Asian Dating Precautions

Abstract from  Chinese Women in Love and Marriage written by Dawn Xiao Yan Li

People are people everywhere. Some are good and some are not. Some look for true love and some look for something else. It is not difficult to find out by applying some commonsense. From our years of dating site experience, we find most of the time people were cheated not by individuals, but by marriage agencies. Therefore the first important Asian Dating Precautions that we like to stress is around Chinese dating and marriage agencies.

Chinese Dating and Marriage Agencies/Brokers

As everyone in China knows, there are many money-minded dating and marriage agencies/brokers in China. They make their money by using people who want to get out of China or who are naive. Their customers normally speak little or no English and come from poor remote areas of China. The agencies charge enormous sums of money (roughly equivalent to two year’s salary) in return for guarantees to find a foreign husband for them. Nowadays more and more agencies in China are starting to use the Internet to find foreign husbands for their customers. They divide their service into three stages and charge their customers at each stage: finding/writing fee, meeting fee and success/marriage fee. The agencies look for dates and communicate with the dates on behalf of their customers. Some agencies don’t tell their customers the contact details of the men they are dating so that they can control the whole dating progress.

Many foreign men who have met ladies on the Internet are blind to the truth. When they finally meet their lover they find she is not the one they have corresponded with over the months, and discover her knowledge of English is very poor. Because there was actually no real communication, they find therefore there is no real love. Most such relationships through agencies, sooner or later, fail.

I often hear stories from men like the following:

“I arrived with the expectation that she knew some English and have discovered that she speaks virtually no English. She was using a ‘friend’ from her city to speak with me on the ‘phone and did not tell me this beforehand, so when I arrived I was much disoriented.”

A “friend” here is normally the agent, whose services she pays for.

Dating and marriage agencies/brokers, in general, do not have a good name in China. They are working for their benefit only. We sincerely suggest you to be careful if you use them. If you don’t have an opportunity to meet your lady where you are, the Internet is a great way to find her. However if you do find her through the Internet, make sure you are communicating with the lady herself and not an agent or a “friend”. It is not difficult for you to find out the truth if you are aware bad agencies do exist in China. To avoid being cheated by dishonest dating agencies or ladies when you date on the Internet, I suggest:

1. Use the dating sites where the Chinese ladies come to the site themselves directly and be careful to use the dating sites where the Chinese ladies are from indirect sources, e.g. local dating and marriage agencies/brokers, translators, “friends” or others. Since agencies/brokers tend to use free dating sites to promote their customers, be aware of this when you use the dating sites that offer free membership for women.
2. Test the identity of the person you’re communicating with by using a web camera. If your lady is able to access the Internet, she is able to install a webcam that costs much less than a computer.
3.  Whether her English is good or not is not so important. The more important thing is her attitude to English. If she continues to use a translator or an agent to communicate for her and doesn’t study and practice English with you hard and directly herself, her sincerity to find true love is questionable (I will come back to this issue again in the next chapter). Love needs good and real communication, of which a common language between you plays an important role in your future happiness. It is the bad practice of local dating and marriage agencies/brokers who have planted the seeds for bad and sad stories that have happened before and are still happening now. This is also the reason why the Chinese government is always cautious about international dating and marriage. The Chinese  government wants to avoid the bad stories happening by controlling those  agencies’ practice. This is the same as in the US, where the US  Government  introduced strict laws (IMBRA) governing  international marriage brokers and dating service and sites in March 2006. However “giving the sword to the people” is the most effective way to help people find  true  love and to stop someone using people’s ignorance to make money.

To read more Asian Dating precautions, please go to  Chinese Women in Love and Marriage