Chinese scam artist

[Hamlet]

All,

I joined Asiafriendfinder.com recently.  I wrote to a few dozen women in various Asian countries with little success.  Then I received a few emails from Chinese women who viewed my profile.

I was particularly captivated by a 40 year old accountant in Chongquin, who seduced me with her words and maturity.  

Our relationship got more heated, and we even broached the subject of a visit by me to China to meet her.  I was about to get her telephone number when she suddenly stopped writing to me.  A week passed and she did not respond to any of my emails.  Of course, I did not know if there was a technical reason or other reason for her failure to respond, but I went back into her profile in asiafriendfinder.com to see if I could glean any information about her that would help me solve this mystery.

Lo and behold the profile had been changed...updated.  It had what appeared to be the same woman, albeit ten years older and indeed the profile now said she was 50.  The description of her was remarkably similar albeit with some different words but many key adjectives and adjective strings were the same.  The profession, education, etc. were the same but now she had children where before she was childless.

I am beginning to think I am a fool for wasting so much time seeking woman online.  Also, my initial instincts were to avoid Chinese because I have had many dealings with them in the past (and I have traveled through China) and found them to be in general dishonest and without sincerety and this experience only supports my initial judgment.

Hamlet

[Tim]

... in response to Chinese scam artist, posted by Hamlet on Jan 5, 2003

[This message has been edited by Tim]

There are millions of Chinese on the internet now (and the numbers joining each year are just staggering), so you will certainly find scam artists. I will go so far as to say that due to the laws of probability, you will in fact find more Chinese lady scammers than you will find Filipina scammers.

So what does that prove ? Only that a guy needs to be careful in pursuing relationships with overseas ladies via the internet. You can fill in the blank with any ethnicity you want and it will be true about scammers.

To back up my statement I offer you this: all of the ancedotal evidence and experiences mentioned in this thread (both good and bad) about Chinese people could also be said about Filipino people (and it has been said, just read the archives).

It's simply moronic to try to equate this sad trend of scamming to any basic personality traits of any one culture. Good and evil exists in all cultures, regardless of cultural upbringing. At least two people in this thread (Ray and Jeff) understood this, and tried to tell you this, Hamlet. Consider my reply a little less subtle.

I wish you happiness and success in your quest.

Regards, Tim

[The Walker]

... in response to *fill in the blank__________* scam artis..., posted by Tim on Jan 7, 2003


Tim, I agree, but I was waiting to see if you got on here about it first. I didn't want to steal your thunder

Not only Filipinas, but you could easily say the same things about Americans as well; moreso, perhaps.

For the rest of you, I have found in my dealings with the Chinese, both in Taiwan and the mainland, in HK (communist Chinese government political personnel excepted), that the Chinese were hard businessmen and women, tough but honest. Sure, they would cut out your heart with a wooden spoon in a business deal, just like the Rockefellers, the Astors, Microsoft, GM or any other American business would. But you don't have to worry about them violating the contract. They will stick to the terms of the deal like glue. In dealing with Chinese merchants on a retail level, I have never found it necessary to count my change. They have their own brand of business ethics, but cheating or stealing is not in the code. If you are a gullible rube they will take you to the cleaners, sure, so will almost any businessman. But if you keep your wits about you, you will find that the average Chinese businessman or woman is no Enron-er. I DO make the exception of dealing with the Mainland Chinese government. They are NOT representative of the average Chinese, and need careful watching in business deals.

On a one-to-one level, the Chinese are actually very honest and open and with little guile in personal relations. Refreshingly so. Polite and deferrential to the guest. It is only when you get into the communist government/military upper echelons that the mean streak shows.

Never play poker or craps with a Chinese man. They do not cheat but they are ruthless poker players. Better than the Japanese. Gambling does seem to be a disease there more than here. Worse even than in the Philippines. But it seems to be concentrated in the males. The women ARE, as has been said, superior managers of the household and its finances. But if you are an honest, working man you should not see the shrewish side of your bride. But what do you expect of a woman who has to run a house and raise children if she has a man who drinks and gambles to excess? She is doing what is necessary to maintain the family, and Chinese burn incense at the altar of family even more than Filipinos and Japanese.

Do I have as much experiece with Chinese women as Tim? No. But I can probably say I have had more business dealings with them on a military and later a personal level. And my views can not be perceived as being slanted by being married to one of the delightful creatures. I have had many contemporaries who married Taiwanese women and brought them to the US. After men married to Filipinas, I found the men married to Chinese women the happiest, with those married to Japanese women (still fairly rare back then) a close third.

Tim is fortunate in that if there should be a reversal of fortune, or a sudden illness on his part, his Wendy will be an absolute rock. She is fully capable of taking over and running things until Tim should get back on his feet. She has ten thousand generations of her Chinese women ancestors behind her as genetic backup. The Chinese civilization predates Europe's by thousands of years.

Now, since there are over a billion Chinese, and as Tim said, internet useage growing, you are bound to find more Chinese scammers than those from, say, Andorra. Sheer numbers make the difference. And China has no corner on internet scams. I believe that per capita, America has more scams of all sorts, including internet, than any other nation on earth.

As for American women, well, Sibyl Sheppard (SP?) was on the tv the other day at my daughter's house. She told of a business where women can do CREDIT CHECKS on men before they go out with them. PUH-LEEZE!!!! I can see a security check if you are a public figure, but average women are doing credit checks on men, buying their Social Security numbers and then running full background investigations on them. And not just famous women back in the dating scene, everyday women. Thankfully it seems to be concentrated in California and New York City, the two centers of weirdness in Amercia. But are they representative of my daughters? Of course not.

To all: We are leaving for Argentina Friday and will be gone for a couple of weeks. After we get back, Vicky and I will knock our heads together and try to post some observations. Will it be a travelogue, with hotels and restaurant reviews? No. Where we eat and stay is our business. I don't publish too much on the internet that can be used to track us. What we will concentrate on is the business practices and the people and their views. The gestalt of the country as we see it.

Later, folks.

Don

[Ray]

... in response to Re: *fill in the blank__________* scam a..., posted by The Walker on Jan 8, 2003

Don,

I think my experiences with Chinese businessmen are much like yours. They can be very shrewd, but definitely honest. Some of their tactics may seem quite aggressive or unscrupulous by our standards, which Westerners may interpret as dishonesty.

I remember my first trip to Hong Kong when I was in the Navy. The ship had just anchored in the channel and I was in the head shaving with nothing but a towel around me. Suddenly, two Chinese dudes walk in and start measuring me for a suit. I couldn’t believe it! I was about to punch them out when one of the old salts calmed me down and explained that it was just another method of doing business over there. When we were running short of funds, we used to hit the tailor shop circuit. When the Navy ships came in, most of the shops in Wanchai had a sexy-looking chick that would serve you all the free San Miguel beer or whiskey that you could drink. The idea was to get you drunk so you’d sign a contract for a bunch of tailor-made suits and junk. If you signed, they would hold you to the contract, but they were careful not to overstep their bounds too much because they knew they could be placed on the off-limits list if they got too many complaints. But I’ve also seen guys come back to a Hong Kong tailor to complain about something they had ordered 3 years earlier the shop owner would always make it right with no questions asked. It wasn’t unusual for a Chinese merchant to recognize you as a previous customer and even remember your name after he hadn’t seen you in 10 years. And I thought we all looked the same to them :-) . They wouldn’t hesitate to use sex and booze to make a sale, but you did after all get what you paid for, and tailor-made Hong Kong suits used to have a great reputation for quality and workmanship.

I agree with you that Chinese seem to do more than their share of gambling, but I have also noticed that many of the women love to gamble as much if not more than the men. My experience with Chinese women is mostly with the Taiwan variety so I can’t really speak for the mainland ladies. I think just about all overseas military clubs had slot machines, which were probably illegal off base in the host country. You could usually find a bunch of local women in the military clubs playing the slots, but I think the Chinese ladies in Taiwan were the worst addicts by far. I remember the clubs at HSA Taipei and the Sea Dragon club in Kaoshiung, where a group of Chinese ladies was always lined up outside looking for a sailor to sign them in as a guest so they could play the slots from the time the club opened until closing. I’ve known Taiwanese ladies who would play mahjong for days without sleeping where the stakes were often substantial.

But those Taiwan women were sure good-lookers, weren’t they?

Have a safe trip…

Ray

[stefang]

... in response to Re: *fill in the blank__________* scam a..., posted by The Walker on Jan 8, 2003

Be careful in Argentina with the meltdown they had crime is much worse then before. A ot of desperate people in Argentina now.

[Jeff S]

... in response to Re: *fill in the blank__________* scam a..., posted by The Walker on Jan 8, 2003

You're right, the Chinese I've played poker with were WAY better than the Japanese, who I found to be pretty naieve in the ways of gambling even though they seemed to really enjoy it.

Have fun down south and looking forward to your observations, especially these days. I hear things have changed considerably in the past few years because of economic pressures. My Argentine experience goes back 20 years or so, but I found the place fascinating, the people engaging, and the food just outstanding.

- Jeff S.

[Hamlet]

... in response to *fill in the blank__________* scam artis..., posted by Tim on Jan 7, 2003

All the men who post on this forum are seeking a wife from another culture because they don't like the women available in the American culture.  Maybe that includes you.  

So all these men believe there are negative aspects to women in this country.  But since you believe that no one culture is more dishonest than any other, perhaps you think that all these perceived negative characteristics about AWs are wrong, too, and that in fact, AWs are just as loving, giving, willing to compromise, play a supporting role, etc. as are women of Asia, Latin America, etc.

By the way, even if we disagree, I will never state that I think your views are moronic.

Hamlet

[Patrick]

... in response to Re: *fill in the blank__________* scam a..., posted by Hamlet on Jan 7, 2003

It just doesn't work.  Like others here, I also didn't seek a foreign wife because I didn't like American women.  I simply met a Latin woman by chance, got to know her and many of her friends and made a decision that I was more likely to find what I wanted in a woman from her culture.

If someone dislikes American women, then how are they going to feel about their mother/sisters/etc.?

Another common stereotype for us men is that we're "all" looking for women young enough to be our daughters, but that also doesn't hold true.  Many of us have married women close to our own age and some have even married older women.  You're interest in a 40 year-old woman doesn't fit that mold either.

It all depends on the motivation of the particular man.  Some do seek foreign women because they can get a younger more attractive wife that way.  Some also look overseas because they don't like American women.  I personally think both of those motivations are poor reasons to look overseas.

I'd recommend getting to know particular women well and not trying to project her characteristics on the whole population.  You're going to find tremendous variation in every country and trying to make a judgement that "all" or "most" of the women from a particular place are one way is going to have you constantly switching cultures in your quest as you disregard everyone from that pool as unsuitable based on just one or a handful of contacts.  Maybe that's why you've gone from Latin America, to Vietnam, to China, and now to possibly some other country?

[Jeff S]

... in response to Re: *fill in the blank__________* scam a..., posted by Hamlet on Jan 7, 2003

I don't fit into the statement: "All the men who post on this forum are seeking a wife from another culture because they don't like the women available in the American culture" either. However, I didn't set out with a plan like many on this board, either: seeking a Japanese bride specifically, it just worked out that way. I'd spent a lot of time there on business, knew a bit about the culture and language, found Japanese women to be engaging and feminine, and fell in love with one. I had no specific dislike for American women in general.

- Jeff S.

[Ray]

... in response to Re: *fill in the blank__________* scam a..., posted by Hamlet on Jan 7, 2003

Hamlet,

I’ll have to disagree with your statement “all the men who post on this forum are seeking a wife from another culture because they don't like the women available in the American culture”. Dislike for American women had nothing to do with my decision to marry a Filipina. I have always been attracted to Asian women and I don’t have any deep dislike for American women per se.

Also, we have had quite a few men on this forum who are not Americans and have had little or no close-up exposure to American women. We have also had American women here who were looking for Asian men. We all have our own motivations for looking overseas, and they are not always related to the negative characteristics of the women in our native culture.

After your foreign bride has been here in America for some time, she is likely to take on many of those American traits, including some of the “negative aspects” that you alluded to. For those men out there whose primary motivation is to find a foreign wife without any “American” characteristics, my advice would be to relocate to her country and keep her away from the influence of American culture as much as possible, especially if she is under 30 years old when you marry.

Ray

[shadow]

... in response to Re: *fill in the blank__________* scam a..., posted by Hamlet on Jan 7, 2003

For the most part, I would have to agree with Tim's point about the various cultures. If there is any relevance to the recent trend of scammers, I tend to believe it has more to do with people who heretofore had no access to the internet recently obtaining ready access. (Recently as in the last few years)

Any time you add into this equation the poverty and desperation of a third world country I think you will find nearly the same results anywhere.

The U.S., being the richest nation in the world, cannot fairly be compared.

The only way one could make a fair general comparison would be to go to these various countries and meet the people VIA some other method than the internet.

Just my opinion.

Larry.

[Ray]

... in response to *fill in the blank__________* scam artis..., posted by Tim on Jan 7, 2003

Tim,

Did you happen to catch that new TV show last night, "Joe Millionaire"?

I think that was a brilliant concept for a TV show. Set up 20 American women so they think they are competing for a guy with fifty million dollars and watch the gold-diggers go for each other's throats. I don't usually watch these "reality" shows but this one should be interesting... (LOL!)

Ray

[Tim]

... in response to Re: *fill in the blank___AMERICAN___* sc..., posted by Ray on Jan 7, 2003

nt

[Stephen]

... in response to Chinese scam artist, posted by Hamlet on Jan 5, 2003

please drop me an email at sdbrittain@nospam.com.

Stephen

[greg]

... in response to Hey Hamlet....., posted by Stephen on Jan 6, 2003

Why don't you share your opinion about Chinese Women openly?   Thanks,  Mr Nosy