Far from being a secret, having a mistress(情妇, qíngfù) is a new way to show off one’s social status in China. These “luxury accessories” require the maintenance of a set of unspoken rules: fancy apartments, beautiful clothes, and spending money. In return, the Chinese mistress often makes herself sexually available exclusively, dresses in designer fashions and flawless make-up each time she goes out with her beau, and sits conspicuously by his side at business and social functions.
China’s mistress phenomenon is often linked with the country’s materialistic culture, the result of cutthroat competition amid a populous society for the dazzling but limited opportunities that the country’s transition to capitalism presents.
Take a look at the lines of limos waiting outside of university campuses on a weekend night. What makes a good mistress today goes beyond youth and good looks to a college education and social skills. Gifts go beyond bling and LV bags to tuition for advanced degrees and money for international travel to make these status women more sophisticated and interesting.
Mistresses are called ernai(Second Woman) in China.
A district in Shenzhen has become known as 'Second Wife Village' for the number of mistresses living there. Photo by Redux/eyevine
Keeping a woman is common among powerful Chinese men. A study by the Crisis Management Centre at Renmin University in Beijing, published this January, showed that 95 per cent of corrupt officials had illicit affairs, usually paid for, and 60 per cent of them had kept a mistress.
Chinese official life had two social circles.
http://aeon.co/magazine/society/why-young-women-in-rural-china-become-the-mistresses-of-wealthy-older-men/
As the saying goes: ‘Old oxen chew young grass’
A further distinction is sometimes made between ernai, who ‘know their place’, and xiaosan, ‘little threes’ (as in ‘third party’), who try to insinuate themselves between a lover and his wife with the aim of forcing divorce and remarriage. In practice, the terms are used interchangeably, but the difference matters especially to urban girls seeking to distinguish themselves from their rural counterparts.
‘Most xiaosan have a steady job and a higher educational background than an ernai. Xiaosan expect to marry the man because they’ve invested so much: their youth and their love,’ explains the 22-year-old founder of a website for xiaosan in Richard Burger’s Behind the Red Door: Sex in China (2012).
What’s more, some young Chinese women infantilise themselves, often with the aid of plastic surgery, to imitate the big-eyed heroines of Japanese cartoons. The aesthetic is popular with older men, who are aroused not just by the fragile look, but by affected sa jiao, ‘cute whining’, done in the fashion of a demanding child. In their private pictures, the girls look all of 14, while the men play alongside them in childish games or make faces at the camera.
http://aeon.co/magazine/society/why-young-women-in-rural-china-become-the-mistresses-of-wealthy-older-men/
Sociologists see the boom in mistresses as a result, in part, of China's increased wealth - even at the height of the last imperial dynasty only a small fraction of men could afford to support a second wife or lover. Mistresses were dubbed "er'nai", or second breast, a label that has stuck to this day.
But the phenomenon is also a result of rising inequality and the fact that men still largely hold the reins of power in China.
"China is still a patriarchal society. A lot of girls still think the only way they can get anywhere is to find a powerful man," says Prof Li.
That is borne out by many of the ads from women on Baoyang.cn.
"I love wearing costumes, I love everything that's pretty, I want a man who can improve my life, I want a better life than I have now," writes one girl who identifies herself as "student from Nanning" in southern China.
Another writes: "I have always wanted to travel but nobody finances me. While I am still young I can come to your city and we can have fun. I want 6000 rmb a month."
Many ask for much more. A mistress with a degree from one of the top universities in Beijing or Shanghai will cost tens of thousands of yuan every month, as Mr Huaung's ad with its request for an intelligent mistress illustrates.
"These women already have a good life and good earning potential but they can't afford the designer clothes and bags that they aspire to, so they find lovers to foot the bill," says Fei Yang, who runs a so-called anti-mistress course designed to encourage women to earn their own money and start their own businesses.
But beyond the monthly stipend, these liaisons also offer the possibility of connections that, if well managed, may set a woman up for life.
In this respect 50-year-old Li Wei is the ultimate role model. Known as the Queen of Mistresses, Ms Li came to China from Vietnam as a child refugee.
A plain-looking woman, she used her quick wit and natural intelligence to seduce a series of officials, starting with a member of the local Tobacco Bureau in the southern province of Yunnan and ending with Chen Tonghai, the chief of the state-owned oil and refining giant, Sinopec.
Along the way, many of her lovers were charged with corruption, but she managed to escape prosecution - and keep the billion-dollar fortune she had amassed - by agreeing to testify against them.
In 2011 she told her story to the Chinese magazine Caijing and immediately became something of a folk hero among women.
As many remarked at the time: "Laugh at the poor, not at the whore."
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Ffemail%2Farticle-1367968%2FLi-Wei-Meet-Chinas-unlikely-heroine-lovers-billionaire.html&ei=t5XmVNC8NYyZgwTzsICwAQ&usg=AFQjCNG8CRGmf2htS17uVbf1Rn4V3TGWQw&sig2=TBz8IlvaD-Acv9l8Kj4xyw
'It showed that behind every successful woman, there are many bad men.'
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