Hello, is it me you're looking for?

[Li Feng/China Daily]

Two hundred years ago an 18-year-old woman named Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who would eventually give birth to four children－long since returned to dust and all but forgotten to humanity－conceived of her most famous offspring, one whose name endures to this day: Frankenstein.

So could the staying power of the 19th-century literary character, together with the story of his unrequited, murderous quest for love in the form of a man-made soul mate, explain the 21st century fascination with a robot called Geminoid F?

This young thing, the love child of Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, a Japanese engineer, held court at the World Robots Exhibition in Beijing recently, and many of those who met her seemed to be entranced, if not smitten.

Wearing a white shirt, a yellow pullover and a black skirt, this replica of a woman in her 20s with long, dark hair exuded confidence as she sat in the middle of a large crowd, more or less bolt upright and hands on her lap. She blinked from time to time as she took questions from all comers, answering with a soft feminine voice and with all the aplomb of someone trained in public relations.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" one woman asked her in Chinese.

"Would you like to introduce me to someone?" she replied, tilting her head slightly.

"What kind of men do you like?" the woman asked.

"Handsome ones, obviously," she said.