Review of “Seeking Western Men: Email-order Brides Under China’s Global Rise”

Abstract

The book Seeking Western Men: Email-order Brides Under China’s Global Rise written by Monica Liu examines the evolving “mail order bride” industry in a major Chinese city within the larger economic context of China’s rise from a poor agrarian country into the world’s second largest economy after the United States. This is an important empirical study of the “mail order bride” industry within China that provides an intervention into the literature regarding international dating and marriage. Previous studies of the phenomenon in China did not include the in-depth ethnographic data that this book provides. Based on Monica Liu’s positionality as a Chinese–American who spoke the language of her participants, she was able to get a much richer and deeper ethnographic account of various Chinese women’s experiences in comparison with previous studies that largely conducted interviews via letters, such as Nicole Constable’s (2003) seminal work on the topic, entitled Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography and Mail Order Marriages. By being so embedded in the Chinese context, Liu can highlight the different class norms and habitus of Chinese women who seek American men for marriage at international email dating agencies.