Heartbroken Canadian stalks Shenzhen streets in search of online girlfriend who jilted him

By Ryan Kilpatrick, April 23, 2015

60-year-old Canadian Jake Malone is a man on a mission: to track down his online girlfriend after he flew over to Shenzhen and she stood him up.

One year ago, Jake met his paramour Rebecca online, on a dating website that Jake apparently said "lots of Asian women use to find partners." According to Jake's description, the two could only communicate via the website itself, which translated communications between them.

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Due to the in-house translation services, users have to pay for every email they send or receive - apparently around RMB30 each time. After 11 months of writing to each other, Jake had given the site about RMB11,000.

He mentioned to Rebecca that he was willing to come to China to find her many times, but says that she was always nervous and said she was afraid meeting in person might break the spell. Nevertheless, he decided himself that he would make the trip.

After traveling from Vancouver to meet her on April 9, however, she never turned up. The only channel for communication they had was the dating website on which they had met, which according to some reports went down, "malfunctioned," or locked him out after he arrived in Shenzhen. Also likely is that it's simply trapped beyond the Great Firewall.

Rebecca had told Jake that the company she works at a clothing factory also called "RILI" - the same as her online handle - but when he turned up at the company's address to look for her he was told that the company hadn't been around for years.

Staff at Jake's hotel helped him print out a "Missing Person" placard that he has laminated and tied around his placard like a placard. He now spends his days wandering around the starts of Shenzhen wearing her picture and asking random strangers if they've seen her before.