, income, car and house ownership and the fact he’s been divorced.

Ever attentive, Shen Ming-zhi, a former Taiwanese military officer turned matchmaker with Taiwan’s Guiliu Communication Career Corp. agency, hovers nearby making it all work. Over the course of several days, Shen reassures his client and keeps a steady stream of women in front of Wang’s eyes.

“Sometimes the choices get all blurred in their brain,” Shen says. “We’ll talk it through to help them straighten things out.”

One of the women Shen has rounded up is Shong Sumin, a 23-year-old clothing store clerk. She and Wang discuss aerobics, parties, beauty and her knowledge of Taiwan.

“I thought it went all right,” she says afterward. “Well, actually not that great.”

Before long, the conversations are flowing better. As Wang gains confidence, he starts probing some candidates about the age gap. “When you’re 45, I’ll be 70,” he says. “Are you willing to take care of an old, falling-apart guy who wets the bed?” Most of the would-be wives seem a bit shocked.

On day two, there’s a small spark around the 10th or 11th interview with Huang Manli, a 25-year-old retail clerk dressed in a purple gown and Ali Baba-style gold slippers encrusted with fake jewels. Their talk extends well beyond the requisite 15 minutes as they discuss exercising and whether she’d be jealous if he danced with other women.

“He seemed nice, and my lifestyle would be better in Taiwan,” she says afterward. “But I was very nervous.”

During a break, Shen and Wang compare notes while eating pumpkin seeds. Wang doesn’t want anyone on a diet who might balloon after the wedding, he says, or an immature party girl who might run away with the first young Taiwanese guy who strolls by.

And although he likes Huang, he decides there’s no real magic, prompting a return to the drawing board. “Meeting so many women is exhausting,” he says, bracing himself to meet another dozen lovelies. “My real job is a breeze compared with this.”

Bu Yang in The Times’ Beijing Bureau and special correspondent Tsai Ting-I in Taipei contributed to this report.