An article published in The Los Angeles Times on October 20th entitled “For some Chinese college students, sex is a business opportunity”, claimed that along with Chinese economic development comes a more materialistic attitude for the younger generation. As a result, there are more and more female students who are taking the quick road to prosperity by becoming mistresses to the rich. They sell their bodies in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in compensation each year, some even working with “special intermediaries”, otherwise known as pimps. Huanqiu reporter Wang Xin interviewed several students from different universities. The majority of them believe that this phenomenon exists, but is not very common. The Los Angeles Times conclusion is somewhat exaggerated and indeed an overgeneralization.

Huanqiu reporters questioned female students or recent graduates from Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University, the Communication University of China and many other schools. Almost all respondents reported that they "heard" of other female students engaged in this phenomenon, but when a reporter asked to give an example, not one of them could refer to a specific case. Mr. Qiao, who works at the Private Economy Research Institute of Peking University, has been in contact with a lot of students and teachers at Peking University, but has never heard of any student engaged in gold digging behavior. Mr. Qiao said that the U.S. media report is "inaccurate", although some isolated cases may be true, “but the range of criticism seems a little wide.”
"I don’t know how many surveys The Los Angeles Times took to reach such a conclusion," a recent Graduate of Renmin University Liu Cong said. She believes this phenomenon may be nothing new in art institutions, but the American media amplifying this conclusion to the whole of China's universities "is clearly inappropriate." A Renmin University junior Luo Lan believes that the U.S. media said "nothing wrong" because there are indeed many people who have been nurturing the idea, but we can’t say that "all people have had the idea."

Xiao Ya, a student at The School of Journalism at  Communication University of China, pointed out that no one she knows  has done that, but some individuals have "sugar daddy" behavior – that is specifically looking for rich boyfriends. However, there is a difference between this behavior and the way the U.S. media are describing it as "selling their bodies to satisfy material desires." She was dissatisfied with the U.S. media report, saying, “This situation is not exclusive to China; it’s prevalent in all countries. The U.S. media’s argument has obvious bias." She believes China is under the spotlight because Chinese culture is more conservative. In contrast, the United States is more open so people don’t care so much if this happens. She also said, "The Los Angeles Times article is only a small part of people's individual circumstances." The U.S. media article is just seeing a tiny part of the overall picture and an overgeneralization.

See original Los Angeles Times article here.

Source: huanqiu.com

Related links:
Chinese Girls Snub Poorer Foreigners
How Effective is China’s Highly Publicized Crackdown on Sex Trade?
Zhang Yimou: Untarnished Beauty is Rare in Chinese Women These Days

Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.

Keywords: college student mistresses China Chinese mistresses huanqiu female student mistress Los Angeles times female student mistress