But his children, who had been educated with anticommunist propaganda, opposed the match. “She has just one goal, to improve her standard of living,” says one daughter, who at 37 was almost as old as her new stepmother. During a family argument over inheritance rights, a son smashed a window in his father’s apartment. “Mainlanders are just after our money,” he screamed at his father.
Nothing demonstrates the depth of prejudice that exists between Taiwanese and Chinese people so starkly as marriage. Taiwan has gradually relaxed restrictions on cross-strait marriages, and in recent years the number of such impolitic unions has surged. Many older men on Taiwan are returning to their mainland birthplaces to find new brides. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council has gradually raised the annual quota for Chinese wives from 600 to 3,600. More than 43,000 Chinese women now live on Taiwan as wives. Some of the marriages are happy, but others are buffeted by domestic problems (including physical abuse) arising from big age differences and social friction. Even when relations are smooth, Taiwanese authorities are suspicious of cross-strait marriages for cultural and political reasons. After getting official permission to marry, a mainland bride must join a pool of 30,000 recent wives and wait 10 years for a permanent-resident visa. “People are even suspicious of their language,” says Pan Wei-kang, a legislator whose parents are from China. Mainland Chinese, for instance, call their husbands airen , a word that in Taiwan means “lover.”
Some of the cynicism is wellfounded. A small number of women from China’s wealthy coastal region arrive in Taiwan expecting lavish lifestyles, and are disgusted when they find their new husbands are living on pensions. Intermediaries who introduce women to prospective husbands usually demand gifts or cash. Police have broken up several prostitution rings of Chinese women, who enter Taiwan as legitimate wives, then decamp with a pimp. In many cases, police have found, the Taiwanese husband, usually a retired soldier or civil servant originally from the mainland, was paid a fee for the “fake marriage.” “A lot of mainland girls have ulterior motives when coming to Taiwan,” said Cheng Chao-ming, a Democratic Progressive Party legislator, at a recent hearing.
Yet it is often Taiwanese men who are the most opportunistic. Many Taiwanese businessmen working in China view the acquisition of a long-term mistress, who acts as a second wife, as simply another investment. Villages of “little wives” are scattered throughout the coastal provinces where Taiwanese factories are clustered. “China has so many beautiful girls,” says a middle-aged Taiwanese factory manager with a wife and children back in Taiwan. “I only need $200 or $300 a month, and I can have one as my own. And if you want one with education, you can find that, too.” Some Taiwanese firms now prohibit their senior managers from having long-term extramarital affairs with local women. “If their wives at home find out, they’ll make a big fuss,” says the factory manager, whose company has just started cracking down.
Some of the wife-seekers are nostalgic. After being cut off from their homeland for almost half a century, the journey back to China to find a young bride can be deeply meaningful, especially for retired soldiers. Other men seem merely insecure. Chang Pei-tao, a spindly 80-year-old retired Army colonel, left Taiwan this month to seek his fifth wife in Qingdao province, where he was born. He plans to divorce his current wife, Li Guihua (neither the husband or wife wanted their real names used), who is also from Qingdao. She was introduced to Chang seven years ago. “Now after we’ve been married for so long,” says Li, a 63-year-old woman with high cheekbones and a northern Chinese accent, “he says I’m not pretty anymore, and my skin looks like pig’s skin.”
Sixty years ago, when he was a young man in Qingdao, Chang got married for the first time. Soon after, the retreat to Taiwan cut him off from his wife. When he was 28, Taiwan passed a law allowing soldiers from the mainland to marry again. Chang married a local woman, but as soon as cross-strait restrictions loosened up, he divorced her and in 1993 married a 53-year-old woman from Qingdao, wife number three. He was dissatisfied, and three months later divorced her, too. Chinese friends then brought him a half-dozen new women to choose from. Chang was picky, says Li. “He said he didn’t want dark skin or a big butt or someone who was not good looking.”
He chose Li. “What are your conditions?” was the first thing he asked her. She demanded a small house, money and jewelry. He hounded his former wife until she gave back $6,000 in cash he had given her as a wedding gift, then gave $4,000 of it to Li. Now, seven years later, the tables are turned. When Chang recently decided to find a new, younger wife on the mainland, he demanded her help. “He said he just wanted a cuddly bear to hug and sleep with,” says Li, “and if I opposed him he would stick a clean knife in me and it would come out red.”
With the help of legislators and social workers, mainland wives are fighting for their rights. Beyond the social stigma they face, the mainland women are not allowed to work, though the Taiwanese government may soon permit them to hold menial jobs. In recent years some Chinese wives have taken to the streets, demanding more lenient visa policies. Pan, the legislator, distributes a booklet to new wives that offers advice. That’s a start. Bridging half a century of hostility is not easy, even in a marriage.
