Mistresses in China
After a few pleasantries and a bit of Chinese fortune-telling—which according to Dr. X’s interpretation revealed that we had been close friends in a previous life—our conversation surprisingly veered toward the topic of mistresses.
In retrospect, this makes perfect sense.
For a Chinese man of Dr. X’s standing—well off, well connected, well educated, and well into his fifties—a mistress (or two, or three) is practically a requirement.
But when I first met him—still only in my salad days of understanding the dynamics of extramarital relations in China—his ideas and observations seemed extraordinary, if not completely farfetched.
“If a man in China doesn’t have a mistress, it’s because his economic situation doesn’t allow for it,” he announced, as casually and assuredly as if he were reporting the latest figures for China’s GDP. “And if a very successful man doesn’t have a mistress, his wife will be puzzled as to why he doesn’t.”
Dr. X delivered his words with such ease and conviction that it was actually very easy to hear him out, despite my moral objections to what he was saying. When I asked him why he thought mistresses were so popular—especially among men of his stature—he taught me a new word: jingshen .
According to Dr. X, this word, which translates roughly as “vitality,” represents the mix of spirit, energy, and invigoration that fuels men in an endless quest for the revitalizing company of women roughly half their age.
[....]
“I can have almost anything I want in this world,” he explains, just after telling me that two more Spanish hams will be arriving in the mail. “Except a wife.”
He delivers these lines with a hint of regret and more than a dash of frustration.
Only after getting a bit deeper into our conversation does it become apparent as to why.
Dr. X was married in his twenties, but only for a year.
Now in his fifties, it appears that he has a strong desire to remarry, but the only problem, according to him, is that the types of women he would like to wed are not interested in marriage.
“They have so many suitors, they’d rather remain free agents and benefit from the attention and assets of several men at once. They can get much more out of their relationships this way.”
I had a feeling Dr. X was not referring to jewelry, handbags, cars, or any of the other “gifts” commonly given to mistresses in exchange for their company.
I was just about to request that he elaborate when Dr. X preempted my question and opened my eyes to a new level of mistressing.
“These women already have all the accessories they need. They also already have their own cars and apartments,” he said. “Material possessions aren’t what they require—they’re after connections and capital.”
In other words, they become mistresses in order to network.
Dr. X then takes out his phone and flips through photos of several women.
He rattles off a list of things they’ve acquired from different men.
One got just under US $1 million in investment to put toward her own cosmetics line.
Another obtained US $2 million to start her own advertising agency.
Yet another, now based in Paris, used the money she’d accumulated from her paramours to launch her own fashion line.
“And when they don’t need capital, they go after connections,” he explained. “I estimate that 80 percent of Chinese women with their own businesses are somebody’s mistress.”
[....]
According to him, being a mistress was just a logical progression in a woman’s personal and professional trajectory.
In fact, he argued, smart, savvy, hardworking women (in other words, the ones who I assumed were the least likely to become mistresses) were actually among the best paramours, because their educations and life experience made them even more enterprising.
But I wasn’t about to take his word for it.
'Leftover in China: The Women Shaping the World's Next Superpower' by Roseann Lake
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073SFNDQV
Also, https://steemit.com/nsfw/@petrmisan/7-types-of-prostitutes-in-china