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Cyber love brings joy, regret and grief in China
By Wang Ying
March 22, 2005
These days, people can become infatuated or "in love" with someone they have
never seen or heard.
All it takes is a few "deep" online chats before romance is in the air.
Welcome to the world of cyber love, which, though it sounds impossible, has
been gaining popularity in recent years.
Students of a Ningbo university in east China's Zhejiang Province use the
Internet for their study and spend their leisure time surfing the net in this
December 24, 2004 photo. [newsphoto]
The power of Internet has proved strong enough to bring together lovers who
have few opportunities to meet in the real world because of distance or even
financial barriers.
"I found my soul mate online and I am the happiest that I've ever been," Zhang
Yan, a girl in her early 20s from Shenzhen, said.
An only child from a better-off family living in one of the country's most
prosperous cities in southern Guangdong Province, Zhang met Wang Ju, a soldier
from a poor rural family in Central China's Henan Province.
Both online game devotees, Zhang and Wang became best partners when they met
online playing a popular game in 2000.
When they met face to face in early 2001, the couple decided to extend their
online intimacy off line, so to speak.
Considering the distance between the couple and the young man's current
financial status, Zhang's family strongly objected to their love affair.
After more than three years of struggle, the couple finally got nod from the
Zhang's parents and tied the knot in December.
Cyber love has gained acceptance, and is no longer something novel in China as
it once was four to five years ago.
Sina.com, one of the country's leading web portals, has conducted a survey
which involved more than 17,000 Internet surfers. As many as 69 per cent of
them had tried making romantic connections over the web.
Another such questionnaire by the popular domestic Sohu.com site found that
more than 50 per cent of respondents apparently trust cyber love.
An online couple from Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan Province even used
their wedding ceremony as an opportunity to bring together online chums.
The couple, bride Jing Xiaomei and groom Zan Moshi, met and fell in love,
thanks to a travel website.
Both members of an online travel club, Jing and Zan met each other while
attending a club trek organized in 2002. They went on several more field trips
before tying the knot recently.
A number of online peers witnessed the development of their relationship and
showed hearty support.
At the couple's wedding ceremony, most of the guests, the best man and
bridesmaid, were friends made in the virtual world.
"Thanks to the Internet, I found both love and friendship," Zan told the
Chengdu Evening News.
However, online affairs do not always lead to happy endings.
A university student in her fourth year in Chengdu was duped into an Internet
romance last year.
The student, who identified herself as "Moon" in chat rooms, thought she had
found a new love and arranged to meet him late last year.
That's when she discovered "he" was a pair of 10-year-old schoolboy pranksters.
"Moon" told reporters that although she found some of "his" words naive and
curious over the two months they chatted, she never suspected she was being
duped until she insisted on a meeting and discovered her embarrassing mistake.
"Moon," whose heart was broken, may nonetheless be very lucky compared to
others trapped in more serious and dangerous situations. Reports continue to
emerge about cyber lovers being cheated, hurt or involved in scandals.
Some not only have had their marriages ruined, but have also been robbed or
raped by Net "lovers."
A man who called himself "Kuaile Buyi" (a happy plain man) once organized an
online forum on Netease.com and cheated some of its female members out of
hundreds of thousands of yuan.
A victim who called herself "Hanqiong Diming" (cold song of crickets), posted a
message on the forum that she was cheated of 50,000 yuan (US$6,000) last year
by the scoundrel after he claimed his former girl friend was dying of cancer.
"The happy plain man" is simply a classic confidence artist using the new
electronic medium to bag victims before disappearing after receiving money.
He is still at large.
Reports also have exposed many cases involving teenagers being victimized by
those they meet in the cyber world.
Cheng Anfang, an 18-year-old high schooler in Chaohu, East China's Anhui
Province, was reportedly fed sleeping pills and raped by a Net "lover" whom she
had known for less than a month last year.
Later police rescued her from a local warehouse.
Many cyber romances start from online chats, which seem nowadays like a good
way to kill time.
Besides finding soul mates and new friends, some also try to test the true
feelings of their loved ones.
A mother in Zhengzhou of Central China's Henan Province, reportedly tried to
get to know her son better, a college student, via anonymous online chats.
The son hung around on campus and spent all his time chatting online during
holidays. He seldom talked to his parents.
Acquiring a virtual identity herself, the mother surfed the Internet and became
a very good Net friend of her son. She said she soon learned a lot about his
life at the university, which is located in another city and grew to understand
her child more.
The mother told a local newspaper recently that she is now worried about being
discovered because she enjoyed chatting so much she just cannot stop.
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