Jinan, China: Zhang Zhenxiao is 27 years old. He has never been in a relationship. He has never kissed a woman.
Now, Zhang is ready for love - but like many men in China, he doesn’t know where to begin.
So Zhang turned to a dating coach. The Fall in Love Emotional Education School has taught him how to groom himself, approach a woman and flirt his way into her smartphone contacts.
“There are many people who lack the ability to have a relationship,” said Zhang, who enrolled in a three-day course during a weeklong holiday in October. “Many times, it’s not that there’s something wrong with us. It’s that we don’t know what details to pay attention to.”
While dating is hard everywhere, it is arguably worse for Chinese men. China’s now-ended one-child policy, carried out in a country with a strong cultural preference for boys, prompted many couples to abort female fetuses. In 2016, there were about 33.6 million more men than women in China,.
“They are caught in a very difficult situation, especially for those with no money,” said Li Yinhe, a prominent scholar of sexuality in China.
Surplus of singles
China worries about its lonely hearts. Newspapers warn that a surplus of unhappy, single men in China could lead to an increase in human trafficking, sex crimes and social instability. So the government is playing matchmaker.
In June, the Communist Youth League, a training ground for many top officials, organised a mass speed dating event for 2,000 young singles in the eastern province of Zhejiang. The same month, the All-China Women’s Federation in northwestern Gansu province helped organise a similar event for “leftover men and women,” a term used in China to refer to unmarried people in their late 20s or older.
For decades, Chinese marriages were arranged through matchmakers or families. Marriage was utilitarian, done so people could start a family. Even when the notion of “freedom to love” became popular after 1950, there were few social venues for people to snuggle and mingle. Until the late 1990s, sex outside marriage was illegal.
Educating the ‘losers’
Zhang’s dating coach, Zhang Mindong, said he was once like the men he teaches. A self-professed diaosi, or loser, Zhang Mindong said he suffered a painful breakup in 2012. He turned to the internet to find solutions and discovered the term “pickup artist.”
- Zhang Zhenxiao | 27-year-old single male
Zhang Mindong started his school, which he now runs with Cui Yihao, 25, and Fan Long, 29, in the eastern city of Jinan in 2014. The cost for their services ranges from $45 for an online course to about $3,000 for one-on-one coaching. Similar schools have opened in several Chinese cities.
The number of students who take offline courses at Fall in Love Emotional Education has grown from one in 2014, to more than 300 now, according to Zhang Mindong. About 90 per cent of graduates end up with girlfriends, he said.
Motley gang
At the October session, there was Yu Ruitong, a 23-year-old software developer who had three previous relationships; Ye Chaoqun, a 27-year-old small-business owner who is hoping to make the woman he likes fall in love with him; and James Zhang, a 30-year-old oncologist who is looking to expand the circle of women he knows. Both Ye and James Zhang have returned to polish what they learned earlier - this time free of charge.
To show his students what they were up against, Zhang Mindong held up a profile of an attractive woman on a dating app that had garnered “likes” from 7,000 men. “This is the environment in China,” he said.
In the first hour, Zhang Mindong proclaimed them sartorial disasters. Most of the first day was devoted to improving dress. (“Narrow collars, sleeves should be folded up above the elbow and trousers should be fitted.”) They bought clothes and got haircuts.
Beefing up the resume
The makeovers are followed by the students posing for photos - reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, sipping tea and nibbling canapes presented in a silver bird cage, looking pensively out a window. That culminated in selfies with Wang Zhen, a female friend of Cui’s.
That’s designed for dating in the digital era. In China, where the mobile internet has revolutionised social life, getting to know a person takes place almost exclusively on WeChat, a popular social media tool that is used by nearly 1 billion people.
Most social interactions in China usually start or end with people scanning each other’s WeChat QR codes - a practice known as saoing - or adding each other’s WeChat IDs. Many women form their impressions of men based on photographs on WeChat’s Moments, a Facebook-like tool.
On a Thursday night outside a busy shopping mall in Jinan, the students got their first challenge: approach women and ask for their WeChat contacts.
“You give her two choices: ‘Why don’t you add me or I sao you?’” Zhang Mindong told the students. “So no matter what she picks, you’ll succeed.”
After practicing their moves on Wang, the students set off. Zhang Zhenxiao rushed up to two women, who paused but continued walking. He chased after them and stopped them again. After a minute, they walked away.
“I didn’t succeed,” a dejected Zhang said, returning to the group.
“No, the fact that you approached them means you did,” Cui said, patting him on the back.
