Foreign women label Beijing a dating wasteland

Beijing(China)—As China’s expatriate population grows, many foreign women looking for love are saying this is the wrong place to meet Mr Right. Many single expat women quickly find that most foreign dreamboats have already sailed, and their chemistry with local men rarely stirs the right mix for a love potion.
“The dating scene in Beijing is sad,” said 27-year-old Kate Minnikin, of Brisbane, Australia. “I know a lot of expat women who are single, but I don’t know one foreign man who’s single.” Minnikin, a research and development specialist for a human resource development company who has lived in China for two years, said the reason there aren’t many available foreign men is simple: “There are a lot of Chinese women; they’re available, and they have a lot to offer.”
The dating problem of China’s forlorn foreign females has become a hot topic on online forums for expatriate such as www.thatsbj.com and http://asiaxpat.com. Threads with titles such as “Why foreign women will NEVER have a dating scene” and “How can a woman find a man?” are becoming increasingly popular. “I have lived in Asia for about four years now and know how tall blondes are treated by a lot of the men here,” said MTGirl, who posted on a “Frustrated woman” thread on thatsbj.com’s Love and Dating forum. “Although that has not turned me into a man-hater, I find the situation frustrating.”
Offline, MTGirl is Juanita Hartman, 33, who came to Beijing from Ellensburg, Washington, as a research fellow studying Chinese history at Peking University. She says that even though foreign men in Beijing are available, she has seen that they are likelier to seek local women. “It really doesn’t bother me that they overlook expat women,” Hartman said. “What bothers me are the looks of disdain I get when I’m out and about. “Men look away when eye contact is made,” she said. “I’m not drop-dead gorgeous, but I’m not butt-ugly, either.
“Living in China for about four years has given me great insight to who I am and what I want. Part of that self-discovery has been that I haven’t had a steady boyfriend and had to struggle through comparing myself to these beautiful, petite Chinese girls. “I am 176 centimetres tall and often felt like a bull in a china shop - no pun intended. I have come to terms with the way I look and the way I am built. I am more confident because of this experience.” For China’s lonely “laowai” ladies, it seems the problem is a matter of not only the quantity of men, but also the quality.
Many foreign women complain that the fabric of the men who are attracted to the expatriate lifestyle is too often different from that of good dating material.

—Daily Mail, People’s Daily news exchange item