Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
During the hardest, leanest times of my life, shortly after Y2K, I used to visit with the Korean guy who owned the trashed out motel across the parking lot from the Chinese joint my one-room apartment was situated behind. [I mentioned that motel before because one of the scenes from the movie 21 Grams was filmed there.]
Kim, the old Korean guy used to come over and we’d drink coffee and talk about Korean places we both knew. He’d stare around him and say, “Man, you are POOR!”
Me: I ain’t poor.
Kim: This is America! You don’t have to live this way.
I did odd jobs of handyman work for Kim to make a little cash sometimes, so I didn’t boot him out on his ass, calling me poor. And one day Kim offered me a proposition.
Kim told me there were wealthy families in Korea who had daughters they’d love to see become US citizens. Said they’d pay a man thousands of dollars for marrying one of them, staying married long enough to get her papers completed, then divorce.
He made it clear this would be strictly a business proposition. No kissee kissee fickycick in the deal. Cash and carry all the way.
Kim offered to put me in touch with some Korean families who were in the market for that kind of work. I thought about it long and hard, but one thing led to another and I never did it.
But I was telling Jeanne about it on the phone, just remembering, a while back and it came to me. I’m betting there’s a lot more of that nowadays than there was then, and that the price is sky high. I’d bet there are Japanese who’d pay out the wazoo to get a piece of their gene pool somewhere east of the Mississippi river these days. Not to mention rich Chinamen, Koreans, Malasians, hell, who knows. Maybe even Arabs.
Hell, I’m thinking if times ever get really hard I’ll trim my mustache, polish my boots and go after some of that easy money if the price is right. The world’s full of pest holes I’ll bet rich wealthy people with Swiss bank accounts would love to get their daughters out of.
Wonder if old Kim’s still owner of that motel.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 
I’m getting married to lady in the Cambodia. Unfortunately here family don’t possess much wealth, although both parents are school teachers. She has an accountant degree over there. The only concern is when she moves to America and that degree don’t mean squat.
I suspect that this is the reason the visa process is so rigorous. My sister-in-law is Thai and my brother had to jump through several hoops, collecting affidavits stating their marriage was legitimate each time her visa was renewed. Now she’s a citizen so the anxiety of having his wife deported is no longer a periodic threat.
Good morning elroyjones. Seems a shame they’d be trying to make it diffucult for people to become US citizens that way since it brings in wealth and helps the economy. Gives lower income US citizens something they can get their teeth into without having to be multi-national corporations and bankers. Gracias, J