How to Catch a Rich Guy in China

Written by Wang Fangqing Thursday, September 08 2011

In China, it has long been accepted that a woman should take financial conditions as the top factor when it comes to choosing a husband. But in August, Chinese men were furious about a school in Beijing teaching women to catch a rich guy in 60 hours, and they made nasty comments online, bombarding the school and women who were attending.

“What’s the difference between those women and a whore?” wrote one commenter at the website of Southern Weekly, China’s prestigious newspaper based in Guangzhou. His message is echoed by thousands of others, criticizing and lamenting that Chinese women only care about “chasing money,” and saying the school is a total joke. 

Nevertheless, the school, called “De Yu Nu Zi,” meaning moral education for women, has attracted more than 3,000 students since it opened in August 2010, says Ding Zhenyu, the school’s marketing director.

“Most of our students are middle class women with a bachelor’s degree and a decent job,” he says, adding that the women, between the ages 23 and 36, are “easy on the eyes” in general.

These women pay about 6,000 yuan ($931.50) for a set of custom-made courses based on their personalities. “Whom you should marry,” “Tame your husband,” and “Read his mind” are the three most popular courses.

Some of the topics are sensitive. For example, “Tame your husband” also talks about handling the husband’s affair, which is ubiquitous among the privileged Chinese – government officials and the rich.

“We are actually teaching the women to win back the husband, which involves a lot of strategies,” Ding says, noting the local Chinese media have made a big fuss of it.

“They make the whole affair thing like a taboo, but we are just being practical. Because when you cannot change something, you better deal with it in an efficient way,” he says.

In fact, most of the courses are about communication improvement and relationship management, aiming to help women know more about themselves and become more mature. That is “what a successful man is looking for in his wife,” says Ding.

Ding insists that “successful men,” rather than “rich men,” should be what the women enrolling are looking for.

“Every woman has a different definition of ‘being successful’ – whether it is wealthy, famous, or intelligent. They come to us to find a proper way to approach those successful men,” he says.

Registered as a consultancy, the school is different from a dating agency. However, Ding admits the students are more exposed to the elite group than others, mostly because Shao Tong, founder of the school, is well-connected to China’s upper class thanks to her previous job – principal relationship consultant at jiayuan.com, the country’s leading dating website which had its initial public offering on the Nasdaq in May.

“But it is more like we introduce two people to know each other. We don’t really care whether they stay as friends or develop a romantic relationship,” Ding says.

Liu Zhengshan, an economist and the author of a popular book (in Chinese), Economics in Love and Marriage, says the school is actually very helpful.

“From the economic point of view, a woman investing in herself to find a rich husband is completely fair. Even though in the end she failed to reach the goal, which happens often, things she learned in the school could help her in her future relationship,” Liu says.

Overall, it is getting more difficult to be married in China. About 70 percent of Chinese women demand an apartment for the marriage, according to a survey released in December by All-China Women’s Federation, a Beijing-based government organization.

Liu says it reflects just how insecure Chinese are.

“The side effects of China’s booming economy are soaring housing prices, higher jobless rate, and nonstop inflation, which all are pushing Chinese to seek financial stability desperately,” he says.

Average housing price in Shanghai, for example, has reached 22,000 yuan ($3,415.60) per square meter, up 250 percent since 2004, according to research released in June by Fudan University, one of the nation’s top universities. In contrast, government statistics show the average salary in the city is only 3,896 yuan ($604.80) per month.

The new marriage law released in August makes Chinese women more insecure as it makes it clear that the apartment bought by the husband or his family before the marriage is not martial property, unless the wife’s name is added to the certificate of ownership. In the previous version, the clause was vague and confusing.

Chinese mainstream media say the new law is expected to make the marriage “less material” and “more about love.”

But love, a typical Western idea, has no roots in Chinese marriage, which usually focuses on function or stability, Liu says.

“The only period I see love regarded important was in the ʼ80s and ʼ90s, when a lot of young couples tied the knot soon after the graduation because they were truly into each other,” he says.

Wang Fangqing (Frances Wang) is a freelance reporter based in Shanghai. For the past four years, she has been writing for a variety of English language publications, including Tobacco Journal International, Soap Perfumery & Cosmetics and Securities Industry News, reporting business trends in Asia. A Chinese native speaker, she is also fluent in Japanese and English.