ASK Mr Mark Lin how the Vietnamese bride “industry” really began, and he’ll regale you with a tale of grit.

He’ll tell you how, in 2002, penniless after his bubble tea shop failed, he walked from shop to shop, armed with a folder full of pictures of random Vietnamese women.

Mr Lin, 47, who has a limp from a childhood bout of polio, might even stand up and dramatically pound a wall of his shop, Vietnam Brides International.

That’s just what he did on Tuesday to show The New Paper on Sunday the way he knocked on countless doors, asking: “Would you want to marry a Vietnam woman? Or would you want to invest in my company?”

After all, in Taiwan, his homeland, men marrying Vietnamese brides through matchmakers was commonplace.

There was no reason it would not work here, thought Mr Lin, who came to Singapore in 2001 to join his wife and three daughters.

They had come in 1997 to study.

But people laughed at him, he said.

Wives of men he approached came at him angrily, saying that he was crazy.

No Singaporean man would pay his fee of $16,000 to marry a girl from Vietnam, they said.

Things have certainly changed since.

In 2002, there were just one or two registered businesses. Today, Mr Lin has lost count.

There are eight in Golden Mile Complex dealing with foreign brides alone, he said.

That’s his version.

So was Mr Lin the person who really started it all?

It turns out the truth is as convoluted as a nuptial knot, and the relationships as acrimonious as a messy divorce.

It is impossible to speak conclusively of any single “originator”, as there were a number of people arranging Vietnam brides on an ad-hoc basis, say operators.

The ‘family three’

But it comes down to three names at the root of the industry’s family tree, who have all claimed to be THE first:

1. Mr Lin, of course;

2. Hong Kong businessman Peter Liu, who claimed to be the first to bring in Vietnamese brides in a 2003 Straits Times report, and;

3. Singaporean Francis Toh, of First Overseas International Matchmaker.

Mr Loi Eng Thang, 58, of Ideal Marriage Centre, said the pioneers were Mr Lin and Mr Toh, the joint operators of now-defunct Sin Ye International Matchmaker.

But Mr Janson Ong, 47, who bought Life Partner Matchmaker from Mr Liu in 2003, reckoned that his predecessor may have been the trailblazer.

While there are differences – with lots of insults and accusations – Mr Lin and Mr Toh’s accounts match.

Mr Lin said he got to know about Mr Toh in 2002.

He was then buying an air ticket to Vietnam for a customer from a tour agent in Furama Hotel.

The agent had told him someone else was doing something similar.

At the time, Mr Toh was running Sin Ye, which he said he started in 1998 when he returned to Singapore after a 10-year stint in Indochina.

He said he had registered the business, but ran it from his handphone.

Mr Lin joined Mr Toh in 2002.

That was when they set up shop at Katong Shopping Centre.

Mr Toh believes it was the first in Singapore. He said it was only after this that Mr Liu set up a shop.

In 2004, as competition heated up, Sin Ye began the practice of flying Vietnamese girls to Singapore to be “chosen”.

But that same year, the two men split on bitter terms.

For Mr Lin, the sore point was when Mr Toh set up First Overseas International Matchmaker in 2004, while they were still operating Sin Ye together.

Mr Toh argued that he had invited Mr Lin to be a stakeholder in First Overseas, and that Mr Lin had refused.

When pressed, Mr Lin conceded that Mr Toh had the first Vietnamese bride business.

But he insisted he was the one who kickstarted the trend in Singapore.

“I am the first to really spread the story and did advertisements,” he said.

And in a rare compliment, Mr Toh said: “Mark does advertise himself very well.”

This article was first published in The New Paper.