ChinaLoveCupid, Date Pretty Chinese Women

Chinalovecupid’s had a makeover recently. They’ve renamed themselves (from ChineseLoveLinks) but remain a website for those wanting to mix with Chinese people. The variety of relationships people are looking is immense. It ranges from chat buddies to, to travel friends, to people seeking a wife or husband.

The site has a lot of free users whom are locked out of communication because of their restricted access.

Types of Relationship

With around 250,000 members, ChinaLoveCupid makes the prospect of finding a casual/serious relationship that bit more realistic. If that’s what you’re after. The problem I’ve found with many Asian sites is their lack of serious members – by that I am talking about people willing to go beyond online chats and actually create a real life relationship.

Once inside ChinaLoveCupid however, you can find those who’re willing to meet in person without any difficulty. The box below shows the user makeup. I have to admit, this is totally non-scientific, it’s just based on some searches I did to get a feel for the different types of people on there, and what they’re looking for.

The other thing that’s different is that other than providing the platform, ChinaLoveCupid isn’t involved in matching, communicating or anything else. They do provide a bunch of resources however, such as translators, a gift shop, e-books, legal tips and so on. This may prove helpful if you’re going down the route of a serious romance.

They don’t label themselves as a foreign marriage agent, yet the recognize that’s why many are there, and so helpfully provide the links and resources that might come in useful.

People

The site has a fairly young community – with many on there being university students in their twenties, as well as expat Chinese living in other countries. They use the site more as a social hang out than anything else. The self-search boxes allow you to refine your preferences.

With a little bit of “jiggery-pokery” I found it soon started throwing up reasonable matches that matched my settings well.

As far as chat features go, the site gives all users access to email. But you’ll soon discover the rub; until you upgrade you’re not allowed to communicate with non-paying users. It means you have to pay up in order to chat with fee users. Who seem to make up the largest part of the population.

User group	Percentage of users (%)
Chinese women seeking foreign husbands	29%
Non Asian males seeking brides	41%
Asian people dating locally	9%
People looking for friendship only	12%
Gay/lesbian relationships	4%
All others	5%

The free account will get you so far, and lets you check out what is on offer. When you want to go further, and perhaps contact some people, you’ll need to consider one of ChinaLove’s upgrade options (see table below).

You have to become a full member in order to exchange contact details. That’s to stop free users using the site to meet then simply exchanging Skype or Yahoo IDs and chatting elsewhere.

What You Can Do

Video chat through a live chat window is also there for those who’ve bought a Gold or Platinum subscription. As well as this, you have the ability to communicate with anyone on the site. The advantage of this is that you can chat with the “free users”. Many of whom are locked out of communication because of their restricted access. This is only worthwhile however if you’re serious about meeting someone.