A Shenzhen woman who stood by a home-made sign warning Chinese women not to marry Americans has received more derision than sympathy from Chinese netizens.

Shu Ya stood by the sign at Shenzhen airport which contained a picture of her and her estranged American husband, beneath which was written the story of how he had cheated her “emotionally, financially, and sexually.”

The writing explains how after living in Shenzhen for many years she had developed an irrational love of foreigners. She met her husband in a bar in the city’s Nanshan District three years ago, and shortly after they decided to get married. She later discovered that he was extracting money from her salary to pay his debts back in America, and she had just flown back to China after expensive divorce proceedings in the country.

However, the majority of comments under the Youku video through which the story became well-known have been negative about Shu’s actions. A netizen named Wansui Bairen joined hundreds of others in exclaiming huogai, which roughly means “serves her right.” A respondent named liop95 claimed that foreigners refer to Chinese women as “the sluts of the world,” and that she had got her comeuppance for failing to settle for a Chinese man.

Other commenters such as Wetao19810103 and Sorckey claimed that she is already “damaged goods” after being with a foreigner, and urged more foreigners to come and take such “trash” off China’s hands. Respondents such as Cailom derided her for generalizing, and gurui83 opined that her mistake was not to marry a foreigner, but to blame her husband for her own lack of caution.

Some netizens praised Shu, Bing Seng was one of dozens who expressed admiration of her courage, and the video shows that she drew a considerable crowd at the airport.

China has a notoriously mixed attitude toward marriages between Chinese and foreigners. In 2008, a female student at Shanghai Jiaotong University wrote an article explaining why her dream was to marry a foreigner. However, recent years have also seen hugely popular articles, such as “Chinese women, please don’t get into bed with foreigners,” by the wife of educator Yu Minhong.