The 'mistress' profession in China

Having a young, attractive, and cheerful "mistress" is common among powerful men in China. Photo: Reuters

Nowadays, many rural Chinese girls choose to be "mistresses" as a "light work, high salary" job. "Old buffaloes like to eat young grass", rich men often choose young, attractive girls from karaoke bars to be their "mistresses".

Shanshan, 26, may wear designer clothes and expensive shoes like any rich girl, but the dry, cracked soles of her feet from a difficult childhood betray her rural roots. At 17, Shanshan went to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, to work as a karaoke hostess, and then to Beijing where she served men with more money, even spending the night with them.

"Young Grass"

That job led Shanshan to meet Mr. Wu, a nearly 50-year-old executive at a state-owned oil company, who took her into a $410,000 apartment, gave her $3,260 a month in spending money, and gave her many expensive gifts. For Shanshan, becoming a mistress was a natural decision. Shanshan calls Mr. Wu “he,” “my lover,” or “uncle,” but “boyfriend” is what she uses to refer to her boyfriend back home, who is about her age.

Shanshan and her fellow “mistresses” are well aware of their work and their “salaries.” The most special girls can be given up to $1,600 in pocket money each day, while the salaries for “normal” girls in Beijing are over $3,000 a month, and in smaller cities around $1,000 or even a more modest $500-$600, according to the non-profit news site Aeon.

There are two types of "mistresses" in the world. Girls who have been promoted from bars and karaoke bars are considered lower than those who are educated and meet their bosses through natural relationships at work. However, girls with clean pasts and stable jobs are often not satisfied with just being provided with money. They often want a wedding in exchange for love and youth.

Although the bare reality of the relationship is money, the "mistress" must show that they care for the person paying them the way the loving wife or girlfriend of these men in their 20s would. One "mistress" named Xiaoxue said: "They want to believe that you will be there for them even if they don't pay. If they look at other girls, you have to act jealous, you have to nag them until they apologize so they feel you care about them." Makeup and dressing up to always look beautiful are mandatory. Many even have plastic surgery to have big, innocent eyes. They always act coquettish to make the man feel like they are playing the role of the male hero.

Shanshan and Xiaoxue do not appear to be victims or weaklings. On the contrary, they are actively playing their own game, swinging with powerful men to make money and change their lives.

Change your life

Basically, they are quite lucky to have escaped prostitution thanks to their intelligence, wit and beauty. The practicality and ingenuity of the "third parties" with brains have turned them into heroes in the eyes of their juniors in the profession.

Zheng Tiantian, an anthropologist at New York University who worked as a karaoke hostess for two years to research her doctoral thesis, said one of her informants was a girl from the countryside who had been the mistress of a wealthy man for more than seven years. He bought her an apartment in central Shanghai, put the business in her name, and bought her parents an apartment. After leaving the man two years ago, she went to a teachers' college and met and married a man she considered "ideal" last year.

According to Ms. Zheng, many “mistresses” have walked out of relationships with large sums of money, started their own businesses, and married the men of their lives. The characters in the article, Shanshan, Xiaoxue… also divided their earnings into savings and investment accounts. They researched what to invest in, where, and even tried to open an account in Hong Kong.

However, in Chinese media, "mistresses" are considered a disaster, with an evil nature as if without greedy mistresses, the "poor" officials would not have gotten involved.

When a love-money relationship goes wrong, it can be very bitter. In 2006, Xu Zhiyuan, a corrupt official in Beijing, hired a driver to strangle his mistress because she dared to contradict him. The nephew-in-law of Duan Yihe, a high-ranking official in Jinan, planted a bomb in his mistress’s car in 2007. In 2011, Luo Shaojie, a district leader in Beijing, asked his assistant to kill his mistress because she threatened to expose his corruption secrets.