Guys, if you go anywhere in Asia except for Hong Kong, you might as well have a leather jacket issued to you as soon as you step off the plane, because you are the Fonz. Welcome to Alpha Male status. The first thing you will notice are dweeby-looking western men with calculators in their pockets walking arm-in-arm with Chinese supermodels. I call it “the Charisma Man Syndrome”.

This is a great post written by Chris over here at and I absolutely agree (especially the dweeb named Poindexter/super-model named Cherry sightings) that…if you’re a westerner…you have more then a great chance of becoming an super alpha male in China (and you don’t even have to be that handsome, smart or “manly”). As one expat I knew in China was fond of saying…”if you want a girlfriend in China it wouldn’t be that difficult to find one.” But some points of clarification are needed before you board that United non-stop flight to Beijing figuring you’ll find love in all the right places. First, while finding a Chinese girlfriend may be easy for some it is the very rare the case where that girlfriend is just out for some fun…more often then not they think you and her are in it for the long-haul (read: marriage) which, in some cases, gives them the wherewithal to outlast the “commentary” that her family and friends make on dating a non-Chinese. As a result, break-ups that happen when the expat leaves are tremendous affairs that adversely effect the whole circle of friends—-especially those friends that stay behind (I am still often contacted by one of my expat friend’s girlfriend…it was cool at first as she was a interesting person to hang out with…but everytime ended in a cryfest about the breakup and people where looking at me like I’m the dude that dissed her.) Second, there is Alpha in black. Indeed, as I have posted extensively in the past, being a Black male in China is like being an Omega male. I’m not saying that it’s impossible but…put it this way…it’s a lot easier to meet that special someone cold-calling names out of the phone in NYC then it is in China. It takes a lot more time and women will be on a lot more pressure to break it off when things get rocky as all relationships do at times.

A bit off the subject but connected tangentially is the circumstances that confront thirtysomething western women in China. A while back I had a long talk with an interesting women in a Beijing bar (scene set-up is that we were the only over 30 individuals in attendance at the bash and while the young’uns were dancin’, boozin’ and chasin’ we were sipping our bucket of beers and reflecting on how far the nightlife in China has come in the last decade. She was European, a professor of sociology and a long term resident of Beijing and China. She enjoyed China and the culture and yet she wanted to get out. One of the main reasons for this was that she was dead tired of the party lifestyle…in her words it was stale (yidian yisi ye meiyou). When I asked her how so, she said, “the fact was that it was hard to find Mr. Goodbar not only from a boy-girlfriend sense but all from a platonic hanging out sense too.” As she saw it, the pickins’ (between either youngsters” into the party scene (who having such being the alpha males as they are in China are not very interested in “older western chicks” or the elder men who fancy boozing and trying to bed young Chinese women) were pretty slim. When I asked what about Chinese men, she said that while she had met some interesting Chinese men it never worked out because some of there were always some issues of the rightful place of the women in a relationship that always left here unsatisfied. Indeed, it was few and far between meeting interesting men in their 30s for her and many her similary aged western female colleagues and so she wanted to get out and in her words restart the intellectual, physical and spiritual life that she once had before she came to China.

Still, I think this is the key is to be flexible…not everyone can live the western alpha male lifestyle in China and if you go in understanding that if you are Black or Female or a Black female your life might be a bit more “sedate” (especially if you are in a smaller city or province) but if you search out…(start a blog that looks to connect with others in your condition) you may just find a partner in life or crime to share your experiences in China.

Why Western Men are Alpha Males in China