Listen up, guys! First impressions do count

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-25 09:33

Here is a piece of advice for Chinese men trying to land a date with a Western woman: Start looking in the mirror.

That is because Chinese men are physically less appealing than their Western counterparts and have more difficulty trying to attract foreign women, according to psychologist Zhang Jiehai from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

"Most Chinese men are careless about their appearance and can't impress Western women at first sight," says Zhang, who wrote his findings in the book, The Investigation on Chinese Men, released last month.

"That's why Western women do not care for Chinese men whether they are here for one year or more than 10 years," Zhang says.

"If you are a Chinese man interested in a Western woman, you should start by dressing up, working out and expanding your social circle."

Zhang started investigating about 10 years ago why fewer Chinese men mixed with Western women while many Chinese women were dating Western men.

He was infuriated about two years ago to find an English teacher from Briton calling himself "Chinabounder" writing a blog about his sexual exploits with young Chinese women in Shanghai. He appealed to the Chinese online community to hunt down the blogger and expel him from the country.

News agencies later reported that the blogger was actually a group of performance artists.

During an overseas trip later, Zhang also found most Chinese men not daring to go out with Western women.

The psychologist led a focus group of a dozen members to discuss why Western women found the men unattractive and explore the reasons behind this attitude.

Zhang said the women found Chinese men too quiet, less confident and less attentive to their appearance than Western men.

There are exceptions, he said. "A few Western women who dated or married Chinese men tell a different story," Zhang says.

"They find that Chinese men care more for the family and are responsible."

Meanwhile, it still helps to buff up.

Sports will make you masculine and can also work as a common interest between you and the woman, Zhang says.

Apart from sports popular in the West like rock climbing, bungee jumping and baseball, Zhang strongly recommends Chinese kungfu and taichi, aspects of Chinese culture in which many Western women are interested, to increase your charm.

Still, Zhang conceded that there are huge differences between Chinese and Western culture. "Westerners think appearance is important, while in Chinese culture men who pay too much attention to outward beauty are unlikely to be reliable," he says.