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By Duncan Rhyne (2010)
Nowhere in Asia, Western foreigners are as much a minority as they are in China. And nowhere else is the communication barrier as high.
Members of the alphalives editorial team have been living in various parts of China for many years.
We all consider South China as the better choice for sexual opportunities, compared to North China.
Apart from that, we can judge China better than many Western men who have been here for years, primarily because we can compare China to many other countries which we have researched with the same focus, mostly countries of Southeast Asia.
So, how does China compare?
First of all, as mentioned in all our articles on sexual opportunities in China: don't underestimate the communication barrier. When we first arrived in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, a few years back, we checked about 20 middle class hotels in the surrounding of the railway station. You think any of them would have had a receptionist who would have understood "room", "how much", or even just "yes" or "no"?
We have met American, Australian, and British English teachers who have been in China for years, and didn't speak any Chinese. And we have met one young Australian English teacher who did speak some Chinese but complained that many Chinese pretended not to understand him even though (so he said) he spoke Chinese "well". But our guess is that in fact they honestly didn't understand him. For all the effort he had taken to learn Chinese, he couldn't accept that he still got it wrong.
I speak several Southeast Asian languages. Indonesian is very easy. Tagalog also is easy, but you don't really need it, as English is almost a native language in the Philippines. Thai and Khmer are manageable. But Chinese?
You can learn to say "hot water" in Indonesian (air panas) or even Thai (nam ron) in a few minutes, and when you repeat it after a few hours, it will likely still be understandable to a local speaker. Try this with the Chinese "re shui". Chances are you will have to try speaking it dozens of times to get it somehow right the first time, and nobody will understand what you mean when you try it the next day.
Likewise, try to teach a Chinese a simple English phrase like "This looks like a window." A Chinese speaker with no previous exposure to English can easily choke a week on such a sentence before it is understandable.
The language brains of Western and Chinese people are wired differently. The two groups of people don't hear the same thing. Example: the Chinese word for person is "ren", but what you as a Westerner will hear (spoken by one and the same person) is sometimes "ren" and sometimes "wan". Native Chinese speakers don't hear a difference.
Boye Lafayette De Mente in his book Survival Chinese notes: (Quote) The Chinese [spoken] Alphabet consists of 405 syllables that use tonal differences to make up some 1277 building blocks? English uses 26 letters and 44 basic sounds to create several thousand building blocks? (Unquote)
This is what it comes down to: the Chinese spoken language uses much fewer sounds than any Western language, and the sounds are often very similar, and for Westerners hard to differentiate. Western languages, and other Asian languages, use many more different sounds which the Chinese have never created with their mouths. Many just can't say 'restaurant' or many other English words, even if they try and try and try. They don't have experience in using their facial muscles in a manner that would allow them to form such sounds.
And for Westerners trying to learn spoken Chinese, it's the other way around: they do not have experience in the fine control of their facial muscles that would be required to differentiate between very similar sounds.
And this is why only children can learn the other language with some ease.
If we learn another language, then the challenge is usually primarily on the brain. It's an effort of memorizing other sounds and attributing them to other meanings. It may also be a (academic) challenge of learning some grammar. But for Westerners learning Chinese, and for Chinese learning Western languages, the challenge to a large extent is physical. In either direction, it's a challenge of learning facial acrobatics. And just as it is the case with gymnastic acrobatics, facial acrobatics are best learned by children, while adults in an advanced stage of their lives just can't do it.
Almost can't.
Because there is a trick to circumvent the lacking ability to perform facial acrobatics: this is to learn, and use, full phrases instead of words.
For example: the following Chinese words, one by one, can mean many, many things, depending on their sounds: dui, bu, qi. It is very unlikely indeed that a Westerner could pronounce each of them by itself clearly enough so that a Chinese person would understand what is meant (this is apart from the fact that in Chinese there are many more homonyms than in a Western language; therefore, even pronounced correctly, each of the three can mean many different things). However, 'Dui bu qi' (the three words together) are a very conventional occurrence. There meaning simply is: Sorry.
Therefore, even if pronounced wrongly, the Chinese will usually understand what is meant.
Even the Chinese among themselves tend to avoid misunderstandings by using phrasal expressions, rather than words. Often, they use combinations of two words that basically mean the same to clarify what they say, and again, many expressions are just simply phrasal.
The standard word for 'not' is 'bu'. The standard word for 'have' is 'you'. There are several other words for not, e.g. 'mei' for 'not be' or 'wu' for 'not' but in combination with 'you' only 'mei' is used. By contrast, with 'yao' ('to want') only 'bu' is used as negation. Therefore, however you pronounce 'mei you' and however you pronounce 'bu yao', the first will always be understood as 'not have' and the second as 'not want'. It's just like when Chinese say 'thank you'. Even if it sounds like 'tanke you' it's still obvious in most cases what they want to express.
Is this a book or website on learning Chinese, and, for that matter, other languages? No, it is a website that gives advice on how to achieve sexual success.
And I have mentioned on several occasions that I have a systematic and scientific approach to the topic. I even believe that one can design a university education to be directed primarily towards sexual success. How? By studying languages. No other academic subject is as closely related to sexual success as having knowledge of foreign languages and then going to a country where one enjoys a huge amount of exclusivity, and a substantial edge over other foreigners there who do not speak the language.
Hardly anywhere is this as obvious as it is in China. If you are a Westerner and you can speak and read Chinese you are king in China. Many young Chinese women are attracted, indeed, to Western men. Furthermore, Chinese women, especially in regions where there are few Western men, have a very hard time indeed to judge the age of Western men, so that it is nowhere as easy as it is in China to just claim to be 20 years younger.
Nevertheless, regions with almost no foreigners are probably not your best bet for sexual success in China. To be a pioneer requires additional effort. It is easier to choose places that have had some exposure to Westerners, and were liaisons (especially marriages) between foreign men Chinese women are an occasional sight. This will likely result in a lower barrier for engaging in cross-cultural love affairs.
However, even in cities were such cross-cultural love affairs do happen regularly, the communication options have a great limiting effect. Either the girl does speak some English, or the man has to speak some Chinese; or at least he knows Han Zi (Chinese characters), so one could use written communication (the Chinese from Hong Kong and the Chinese from Shenzhen across the border have to use written Chinese to 'talk' to each other, as the Chinese of Hong Kong have Cantonese as their native language and usually do not speak Mandarin, and for the inhabitants of Shenzhen, it's usually the other way around).
I have met very few Westerners who could fluently read Chinese. But it's not as hard as most people think. From my own experience, I can say that learning written Chinese is easier than learning spoken Chinese.
I know no other language that would be as easy to get started with, just being equipped with a dictionary. Once you know how to use a Chinese dictionary (I won't elaborate on that), written Chinese isn't difficult to decipher, though it may be time-consuming to go through a longer sentence.
Chinese characters really look more difficult than they actually are. Also view it from this perspective: about one fifth of the world's population can read Chinese characters, including many very ordinary people... so it can't be that difficult. Anyway, all characters are assembled of just around 200 elements (called radicals), plus a few recurring strokes.
Yes, to read a newspaper, you will need 2000 to 3000 characters. But the impression (often given) that these are 2000 to 3000 completely different ideograms is wrong. Most characters are assembled from two or three radicals (of which there are about 200), just as English words are assembled from any of 26 letters). Furthermore, most Chinese words consist of two characters. Only basic terms have just one character, while complicated designations may have three or four.
Written Chinese just looks complicated because each character seems like an elaborate picture. But it's only an assembly of two or three of some 200 elements.
Compare this, for example, with Arabic. Arabic letters use very few strokes, even less than Roman letters. You cannot read an Arabic sentence just by using a dictionary. But you can with Chinese. You can learn the basics of looking up words in a Chinese dictionary in just an hour, and the next hour, you can start looking up words you see when you walk along a street. If your background is in European languages, you can do this, of course, with other European languages. But you could no do it with any language that does not use the Roman alphabet, except Chinese (it won't work with Arabic, and not with Thai, and not even with a non-European language that uses the Roman alphabet, such as Tagalog).
So, I do want to encourage any reader with a real interest in girls in China to make some attempts at written Chinese. It can be very rewarding indeed. You can then soon start using a Chinese cell phone to assemble simple statements with the limited vocabulary you possess. The advantage of using a cell phone rather than writing down characters is that the cell phone will always give you a selection of characters to choose from after you entered the Pinyin equivalent. That way, you only have to memorize how a character looks approximately.
But what are your options in China if you have not reached a certain degree of fluency in either oral or written Chinese?
I would differentiate the following.
1. Young women who speak English fairly well. There are three sub-categories.
1.1. Young attached local women who pursue a career that involves knowledge of foreign languages, primarily English. You can meet them anywhere in China, and they are often very helpful. They even may seem to be personally interested in you. But make no mistake. Their only interest is to practice English, and they have no genuine personal interest in foreign men.
1.2. Young unattached local women who pursue a career that involves knowledge of foreign languages, primarily English, and who would be willing to marry a foreigner. Usually, the young women in this category are less beautiful than those of category 1.1.
1.3. Young Chinese women who do not pursue a career that involves knowledge of English, but whose aim is to find a foreign husband and, if possible, to emigrate to a Western country. My personal impression is that such young women are found easier in Southern China than in central, coastal, or Northern China. You can cross-check this assumption by running a search on AsiaFriendFinder or ChineseFriendFinder. You will find that the Southern provinces have a higher number of women looking for foreign men than central or Northern provinces.
2. Not so young women (above 26 or 27) who speak at least some English or speak it well.
2.1. Chinese divorced or separated women, often with a child. Many of them would consider a foreign spouse an ideal solution. Their sexual market value has declined considerably, as Chinese men are much less in favor of marrying a divorced woman than are Western men. Furthermore, these Chinese women often no longer have high opinions of Chinese men. By contrast, young beautiful Chinese women who have never been married often are collectively brainwashed by Chinese men and Chinese parents to only consider a Chinese man as husband. This can be very pronounced, and it is, of course, based on the interest of Chinese men to keep their women (if they are beautiful and have not been married) to themselves, and not let foreigners take advantage. On the other hand, Chinese young women who have been married to Chinese men have a much better understanding of the limited qualities of Chinese men.
2.2. Chinese women with a definite sexual interest. As I have analyzed in another article, Chinese men are probably the worst lovers in the world. They hardly ever perform anything else than genital intercourse, and often aren't even into kissing (which is no loss, either, because many are heavy smokers and drinkers, and furthermore, oral hygiene often is poor). They also aren't hung as well as European or African men. For these reasons, it is not unlikely that Chinese women who have sexual relationships with foreigners experience this as a new dimension of love-making. She may have her first genuine climax with a foreigner. One can find such women throughout China in big cities and even small towns, in pubs which often have Western names. However, be aware that Chinese cities have a great degree of variety. In some cities, such pubs are very common, while in others, they don't exist. These women often have no commercial interest when they enter relationships with Western men.
2.3. Very modern, Westernized Chinese women in large cities such as Shanghai and Beijing. Usually, they speak English very well and may even work in a foreign company. They engage in sexual relationships with rich foreigners only. They are definitely not prostitutes, though they may be available for sexual relationships without getting married. They do expect material benefits.
3. Chinese girls and women who speak practically no English
3.1. Chinese girls who work in services, such as in restaurants or at hairdressers. They usually have a lower threshold for entering sexual relationships than Chinese girls and women in other professions. One can also find them in small-town discos. In this respect, South China is much better than North China.
3.2. Chinese divorcees, usually with child. Many of them can be contacted through Internet matchmaking sites. They usually have somebody who translates email, so that communication is possible with potential foreign spouses. They often do go to bed with candidates before getting married, and the quality expectations they have are often not very high. Even men in their sixties have a fairly good success rate.
By and large, Chinese girls and women are more strong-willed than the girls in most Southeast Asian countries. That means that if a Chinese young woman has set her eyes on you, she can be rather direct in communicating her preference. But whether you will come across a corresponding opportunity will depend on two things: your attractiveness as a male sexual partner, and a good portion of luck.
So, where to hunt in China?
We prefer South China over North China. We advise against Hong Kong (far too expensive) and against Shenzhen, in mainland China, just across the border from Hong Kong (a large modern city without atmosphere).
In many Chinese cities from about half a million people upwards, you will find so-called "English corners" where locals who are interested in practicing their English regular meet with foreigners who are residing in town. Most of the foreigners residing in town are English teachers, with a few who are married locally and just live in China.
Most of the Chinese at such "English corners" are actual or aspiring English-language secretaries at local companies, or the wives of foreigners in town (accompanying their husbands), or Chinese women looking to catch a foreigner. Unfortunately, you cannot expect these to be beautiful local women of around 20.
To find English corners, just walk around town, preferably the center of town, where you may find a Wal-Mart. There you will soon see a foreigner, usually male, who will look like somebody who lives in town. Ask him. Chances are, he is an English teacher. There are typically so few foreign residents in Chinese cities that many know each other, and they typically congregate at certain restaurants or bars (not girly bars).
Because the Chinese / English language barrier is so high in both directions, many young Chinese women who have embarked on a career as foreign-language secretaries have realized that the most promising path for proficiency in the English language is to have a foreign boyfriend. The reason is that outside sexual relationships, it is unlikely that a foreigner will have the necessary patience to practice English with her (or will demand a high salary). So, there is a natural pool of young women from which foreigners can recruit their girlfriends.
If you want to try the small-town option, you may want to head to local discos. However, be aware that in larger towns and cities, all nightlife is heavily commercialized and not primarily directed towards the local youth but towards businessmen with money to burn. Apart from drink prices, there will be table charges or, if you choose to sit in a separated compartment, even room charges. There is often the option for the "wholesale" purchase of drinks, e.g. 10 bottles of beer, or a whole bottle of whiskey.
Don't expect adventures in discos, nightclubs, and karaoke bars to be cheap. The prevailing habits are determined by rich Chinese who are boastful and wasteful with money in such an environment. Chinese men in nightlife settings enjoy spending money on young women from whom they may not even get a full sexual service, just so that they can feel big. You definitely do not want to compete with Chinese men in such environments, as it would be very bad value indeed. In China more than in any Southeast Asian country, you better stick to normal girls and pursue genuine love relationships.
Internet-based dating
Apart from the formal US-based dating sites such as AsiaFriedFinder and ChineseFriendFinder (the same but for access in China), a huge amount of Internet-based dating happens on the Chinese chat site QQ.com. And just as in other Asian countries, Internet-based dating is widely used in China by young women whose primary interest in men is to part them from as much money as possible. If you do use QQ.com, it is best to only use it with people whom one has met outside the chatting environment. And this also means: outside of Internet cafes. Many of the young women who use dating to part men from their money operate from Internet cafes. For this reason, be suspicious of young women you meet in Internet cafes, especially if they have a comparatively good knowledge of QQ and offer you to help you with Internet-related matters.
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Copyright Duncan Rhyne