FROM LOVESTRUCK TO DUMBSTRUCK
S'pore man falls for China woman after meeting on plane. He visits her family, says he plans to marry her. She turns out to be married, 'demands $20,000 for house'. When rejected, she accuses him of cheating, rape.
By Tay Shi'an
January 28, 2008
FROM a loving relationship to a bitter break-up to accusations of rape, cheating and cross-border crime.
Love gone wrong: Mr Tan looking at his photos with Ms Chu on his computer. He holds ATM slips from a Chinese bank, where he withdrew money which he spent on their vacation. - Picture: Gavin Foo
All it took was a few months for one Singapore man's love affair with a woman from China to go from sweet to downright sour.
It started when Mr Tan, a 38-year-old Singaporean IT consultant, met Ms Chu, 28, a tour guide from China, on a flight last June. We are not using their real names, following a request from him.
After a three-month relationship, they fell out over money.
Now, she has gone to the police here, accusing him of serious crimes. And she is also running an online campaign to smear his name.
She does not give details of his alleged crimes, and he denies all her allegations.
So, is she a woman scorned and seeking revenge, or a woman conned and seeking justice? You decide.
Ms Chu makes her claims on blogs and in an e-mail sent to several newspapers here, including TheNew Paper on Sunday.
Snapshots of happier times while the couple were on holiday.
Disclosing her full name, e-mail address and handphone number, she said: 'He cheated (me of) my money and raped me. Not just me, another girl was also raped by him.'
In the police report, she alleged that MrTan not only brought Chinese women into Singapore to be prostitutes, he also helped them use fake documents to get them into Singapore schools.
She claimed that he had taken 10,000yuan ($2,000) from her.
And although she made a reference to 'rape' in her report, she did not elaborate on how or when this happened.
A Singapore police spokesman confirmed receiving her report.
Mr Tan claims he is the target of a long-distance smear campaign.
'It's all not true,' he said.
Showing various photographs of them together, he asked: 'How can she accuse me of raping her when we were actually a couple?'
He claimed that when they started seeing each other in Singapore, she did not tell him that she was married.
In a phone interview from her hometown in Chengdu, Ms Chu confirmed that she and Mr Tan had dated for three months.
But she insisted that though she had consented to sex while they were together, he had 'tricked' her into the relationship, hence the accusations of rape.
She said: 'I never thought I would meet this kind of person in such a lawful country.'
She e-mailed The New Paper on Sunday a telephone number in China which she said belonged to the other alleged victim.
However, when we rang, we reached a recorded message saying that the SIM card did not have enough value.
When asked for evidence on the other allegations, Ms Chu admitted she did not have any hard proof.
She said: 'I know right now, it's just 'he said, she said'.
'But it's a matter of principle. He promised to return the money to me. If I really wanted to cheat him of money, I would have inflated the figure to something much higher than $2,000.'
However, Mr Tan claimed she did want much more money.
'She asked me to transfer $20,000 to her to buy a house in China and I refused,' he said.
'And when she couldn't meet her objective, she started to tarnish my reputation.'
Mr Tan, who does freelance work, said he first met her on a plane from Chengdu, on his return from a business trip. She was taking a group of primary school children on a holiday here.
He said: 'She was like a little angel, very easy-going. She was sitting right in front of me. I saw her filling in the boarding cards for so many kids, so I asked if I could help.'
The two chatted and she gave him her contact number in Singapore.
He said that while she was here, they often went to East Coast Park to swim, stroll and eat. She impressed him by being able to speak English and Japanese.
He said: 'She's educated, not like those women in Geylang.'
By the end of one week, he was so smitten that when she invited him to China to visit her, he decided to fly immediately with her to Hong Kong, her next destination.
'People think I'm crazy,' he said. 'I dropped my life and flew to be with her.'
He stayed in China for almost threemonths, to be with her.
He said he did not have to take leave as a freelancer, and he told his family he was going on a business trip.
But he said it was only when they left Hong Kong and arrived in Chengdu that he got the bombshell - MsChu revealed that she was married.
He said: 'I was stunned. I thought, I wasted my time and my money. But she told me she was getting a divorce, so I stayed on.'
Ms Chu confirmed that she had been married at the time, but her relationship with her then-husband was already on the rocks. She claimed she is now divorced.
Mr Tan said he had initially entertained thoughts of settling down with her.
'I wanted to find a girlfriend, get married and have a family,' he said.
The couple travelled to several Chinese cities, and even went on holiday in Vietnam.
He also met her family and friends.
He said: 'If I really raped her, would she still be with me for so long in so many cities and let me hang out with her friends?'
However, he admitted that he did take some money from her. He said that when he had problems with his ATM card, she would pay or hand him money.
But he claimed that he spent almost $20,000 on hotels, air tickets and other expenses. He showed us his passport and more than 10 ATM receipts for cash withdrawn in China, amounting to 24,000yuan ($4,800).
'BURNT'
He said: 'Look how much money I spent there. Why would I need to cheat her?
'I feel 'burnt' too. I spent three months chasing her all over, spent that kind of time and effort and, in the end, what do I get? A big mess.'
He returned to Singapore in October as he had not worked for three months and had no salary.
When he left, he promised her that he would fly back to China to see her earlier this month. He claimed that was when she started pestering him to send her $20,000.
He said: 'My friends told me not to do it. I haven't known her for very long and she wants us to buy a house and stay in China, not here.
'I kept refusing, then she kept calling and bugging me... until I was going to break down.'
So MrTan decided to end the relationship - and that's when she started to demand the $2,000 back.
He said: 'I refused. I told her these were joint expenses. Plus, I spent so much more than her. Who do I claim from?
'How can she say the money she spent is money, and what I spent is not money?'
But Ms Chu insisted that the money was lent to him and he had promised to pay her back.
Mr Tan said the whole experience had left him depressed and disillusioned.
'I'm not scared of a police report, because I didn't do anything wrong,' he said.
'She was so sweet. I never thought it would be like this...'
