Michael Ryan, from California, does not claim to be an Internet addict, but he got to meet his wife — a Shenzhen girl — through the Internet eight years ago.

“It was by mere chance,” recalled Ryan, 33, who has now settled in Shekou. Eight years ago, he received a request to test an audio meeting system. He did that, and his future wife sent him a thank-you e-mail, which he did not open until a month later. In 1999, on Ryan’s third trip to China, they got married.

“I could have been the first American to date a Shenzhen girl online,” Ryan said, adding that a reporter was present at his wedding ceremony.

A man long interested in Chinese culture, Ryan soon adapted himself to Chinese life. He soon found the Chinese substitute for his favorite Mexican cuisine — Hunan food. After eating Hunan food, he likes to drink Guangdong’s well-known herb tea Wang-laoji, which, according to him, alleviates the effects of the spicy food that “could set one’s head on fire.”

Ryan is a kung fu lover. He started to learn kung fu at the age of 5. Now he feels he is too unfit to practice kung fu, and has turned to a business related to kung fu — “kung fu” tea, literally in Chinese. He owns a tea export company.

Ryan loves the diversity of Shenzhen. “You can meet different people and have different foods here,” said Ryan. “If you ask a Shenzhener where he or she is from, by 99 percent chance you will be told that he or she is from outside the city,” he said.

Like most foreigners here, Ryan complains about the city’s traffic, especially pedestrians who don’t respect traffic laws.

However, Ryan broke the traffic laws once. In 2002, he parked his car in a no-parking area, and it was towed away by the traffic police. He had to pay a fine of 230 yuan (US$28), he said.

(Shenzhen Daily December 27, 2005)