The self-styled “hottest star from China” extended Harvard men an offer of marriage on Monday—but the choosy husband-hunter said that Asians and those without a Masters degree need not apply.
Luo Yufeng, who gained notoriety in China for passing out flyers petitioning for the perfect spouse and has since moved to New York City, visited Harvard earlier this week to continue her search for a husband—specifically, one who stands between 5.74 and 6.11 feet tall, is between the ages of 25 and 31, and “would like to dominate the world.”
The flyers that Luo distributed in front of Boylston Gate and the Science Center list these qualifications and other stringent marital requirements.
“I need a man handsome, tall, and Master’s degree from Harvard Business School and [works] in a bank,” she wrote in an email to The Crimson which has been edited for punctuation. “Harvard is the best university all over the world, so I think it’s worth to have a try,” she added.
Luo—who has 1.9 million followers on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter—said she was impressed by the Harvard men she met, whom she described as “gentle and polite.” She added that she was particularly taken with “one handsome man outside the Harvard Business School.”
She said she has been contacted by about 50 Harvard students since her visit to Cambridge.
Harvard is only the latest stop in Luo’s quest for Mr. Right. After distributing her first batch of flyers in 2009 in Shanghai, she quickly skyrocketed to fame on the web and on television. For many, her unorthodox pursuit of marriage became an object of ridicule; she was even pelted with an egg while appearing on “China’s Got Talent.”
In 2011, she moved to New York, where she has since passed out flyers at Occupy Wall Street and Columbia University. In total, she said, she has spent more than $10,000 on flyers.
After seeing Luo outside the Science Center, Laura J. Cheng ’15, whose mother hails from the same Chinese city as Luo, said that the flyer reminded her of “stories of young Chinese women who meet white businessmen in Beijing and immediately try to go back with them.”
While many Harvard students ignored the flyers, Jacob S. Miller ’15 replied with a letter of his own. His letter, which he handed to Luo and also posted on Facebook, asked for a wife “Between 525,000 and 39,420,000 minutes old,” a parody of Luo’s exacting demands. “I’d like to think that my letter was about the same level of ridiculousness as hers,” he said.
Although her search has been fruitless so far, she maintains that her requirements are reasonable. “If they are not too poor, I can accept them,” she wrote. “I need a clever man, that is all.”
While Luo admitted that her methods are “not the best way of finding a husband,” she said she was determined to keep trying. “Husband can’t automatically appears if I do nothing.”
—Staff writer Jared T. Lucky can be reached at lucky@college.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Carrie J. Tian can be reached at ctian@college.harvard.edu.
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