Best Chinese Dating App For Foreigners

Here is my quick list of the top five dating sites in China. I’ll go into more detail in my reviews later in this article.

I have spent a considerable amount of time in China since my first trip there way back in 2008. I used to run an e-commerce business, and my product was manufactured in a factory in Dongguan, an industrial city about 30 miles south of Guangzhou.

China Social is a user-friendly app that can help you the perfect mate near you. Our mission is to help you find the type of relationship you are looking for. What makes China Social unique is this: You can meet people directly by watching videos of them. Meeting new people, making friends, chatting, socializing, and even dating has never been. This dating site does not only cater to people in China but also in Thailand and the Philippines. Unlike other Chinese dating sites, Cherry Blossoms is operated by an American company in Hawaii. One of the best things about this online dating site is that they have impeccable customer service.

Back in 2008, there were no popular dating sites or apps to speak of, so you had to meet women through traditional means. Since that time, however, online dating sites and dating apps have become really popular.

The best dating sites and apps in China (which I will discuss in detail in this post) will give you the best opportunity to find a significant other or a casual date in this country. Any site that did not make this list probably has poor membership quality, a difficult interface, or is too expensive, etc.

Dating in China (like everywhere else in the world) isn’t easy, but it can yield results especially if you take the time to learn a little Chinese. My two biggest frustrations were the large number of women who just wanted to practice their English but weren’t interested in going offline on an actual date and women who made it clear early on that they just wanted some money from me. To avoid these frustrations, I recommend you contact A LOT of women and treat dating in China as a numbers game.

If I had to do it all over again, I would book a flight to one of the larger cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, or Shenzen, and then book a hotel or reserve an apartment somewhere in the center of that city. This way, you will be virtually equidistant to multiple parts of the city, making dating a lot easier once those messages start coming in.

I’ll say this. If you are willing to put in the elbow grease and sweat that is required to succeed, you will be surprised what will happen. You need to have a heavy dose of patience and set aside a large amount of time in order to scan hundreds of profiles and send personalized messages to those people whose profiles appeal to you. I only started getting good leads when I treated dating like a part-time job.

Ok, without further ado, let’s get into the descriptions of the five dating sites and apps where I found the most success.

A good looking Chinese woman (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Jiayuan.com is the largest online dating site in China, and should be the site you sign up for if you know how to read and speak basic Chinese (if you don’t know any Chinese, check out my #2 site below).

Jiayuan.com was founded in 2003 by Rose Gong, a journalism student at Fudan University in Shanghai. Not only is it the most popular dating site, it is one of the most popular websites on the entire Internet.

Jiayuan has 190 million members. Most profiles I came across were legitimate, but it is worth mentioning that Jiayuan used to have a reputation for inadvertently hosting a lot of scam-artists and fake profiles. While this doesn’t seem to be the problem it once was, just be wary of giving out personal information to people you meet online.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, you really need to know basic Chinese to get the most out of this site. I think if I knew Chinese at a proficient level, I would have had even more success. This is because every page on Jiayuan is an assault on the senses – it’s overwhelming. The Chinese characters certainly don’t help with this. Google translate only works on about 60% of the text (due to text in images), and the text that is translated is often super-imposed on other lines of text (due to formatting issues), or is simply incomprehensible.

I spent a lot of time translating the “translations” just to figure out what is going on with each page. And there are a lot of pages, because Jiayuan is packed with different features.

Nevertheless, Jiayuan has multiple ways to search and communicate with members, many games to play, a matchmaking service, guides, blogs, customer support, dating events, and even a page dedicated to financial advice.

With so many features and users, this is a great site. But unless you know some Chinese, it will be a difficult, potentially frustrating experience for you.

Sign up Process

Start with your gender, birthday, location, and marital status, and go on to fill in your basic information and choose a password and username. Finish by selecting three labels to describe yourself (e.g. workaholic, introverted, or the hilariously translated “fatty”) and writing a few words about yourself and your ideal match.

Later, you can further specify your interests, ideal match requirements, lifestyle choices, and values.

How to Locate Potential Matches

Look through recommended profiles at the top of Jiayuan’s homepage or create your own search, filtered by all the basic information you’ve specified for your own profile. You can also see who has visited you, liked you, or followed you recently.

You have a few more search options at your disposal:

• Face Search – search for photos similar to one you choose from a sample list, or including specific traits, like a high nose, dimples, or “eyes”. I personally love women with eyes!
• Map Search – you are shown a map with the precise location of each member
• Match Personality Quiz – answer questions to match with other users, OkCupid style

How to Communicate with Other Members

With basic communication features, you can send messages, “poke” members, send virtual gifts, and “follow” profiles. You can also participate in:

• First Impression – You’re shown a random profile and given a list of tags to choose to describe the profile (pure and lovely, quirky, sexy style, etc.). Your choice will be sent to the user.
• Circle Fate – Post a personal ad of sorts, sorted by different categories (love line, blind date, mate, marriage, etc.)

Unique Site Features

Jiayuan has the most in-depth profile authentication features I’ve ever seen. You have the option of verifying your profile by phone, email, identity (actual name and ID number), Zhima Credit account (a 3^rd party website), property documents, video certification, academic certificates, and even divorce documents!

What is Included in Each Membership Level

• Standard – Create profile, browse, search and view other profiles
• VIP – See who has visited, liked or followed you, recover accidentally deleted messages, read message notifications, save searches, upload more photos, view profiles that have recently logged-in, blacklist other members, set photo passwords, higher member ratings for your profile
• Diamond – Read messages, free messaging, online chat
• Deluxe Edition Diamond Member – extra site credit, enhanced subscription options

ChinaLoveCupid

If you are an English speaker and don’t know Chinese, I recommend you check out ChinaLoveCupid instead of Jiayuan.com.

ChinaLoveCupid.com is run by one of my most favorite online dating companies, Cupid Media. Cupid Media owns sites that I’ve used in the past like Afrointroductions.com and Brazilcupid.com (this is the site I met my wife on).

The general site layout, interface, and available features is the same as the other Cupid Media dating sites, which is a plus.

The website sports a clean design and is easy to navigate. ChinaLoveCupid is an established site for those looking to meet and make matches with Chinese singles. With around 40,000 members, it is not the biggest site operating in this niche, but if you can sign up for a premium account, you’ll get a solid set of communication features and strong anti-spam protection that make this a site worth your time.

What I liked most about it is the design of the site. It doesn’t scream boredom and the profiles are very enhanced and detailed, making it more intriguing and exciting. It’s all about your interests.

If you are into Chinese or Asian men or women, give it a shot. You get a lot of features for free early on in the process so you can give it a test drive to see if you like it.

Sign up Process

Signing up is no hassle at all on ChinaLoveCupid. It’s about a 15-minute process that takes you through the normal stages of an online dating intro. It asks for your name, your headline, your height, occupation, interests and all that fun stuff.

You can also fill out a short questionnaire on what you are looking for in your companion. This will help match you up better with someone.

Once you’ve uploaded your one photo, it will take a little while for your photo to go on display as you will go under a verification process to make sure you are the real deal. After you are approved, you can go ahead and upload more photos. It can be a pain, though, as sometimes verification takes a bit of time.

How to Locate Potential Matches

Browsing for matches is highly adaptable to your style, thanks to four display options (Photo View, Basic View, Detail View and Profile) and four order options (Newest Members, Photos First, Last Active, and Relevance). Detailed, custom searches are also made possible with plenty of criteria to choose from: the option of saving your searches for future use, and further options to search by keyword, CupidTag, and first name.

I like that you can also piggyback on Popular Searches, such as New Members and Most Popular.

One neat thing is you can create tags which display your interests and then click on another members’ tags if they have similar interests. You can view other profiles for free and send them “likes” to let them know you are interested in them.

How to Communicate with Other Members

ChinaLoveCupid’s basic messaging feature for Standard members is a no frills affair, with more exciting and useful options available as perks for Gold and Platinum paying members.

As a Standard member, you can communicate freely with premium members. You can like and favorite other Standard members, and send them messages, but the text of the message will be blurred out. If they want to read it, one of you will have to upgrade to premium.

Once a premium member, audio, video and IM chat becomes available. Chatting live with another member is the best way to ensure the two of you are a good match.

Unique Site Features

Two of my favorite unique, useful features of ChinaLoveCupid are:

1. Message filtering: set filters on who you want to receive messages from, based on age, location, nationality, religion, ethnicity, smoking/drinking habits, and whether or not they have children.
2. Message translation: translate your messages into your target language with just one click. This feature isn’t perfect obviously (even Google hasn’t fully figured it out), but it is still extremely helpful. Language is no longer a barrier to finding that perfect match.

ChinaLoveCupid does offer a chatroom for its members, so you can discuss different topics and find different matches using the chatroom feature.

Also, the audio and video messaging is something that is really neat to take advantage of as not all dating sites offer that option. You also have the ability to make tags and match up your interests with other users on the site. Plus, ChinaLoveCupid allows you to see your compatibility rating with other members.

What is Included in Each Membership Level

• Standard – Create profile, upload photos, browse recommended matches, search for matches, send interest to any member, communicate with Gold and Platinum members
• Gold – All of the above, plus: Communicate with all members, audio/video chat, Instant Messaging, ad-free browsing, anonymous browsing
• Platinum – All of the above, plus: Better ranking in searches, VIP profile highlighting, extra profile space, access to advanced matching algorithms, message translation, extended search capabilities.

Not a lot of people talk about AsianDating.com when it comes to China since ChinaLoveCupid.com (and the sister site HongKongCupid.com in Hong Kong) is run by the same brand and is more targeted towards China. Nevertheless, it is really a good third option and has a lot of members in China (and Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines too).

Like all of the sites on the Cupid Media network, AsianDating has a well-designed, easy-to-use website. Sign-up is free, but the free membership doesn’t let you do much. AsianDating does have a number of great features for its premium members however.

My biggest complaint with the site was receiving many spammy messages quickly after signing up. However, there are plenty of real men and women genuinely looking to connect on this site, and the message filters are helpful in filtering out the scam-artists.

Sign up Process

Signing up for AsianDating takes two minutes tops, and keeps your wallet in your pocket. Registration is free and will only take a couple of minutes.

You can sign up with a unique account, or link your Facebook. Upload a profile photo now or later – you decide. The signup process is easy, and so is making a profile. If you want to go ahead and get more in-depth, the profile process can be much more intense and offer a deeper experience for you.

How to Locate Potential Matches

You have two paths to take when match-hunting: browsing and searching. When browsing through these matches, you can move quickly or slowly, looking at photos only or full profiles, one-by-one. The search feature allows you to craft a search for profiles matching specific criteria, such as age, location, education, body type, ethnicity, lifestyle choices (smoking, drinking, etc.), marital status, religion, and even their zodiac sign. You can also save these custom searches for future use.

How to Communicate with Other Members

If you’re sincere in your desire to connect with other members, and potentially meet and date them in real life, I strongly suggest you take the initiative and upgrade to Gold or Platinum. Until you do, you’ll be stuck with the few options basic messaging gives you: visiting profiles, “showing interest”, adding profiles to your list of Favorites, and sending messages (that can only be read if one of you is a premium member).

These options are fine for initiating conversation, but not much else. Once you’ve upgraded, you can message anyone you like, and they will be able to read your messages and reply as well. Audio, video, and IM chat options are also available.

Unique Site Features

A unique and powerful feature of AsianDating is the message translation. With this feature, you can translate your messages into the language of your choice with one simple click. With this tool, the language barrier is turned from a mighty stone wall to a short picket fence.

Like most language translators, there will be some errors in grammar. Heck, even Google’s translator isn’t perfect. But using this tool will help you introduce yourself to members whom before would have understood nothing. This feature is available for Platinum members only.

One other feature I like on AsianDating is the approval process which helps make sure that your identity and photos are real. All uploaded pictures go through a review process to be approved before posting. This helps cut down on annoying fakes. Also, overall, the app is easy-to use (with a down-scrolling method of browsing), and available free on the Google Play Store.

What is Included in Each Membership Level

• Standard – Sign up, fill out profile, upload photos, customize searches, send interest to other profiles, communicate with Gold and Platinum members
• Gold – All of the above, plus: Unlimited messaging and communication with other profiles (text, audio, video, Instant Messaging), ad-free browsing, invisible browsing
• Platinum – All of the above, plus: Rank above other members in searches, doubled profile space, VIP profile highlighting, platinum-exclusive search features, advanced matching algorithms, message translation

Date in Asia

DateInAsia is an Asian dating site that has approximately one million users. The vast majority of the users are Asian women (and foreign men looking to meet Asian women).

DateInAsia is a free website, but as is the case in everything in life, you get what you pay for.

DateInAsia has many of the same problems as other free dating websites. It has scam artists, inactive users and fake profiles. The website does not have a lot of features and has a basic design.

Best Chinese Dating Website

You may find some great people on DateInAsia, but you will need to send out a boat load of messages. Check out the other websites above first. Then, if you don’t have any bites, check out DateInAsia.

How to Sign Up

You will first need to create a password and user name. You will also need to enter your birth date, name, email, gender and match gender.

You will then be sent a confirmation email. You will also be asked to enter your phone number so that you can be sent a text message for verification. DateInAsia claims that this is done for security purposes. You don’t have to do this right away, but if you don’t do it in 7 days, your profile will be deleted.

After you have completed this step, you will need to write a headline, a little information about yourself in the About Me section, and fill out information about your occupation, education, and appearance. You will also need to enter information about your ideal match. The final step is to upload a photo to your profile.

How to Find Matches

There are a few options for finding matches. You can browse through random profiles by using the search tab. You can also perform a basic or advanced search.

Basic searches are filtered by age, gender, and location. Advanced searches are filtered by the basic information you selected, such as appearance, religion, and occupation. You can also view who visited your profile.

Communicating With Other Members

The messaging options are basic. You can show interest in someone, add them to your favorites, or send them a text-only message. You can communicate indirectly by visiting someone’s profile because they will receive a notification.

Unique Site Features

DateInAsia does not have any unique features. Everything is basic. The fact that all of the features are so basic makes this website unique.

What Is Included In Every Membership Level

• Standard-Everything!

Badoo is a hybrid site that combines social media networking with online dating. Badoo began in 2006 in Soho, London and has grown to over 300 million users. For reference, if it were a country, it would have the fourth highest population in the world!

The site has users from 190 different countries, making it an international hit. After some use, I found that it is really more of a dating site as it lacks a few features that are commonly found on regular social media sites.

Sign Up Process

Signing up is fairly simple. You can link your Badoo account to your Facebook account or create an account from scratch by entering your name, birthday, gender, location, and email.

Next, you’ll be asked to pick your reason for wanting to join Badoo. Choices include making friends, chatting, or looking to date. Finally, you have the opportunity to link your Badoo account with your Twitter account and import your friends from your contacts list on your email account. After all these steps are complete, you are free to begin browsing other profiles on Badoo.

How to Locate Potential Matches

There are two options to use when looking to find matches, people who are nearby and encounters.

Using the people who are nearby method is similar to browsing. You simply scroll through profiles one at a time, all of them are located near your area.

Encounters give you access to profiles one at a time and have the option of clicking the heart to symbolize you like the person, or dismiss them by clicking “X”. If you and the other profile both click the heart, you will be notified that there is a mutual match between the two of you.

How to Communicate with Other Members

Using either of the methods for locating potential matches gives you the option of looking through their profile, including their photos, and an option to start a text-only chat. You also can add them as one of your favorites or even send them a gift.

In order to read other people’s personal information, you will have to make sure you have filled out your entire profile. In order to see their location, you must have your location services turned on when using your mobile device or laptop.

You also have the ability to see who has liked your profile once you have invited friends from your email account. This does come off as a bit of an odd request as most people would prefer inviting friends from social media sites instead of their email address book.

Unique Site Features

Badoo holds the unique title of being one of the world’s most popular websites. As a result, it has a very user friendly appearance and looks professional.

You can fill out a full profile, but sadly there is no feature that allows you to share updates similar to other social media sites. Even though it seems similar to other social media networking sites in the way it allows you to create a profile, upload pictures, and connect with other people, it really has found its niche as a dating site.

The fact that Badoo puts so much importance on ranking profiles and how popular they are shows that it really is geared towards being a dating site.

What is Included in Each Membership Level

• Free – Sign up, create a profile, browse, favorite, and chat with other users
• Platinum – You see the most popular members in Encounters, your profile is shown more often in People Nearby and in Encounters, includes all Super Power features
• Super Powers – See who wants to meet you or who favorited you, undo previous votes in encounters, invisible browsing, chat with new users and most popular users
• Paid Features – Rise up in People Nearby, be shown more in Encounters, be featured in local searches, send stickers in chat, send “gifts”

Tantan

Tantan is one of the newer dating sites to hit the scene. It started out in the Chinese market and has expanded from there to help people around the world make matches with just the right people.

Sign Up Process

Signing up for an account on Tantan is a snap. You will need to link a phone number (requires verification) or Facebook account to the app. Once you do, it will use your phone’s GPS to make sure that you’re being presented with matches that are near your physical location.

Be careful, though… it has been noted that there are ways for your phone contacts to view your profile if they, too, sign up for Tantan. Make sure to review your privacy settings so you’re not sharing more than you want.

How to Locate Potential Matches

Once you’ve signed up, it’s time to find your soulmate—or maybe just a hot date. You’ll use the now-common swiping method of finding matches (i.e. Tantan copied this style from Tinder).

Profiles on Tantan can be a little slim, because the sign-up process makes it easy to bypass many of the prompts. This can be a disadvantage over other sites that offer more thorough profile creation. There are other ways to get information on your potential matches, however, like looking at their “Moments” section, which offers more pictures and information related to the fun games you can play on Tantan.

How to Communicate with Other Members

Communication is key on any dating site, and Tantan makes it fun. Communication is only open to users who make a match by swiping right. Once the match is made, though, Tantan offers more communication (and for free!) than most other sites. This includes the videos or voice messages for a more personal communication experience. If you’re not interested in videos or voice chat, this may not be a beneficial feature to you.

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Unique Site Features

Despite being similar to other dating apps, Tantan does have its unique features. On the free mobile app you can not only send voice and video messages, but you can play interactive quizzes with your matches to learn more about them in a flash. These unconventional ways of communicating make Tantan one of the more unique matching sites out there.

What is Included in Each Membership Level

As with most dating sites, you can get more if you’re willing to pay for it on Tantan. The good news is that most of the functions and interactions on the site are free. If you want to improve your chances of finding a great match, you can pay for one or more months of VIP Access. This VIP status gives you perks like a special badge, extra swipes, profile highlight, and the chance to see statistics about who is swiping your profile.

How to Get Started Dating in China

The first thing you’re going to want to do is to become a member of one of the dating sites/apps I discussed above. You’ll then want to make contact with A LOT of members….hundreds of members (yes, I said hundreds).

Dating is mostly a numbers game. You’ll need to plant lots of seeds and kiss lots of frogs until you find any kind of measurable success.

If you need help on how to set up a profile and what to write for your initial and follow up messages, check out my e-book, Online Dating Success: How to Find Love Anywhere in the World.

Good luck dating! Remember to be patient and don’t give up!

Further Reading

• Worldwide Online Dating Site Reviews: Be sure to check out my country-by-country reviews of the best online dating sites in the world.

• Worldwide Moving Guide: Everything you need to know in order to plan your move to 65+ countries around the world.

• Worldwide Jobs Guide: If you are interested in working in this country, be sure to check out my posts on how to find jobs in this country and other countries around the world.

• Worldwide Apartments Guide: If you are interested in renting an apartment in another country, take a look at my articles on how to find an apartment in various countries around the world.

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