Engineer marries robotic 'girlfriend' to appease his pushy parents

A Chinese engineer who 'married' his robotic girlfriend is now making personalised cyber partners for millions of bachelors in China.

Zheng Jiajia's robotic company claimed it's producing tailor-made robotic girlfriends with 'sexual function' to 'accompany' single men and to help them deal with social pressure, reported Daily Mail.

In March, Mr Zheng, 31, married his robotic girlfriend, who he had made for himself.

Apparently, the singleton was tired of the constant pressure from his parents who would ask him repeatedly: "Isn't it time you settled down and got married?"

Ill-fated with an unbalanced, male-heavy population in China, Zheng Jiajia, a graduate from a top university, couldn't seem to meet the right woman.

As a result, he turned to a robot he built late last year he named Ying Ying.

In a viral video shown on ku6.com, the smiling husband sits next to his bionic 'wife'. The robot resembles a young, slender Chinese woman with lifelike skin.

According to Zheng, Ying Ying generates warmth, and can respond to speech and hugs. However, the only movement she appears capable of is from the neck up.

After two months of 'dating', the artificial intelligence engineer 'married' her at a ceremony on March 28 this year, attended by his mother and friends in the eastern city of Hangzhou.

The marriage is not considered legal, although the wedding had all the typical Chinese traditions, with his bride's head covered with a red cloth.

However, Mr Zheng carried on as if it were by organising a ceremony and taking wedding photos with his 'bride.'

During a TV programme aired in China this summer, called 'Are you Hot', someone asked Mr Zheng what he thought was missing from Ying Ying, to which he emotionally replied, 'a beating heart'.

The media reaction in China to the 'marriage' has been mixed, with some social media users mocking Mr Zheng and others wondering if it is all a publicity stunt.

In the video, a mock up animation features Mr Zheng being pressured by society and has been widely shared across social media including the Chinese twitter, Weibo and Tencent.

Mr Zheng doesn't want to spend the rest of his life with a robot. However, 'marrying her has propelled the balding engineer into the public spotlight as an available young go-getter for women across the globe to meet.

Before 'marrying' Ying Ying, Mr Zheng started his own robotics company, Brain of Things Science and Technology.

The 'romance' has certainly given the robotics company publicity and maybe will start wooing more lonely thirty somethings in China.

In a recent press release, the company claimed to have invented a new generation of robotic girlfriends who could 'satisfy the customers sexual needs'.

The robots are also said to be able to identify voices, faces and finger prints.

Mr Zheng's slogan for his humanoid robots is 'it only takes up one square metre, but it could stay with you for life'.

Mr Zheng is apparently targeting at China's growing number of wifeless men.

About 30 million men in China can't find wives due to the country's gender imbalance issue. That's nearly half of the population of Britain.

Traditionally, baby boys are preferred by Chinese parents because of their ability to carry forward the family name.

Decades of illegal baby gender selection, prompted by the one-child policy, has caused the country to suffer from a severe gender gap.

The gender ratio between baby boys and baby girls has reached 1.3 to 1 at its highest.

It's been estimated that around 15 million men between the ages of 35 and 59 won't be able to find wives by 2020, reported People's Daily, and by 2050 the number would grow to nearly 30 million.