Women are leaving Taiwan's countryside for jobs in the cities. Dowries are becoming more costly. As a result, rural Taiwanese men are turning to Vietnam as a source of "low-cost" brides. Van Tran is a staff reporter for the Taiwan News in Taipei. She wrote this article for New California Media Online (www.ncmonline.com), a project of Pacific News Service.

HO CHI MINH CITY -- It was an offer Nguyen Thi Phuong's father could hardly refuse -- US$3,000 as dowry for his daughter's marriage to a Taiwanese man. Both daughter and father accepted the offer -- without having met the groom.

Mr. Nguyen, 57, and a widower, worked at a garment factory 90 miles from Saigon, earning about $35 a month. He accepted in the hope of making his retirement more comfortable and giving his daughter the chance to leave Vietnam for a better life in Taiwan.

"My father was constantly worried that I couldn't find someone to marry," Phuong recalls, "and he heard that someone at the factory had married a Taiwanese manager and sent money home every month."

Phuong is one of some 18,000 Vietnamese women who have legally married Taiwanese men in recent years. Most settled in Taiwan, as Phuong did.

She is also among the two percent of these women who have come back to Vietnam to divorce their husbands, claiming physical or emotional abuse, according to a survey by the Ho Chi Minh City Women's League. Many more separations, it is believed, do not involve divorce courts.

In Phuong's marriage an ethnic Chinese intermediary from Saigon acted as a broker for a share of the fee paid to Taiwanese marriage agencies. Potential grooms usually pay between $10,000 to $15,000 for a Vietnamese bride, including airfare, visa and immigration paperwork.

Most of the work, however, is done by Vietnamese matchmakers in Ho Chi Minh City. "We currently deal with about 250 matchmaking agencies," says Chiu Chui-ming, a visa officer at the Taipei Cultural and Economic Office in Ho Chi Minh City.

These matchmakers have agents in the countryside around Saigon, where poor families are willing to part with their daughters for as little as $600. Because Vietnamese law prohibits marriage recruiters, matchmaking agencies often pretend they are travel agents or immigration advisors.

Changing internal migration patterns in Taiwan -- where young women are leaving the countryside for cities to find work -- and increases in dowry prices have led Taiwanese men to look elsewhere for potential brides. Chinese brides used to be the most popular choice, but complicated Taiwanese immigration laws have made Southeast Asian brides a more practical option.

Vietnamese brides seem to be the preferred second choice, explains Mai, a matchmaker. "Vietnamese girls are popular with Taiwanese men because they look a lot like the Chinese women at home. Chinese men usually prefer light-skinned women to darker-skinned Southeast Asian females. In Thailand or Burma they have to choose from a small number of ethnic Chinese women."

The tightly controlled Vietnamese press usually reserves its venom for "corrupting" foreigners, and Taiwanese men who marry Vietnamese women are a favorite topic. The press seems to reflect a general public contempt -- mixed with envy -- toward the large number of Taiwanese businessmen in Vietnam.

Tuan, an ethnic Chinese who runs a hotel popular with Taiwanese, says, "Vietnamese men are very nationalistic, they hate seeing these rich betel-chewing Taiwanese guys coming here flaunting their money and taking their women home."

Phuong's father was approached by a recruiter from Saigon. "First he claimed to be a friend of the groom and that he was not out to make money." Phuong says. "But then my father knew about other arranged marriages and demanded a high dowry. At the first meeting, Phuong was told only that her husband was 43 and a businessman from Tainan, nothing more.

"Aside from the $3,000, my future husband said he would give my father another US$200, which made me very happy. My husband seemed very gentle, his only fault is being too taciturn. Before our wedding day, I traveled to Saigon to take care of my Taiwanese visa. I stayed at his hotel room. I couldn't speak Mandarin. He didn't say much. I slept on the floor while he slept on his bed."

Phuong, accompanied by her husband and their marriage recruiter, got her six-month Taiwanese visa after a five-minute interview. To celebrate the wedding, bride and groom and their two marriage brokers went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. The newlyweds flew to Taiwan the next morning.

Phuong found that her life was just as hard in Taiwan as it had been in Vietnam.

"My husband turned out to be a farmer. I was doing the same work I did in Vietnam. We started at five in the morning and stopped at two. I didn't speak the language. I missed home and was very lonely."

After her six-month visa ran out, she returned with her husband to Vietnam. She filed for divorce at a Ho Chi Minh City court, claiming physical abuse. "I wish my father had asked for more than $3,000," she says.