What is the dating scene like in China for a non-Asian female expat?





female expats chime in with their experiences:

nz_wino:

I spent some time in china in the past (hence while I still sub here) and got to know a Chinese guy who I was working with (essentially a supplier) and he wanted to leave his wife to marry me, it got pretty awkward. I also had interest from other Chinese men. So if you're attractive in the west you're still going to be attractive in the east.





brittypoo:

Non-asian female here! Your experience is going to depend a lot on where you are living. I lived in a "town" with only 6 foreigners including myself but still managed to have a great experience. Not too much dating but the ones I did date were pretty awesome. Most especially the Chinese man I ended up marrying :)





Scribbles2539:

I lived in a smaller city (half a million give or take) and while my male friends had lots of options mine were limited to farmers, students (I taught at a university) or sons of my local fruit/noodle/bubble tea sellers. I know quite a few friends that dated Asian men in the larger cities. One of them actually is married, expecting their first kid and living back in the us.

I had plenty of me time which was nice but maybe if I had been in a larger city that wouldn't have been the case....





theepicmarshbeast:

Fempat here. Just wanted to say that dating is generally terrible anywhere you go-home country and Asia. Don't expect it to be any better or worse in China. I never had an issue when it came to dating (married with a child now) neither did my friends and I know a lot of people in China who met their significant others here (some SO's were Chinese and some were foreigners). You might run into that guy (he's usually drinking heavily alone) who is going to volunteer (without you even asking) his view point about 'how easy it is to get laid here by Chinese girls and MAN, no one wants Western feminist cunts' yada, yada, yada. Yeah, we get it: you hate women and are just a little racist. Anyway, just nod politely and excuse yourself. You don't want to interact with that dude-nothing good will come from it.





greenishbluish:

Personal POV from a white bisexual woman: I went to China with my girlfriend, so I didn't date anyone else while I was there. Both of us got hit on at various points, however, since we weren't very open about being a couple.





In my teir 300 city, I got really close with several of my (college-aged) female students (I had just graduated college myself), and probably could have taken things farther if I had wanted. Nice girls, but the language barrier and teacher/student relationship would have made me feel like a creep. Also got hit on quite a bit by Indian/Pakistani male med students from a neighboring school whenever I'd go to the bars/ clubs. My now wife (white, speaks Chinese much better than me) was practically proposed to by a Chinese guy, who was another teacher at our school and head over heals for her for a good 6 months. He got his heart broken :/





Later on we moved to a teir 2 city and probably could have gotten with a few expat men, but most of them were assholes. In my experience, many white guys in the larger cities in China who were likely to hit on expat women were either socially awkward, had regressive views, thought they were hot shit because they had money to burn, or all of the above.





For what it's worth, I also had male expat friends that were totally awesome. Most of them genuinely loved teaching, Chinese culture, and travel.

cstonerun:

(white girl here)

It's good. Yes, there's a disproportionate amount of pervy white men in Asia. Whatever. There's also a disproportionate amount of people who are just more social, up for adventure, open to meeting new people, etc.





Pomguo:

People have different reactions. There was a very illuminating panel of expat women at the Bookworm Literary Festival in Beijing a couple of years back that fielded a question on this topic.





Some expat women find that they experience a huge drop-off in attention from the kinds of men they are used to receiving it from back home, and that their own advances aren't welcomed so much as they might expect. In general people put this down to these expat men themselves experiencing the reverse - they are a more prized commodity, as expat men are not so common as just 'men' back home and so expat women are more interested in them; while the truism that a huge number of local women are interested in them, with these women's attractiveness (or success or intelligence - as these tend to be associated with highly educated or career-successful older women in China, which is a group that local men aren't really interested in dating) being much higher than might be interested in these same expat men at home.





So basically, seen like this, expat men get an upgrade and are now punching what would be above their weight at home, whereas expat women get a downgrade and now must fight for what they might consider scraps back home (or not fight at all).

But this is only how you see it when the expat women are unwilling to date local men, which is the somewhat-racist elephant in the room. Expat women upset with the above status quo often push the blame onto the expat men for being 'yellow fever' fetishists, but commit the reverse infraction by never even considering dating locals themselves.





There are of course a whole host of cultural incompatibility issues that can arise from dating local men, that can be harsher that way around than it is for expat men dating local women. The cultural expectations of woman-as-housekeeper, man-as-boss in a relationship are still very prevalent - especially compared to Western Europe and the US, though perhaps not so different to parts of Russia and Eastern Europe - and this can mean a raw deal for Western women expecting a more equal partnership even after the honeymoon phase wears off.





In essence, it's complicated, it is typically a big change from back home with new dynamics and new ideas of who is attractive and how that compares with other people. But ultimately these are just generalisms and dating comes down to the individuals. There are certainly a lot of individuals in the country, and it's worth exploring what's available.





Learn Chinese in Tianjin 🎓 Easy Language will have you speaking 中文 in no time!

Male expats also shared their perspective:

SentientCouch:

From my male perspective, and having spoken to some female non-Asian expats, it looks kind of bleak. If you're attractive and cool, I reckon you'll do alright. If you're willing to date Chinese guys, you will surely find some suitors. If you're attractive, cool, and willing to date Chinese guys, it's probably kind of fun. But for the most part, the white and black women I've come to know in China basically settled in for a long period of me-time.

SharpyShuffle:

Well yeh, if you're unwilling to date 99% of the population you're going to have problems. I also know foreign women who think Chinese guys are too small, feminine, boring or whatever, and I have no sympathy for them. Even if Chinese guys on a whole are 'worse' than Westerners, Western women, like Western men, can afford to be a lot more picky here, so it's easier to just pick from the cream of the crop (however they personally define that). It's not very hard for Western men to find women who defy the negative stereotypes of Chinese women, and there are plenty of Chinese men who are similarly Westernized if that's what you're looking for.





And if you're pathetic enough to just outright refuse to date any Chinese guy then you deserve to be alone. A white woman saying all Chinese guys are unattractive is just as bad as me saying all black women are unattractive, which would get me socially ostracized.





nikatnight:

I met my wife when we were both expats in China. She's white and attractive and cool. She also dated Chinese guys before me!

She said the dating world was similar to back home.





plorrf:

Honestly, I used to think like many other posters here, but I believe this bitter female expat in Asia narrative is way overblown, certainly in tier 1 cities. The women in my social circle or the ones I observe in public life certainly seem to have no problem finding an equally attractive (mostly foreign) mate. There a lot of guys here in China without yellow fever, as difficult as that may be to imagine for some. They have dated some Chinese girls, and now date a foreign girl again, for various reasons. Or they were never really attracted to Asian girls to begin with, not uncommon among my friends in Europe.





In short, unless you come from an Australian mining town where any woman gets all the attention chances are dating will be pretty normal, unless you seek a partner for life of course... which is difficult in China.





kanada_kid:

Unless youre going to live in some fucking village it should be fine. Russian/Ukrainian girls never have problems finding boyfriends because everybody fawns over them. They usually find rich Chinese boyfriend but that doesnt mean you dont have a shot if you work your game. There are plenty of thirsty white, black and Indian expats here. The male to female ratio here is skewed towards the females favor (unless youre Eastern European) so there will always be expats trying to hit you up.





If you are on the heavier side you are going to have trouble here. Keep your expectations realistic.





zi_you_zi_zai:

The problem is that a lot of white expat women suddenly find themselves in an environment where the competition (frankly) is extremely harsh whereas the guys they are interested in have better options (millions of pretty, young countryside girls fawning over a white guy) or just have an interest in a different group of women (handsome and/or successful Chinese guys which also have literally hundreds of millions of girls fawning over them).





The rest of the Chinese guys are kinda shy and don't have an interest in the femals expat age group to begin with.





Basically if you don't have a fetish for Asian guys you're gonna have a bad time, which reflects in the small number of female expats which didn't just get tagged along in their husband's career.





lilzeHHHO:

Not sure how to say this without coming across as a douche but the middle gets squeezed a lot. I went to Chinese language class in my home country for a few months before going to China, I made good friends with a few women in the class and kept in contact with them, the average looking women struggled the most relative to what they are used to at home. There were two very plain women who both met their husband in China (One Irish guy and one with a Chinese guy), the very good looking woman actually saw an uptick in the standard of her suitors over there but the two average women found it hell on earth in terms of dating.





DPS96744:

I observed chronic dick deficiency across the small sample of female expats I knew in China.





We Teach "Illegally" For You, China

click read more

NEW!! leave a comment