H
Hanzo Kattori
Guest
College girls woo sugar daddies
theaustralian/whatsonxiamen
Published Dec 25 2010
Faced with high fees and poor job prospects, Chinese students are, like their Western counterparts, taking to the streets - but not in quite the same way.
A growing number of "student concubines" are marketing themselves to older, richer men willing to support their studies and pay for a desirable lifestyle.
Millions of female students can be found on the website Jiayuan, the biggest dating site in China, which was created by 24-year-old Shanghai student Gong Xiaoyuan.
Among its 25 million members are students explicitly seeking men who will give them what the Chinese call the si you or "four haves" - a prestigious business or job, a house, a car and a high salary.
Millions of female students can be found on the website Jiayuan, the biggest dating site in China
"No matter who the man is, so long as he is willing to give me 200,000 yuan I will marry him immediately," she wrote on a dating site.
Local television news broadcasts showed footage of her accepting the money demanded from a young man - and even her mother agreed to the transaction.
A 54-year-old man named Wang began a relationship with a 24-year-old graduate student who listed her desires as "a man with a house in Shanghai and 1 million yuan in the bank".
Wang reported they met in a coffee shop and then moved in together for several months until his lover found a 60-year-old American-born Chinese man, who wooed her away with a promise to take her to the US.
Unfazed, Wang is now dating a science student who came to Shanghai with her classmate.
The classmate had come to meet a 28-year-old graduate but dropped him on their first date after finding out he rented a small house from a farmer.
Young girls going into private club that provides dating service for rich and powerful to keep mistresses in Changchun, China
Young men are not averse to advertising their readiness to trade love for money, either.
Xiao Louming, a student in Hangzhou, confessed to a state journalist: "If a family can give me 10 million yuan investment capital, then I'm ready to marry a woman 10 years older than me."
The official media have turned to mental health experts in an attempt to explain the trend.
"I believe we can't just say that moral degradation is the only way for students to sell themselves," a professor in Shanghai told the People's Daily.
He added it was a common expectation that women would provide sex in return for jobs and homes in a competitive workplace after graduation.
As the phenomenon spreads, other commentators are more censorious.
"Some college girls even compete with each other when their sugar daddies come to pick them up for a weekend of fun," complained a scandalised columnist in the China Daily, a state-run newspaper.
