5 Things: Online Asian dating

By That's PRD, May 12, 2015

For this week’s 5 Things, we're taking a look at the shady business of Asian dating websites.

Search 'find a Chinese wife' on Google and you will be provided with a plethora of websites claiming to link Western men with Chinese female companions.

These sites have a bad rap, as many of them are essentially scams that take vast amount of money from desperate men abroad. In many cases, these men are not even speaking with the woman they think they are.

To shed more light on this seedy business we spoke with Lynn Deng, a former Asian dating website employee.

We should clarify that Deng does not speak for every Asian dating site on the Internet and we are not trying to paint them all with the same brush. The views discussed below are simply her insights, based on her experience in the industry.

Many (if not most) profiles are fake

Many of the profiles on these sites are not actually real people. Yes, it’s a real picture of a real person, but they may not even be aware that it’s online.

Many of these websites offer free professional photo shoots to Chinese girls and then use those photos to set up dating profiles. These profiles are then operated by someone else.

In many cases, profile operators will search Google or Baidu for nude photographs that are then cropped (to remove the face) and sent to interested men. Cleaver Photoshop work is also utilized to ensure the profiles appear as real as possible and keep the men interested.

Contact outside of the website is forbidden

Most of these platforms allow zero personal information to be sent via the website. This includes phone numbers, personal email addresses and home addresses.

Naturally, these rules on swapping personal information stops interested men from making a connection outside of the website. It also makes it difficult for the men to show up in China and track down the object of their devotion.

It’s expensive

These sites are not cheap to use (for the men anyway, most women use it for free) and can run you tens of thousands of dollars. Every love letter (a message sent through the site) a man sends to his Chinese ‘girlfriend’ costs USD7. If that communication goes on for any amount of time it could run into the thousands of dollars very quickly.

Also, if you factor in the gifts men can sent through the site it gets really expensive. Through many of these websites there is the option to send gifts, such as flowers and jewelry, to your Chinese ‘girlfriend.’ As you’d expect, these costs can run very high.

I recall one particular Canadian, Archie, claimed he had spent enough to buy two apartments in China while using the site.

These sites are not unique to China

These dating sites exist in all corners of the developing world. If there are underprivileged women looking for a way out and desperate men willing to offer it to them, then there is probably a shady dating site there.

These operations are not uncommon in China, Thailand, Mexico and the Ukraine (among numerous others).

Almost no one actually meets or gets married

Due to the websites strict rules on exchanging personal information, almost none of the people communicating through the site actually meet.

Occasionally, these dating companies will host events that bring foreign men to China to mingle with Chinese women at a dinner or dance, but this is expensive and rarely results in marriage.

I’d peg the marriage rate for the site that previously employed me at one in 20,000 - and that is not an exaggeration.

To see more from our 5 Things series, click here.