Indebted man is up for sale
(eastday.com)
Updated: 2004-03-25 09:39

For sale: One heavily indebted, 26-year-old male university graduate - suitable as either a husband or son. Asking price starts at 1 yuan (12 US cents).

A man from Jiangxi Province, who will only identify himself by the pseudonym Yu Xiao, wants to sell himself to pay off massive debts he owes to gangsters, but several newspapers and an auction Website are refusing to run his ads.

"I tried calling several newspapers to place an advertisement, but they refused. Now I'm trying the Internet. But if I fail to sell myself again, I'll try broadcasting," said Yu. "I won't give up because it's the only way out."

Yu placed numerous ads yesterday on Eachnet.com, China's largest auction Website, in hopes of persuading a woman or elderly couple to buy, help and love him as a family member.

In the ads, Yu describes himself as 168 centimeters tall, single and healthy and says he is good for a husband or son.

"I am a miserable vagrant dying for love," he said.

After graduating from college, Yu worked for a cable company in Jiangxi for three years. Knowing that he would never become rich working as a wage slave, he borrowed 100,000 yuan from a loan shark and went into business cooperating with local gangsters, who quickly cheated him out of his money.

"These evil men dug a hole waiting for me to fall into it," he said. "But I think my greed was the prime culprit for my tragedy."

Unable to pay off the loan shark and unwilling to see his legs broken, Yu fled his hometown for Nanchang, capital city of Jiangxi Province, and then to Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, where he wandered the streets for two months.

He arrived in Shanghai earlier this month and found a job working in an Internet cafe for 400 yuan a month.

"I miss my mother to death," he said. "My dream is not only to repay the money (I owe) but to find a person here as a substitute for her. That's why my price is only 1 yuan."

Before he finds a buyer, Yu will have to find someone willing to run his ads.

"Currently we only allow trading of goods. Even services are banned from trading, not to mention something so strange as a person," said Tang Lei, a public relations manager with Eachnet.

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