China Love Match Review: Interview With the Site’s Founder

ChinaLoveMatch.net, and sister site AsiaLoveMatch.net, are owned and operated by myself, a Canadian, and my wife (a born and raised Chinese woman who became an Australian citizen 25 years ago). While we met in a Hong Kong Airport lounge over a quick drink while waiting for flights we discovered that we were both members of a then popular Asian dating site. We then reconnected on that site and soon fell in love.

We both had liked the process of online Chinese dating but were disappointed by the high percentage of scammers that were on the site we had used.

Looking for something fun to do together, we decided to start a better Chinese dating site. One that was vigilant in keeping the scammers away, that kept the members real and that was open and transparent in every way. And that's what we did.

Here is what we tell people who ask us to describe our site before they join:

We are a dating platform on which members introduce themselves and are able to meet multiple people by paying a very reasonable monthly, quarterly or annual fee.

If you are a male, when you join ChinaLoveMatch.net you are also automatically joining AsiaLoveMatch.net, and when you upgrade on either one of them you are automatically upgraded on the other site free of charge.

An upgrade includes full use of every feature on both sites and allows you to communicate in full with all of the ladies on both sites including messaging, instant messaging, video/audio chat, and on CLM it includes instant translation. It also includes IP checking (you can check the IP of any member you are interested in) on both sites to greatly enhance your security.

Once you upgrade you are free to exchange your private contact details with any member you communicate with. There are no restrictions.

Our upgrade rates are as follows:
1 month - $34.95 USD
3 month - $69.90
6 month - $104.85
1 year - $139.80

If you click on a button that says One Time, then you will never be rebilled. If you click on a "Subscription" button, then you will be rebilled when your current upgrade expires.

When you upgrade you choose to pay through one of our payment processors. You provide your banking or credit card details to the processor of your choice, not to us. We do not receive your details at any time, and that is the way we want it.

If you wish to pay other than with a credit or debit card, or through a PayPal or Skrill account, please write to us at service@chinalovematch.net and we'll get back to you with other means of paying based on how you hope to pay and on your location.

A free member can only communicate with members of the opposite gender who have upgraded. Members who have upgraded can communicate with all members of the opposite gender.

We are not a scam site  who plant fake members and charge for individual meetings, message and translations.

On our websites we devote a great deal of time and effort to eliminate scammers, and we encourage members to report suspicious activity, as we believe that when you're looking for your life-mate you deserve to know that the person you are communicating with is both real and sincere.

You will receive emails only from our two websites and a weekly Newsletter from our Emagazine and blogs. You can opt out of receiving each type of message in your membership account.

Should you wish to cancel your membership on either site you can do that by logging in to both sites and then going to your account settings page. 

As part of our security system we have our trademarked Scammer Prison and Scammer Alerts. Even though we manually approve all members, and we reject an average of about 60% of all persons who try to register because we believe they are not who they say they are and are likely scammers.

But the occasional really expert scammer will get through our system and be approved.

However, unlike other dating sites, we encourage member reporting of scammers, and when they do we investigate every report.

If we conclude the member being reported is a scammer we place them in Scammer Prison where anyone can see them, we display the newly reported scammers on every member's personal My Space page, and we issue an email notification to every member who has had any contact with the scammer to alert them that the person has been sentenced to Scammer Prison.

 Our members absolutely love this feature and we do not know of any other dating site online that features this kind of security.

We offer IP checking which allows a paid member to check the IP that another member they are messaging or chatting with last logged in from. This allows the member to determine if the one they are interested in really is located where they say they are.

If you're chatting with someone who says they are in Shanghai, China, but their IP says they are in Nigeria, you know you've got a problem, and our members know to report that problem to us. We introduced this feature and are not aware of any other sites that provide it yet.

Our blogs and forum are like no others in the dating world, and they offer a great resource for members to learn extensively about cross cultural issues, online dating issues and anything else that might arise.

Our members love our blogs and forum. Just by way of example, one of our Chinese ladies has a thread on the forum that has had 2,134 comments made.

We are almost more like a dating community than a dating website because of our blogs and forum. Some of our best success stories are members who have met on the forum and then looked up each other's profile in order to contact each other and start to date.

Likewise, several our bloggers are now married to members who initially got to know them through their blogs. Probably our favorite success story was between one of our all-time best bloggers, who is a wonderful Afro-American, and his lovely Chinese wife.

We take a lot of pride in it because when we started out there was a clear bias in our Chinese women against men of color. We went out of our way to show them that such a bias was unfair and unnecessary, and part of that was introducing them to this blogger and having them get to know him.

After a few months of his blogging we saw this prejudice, which is strongly felt in the general Chinese culture, disappear from our site.

We do advertise in China and other countries in the Chinese language, but in China this has become quite restricted by the Chinese government.

However, we have become so well known among Chinese women as the one International Chinese Dating Site that they can trust to watch out for them and protect them from scammers that we get most of our Chinese women from great word of mouth.

In 10 years we've signed up about 260,000 members and that is generally about 50/50 male to female. So, on average we have about 26,000 members join per year.

But we take great pride in the fact that, unlike almost every cross-cultural dating site online, we have never posted a fake member in our 10+ years and we never will. All of our members are real.

It varies from time to time, but overall it is almost exactly 50/50.

Our males range from about 24 to 70 but are primarily between the ages of about 34 to 60.  Our females range from about 21 to 70 but are primarily between the ages of about 27 to 60.

First if you’re not interested in a serious relationship then you’re wasting your time on our site, because we discourage people who are not interested in serious relationships from joining.

But in response to your question, the best way to use our site is to be very proactive. The women on our site are all seriously seeking a long-term relationship so don’t be shy. Put up a good profile, post good pictures and start making contact.

One thing of importance is that Chinese women, especially those over 27 years of age, childless and/or divorced are under intense social and familial pressure to get married and have a baby. The younger generation is basically resisting this pressure, and even some of those in the age range of 27 to 35 are fighting it.

However, don’t be surprised if you find yourself being pressured by one of these ladies just after meeting her that she’s already asking when you can come to China to meet.

On a domestic western dating site this kind of instant pressure might well be a sign you have a scammer on your hands, but with Chinese dating that is not the case.

The main point to take from this is that you don’t need, on CLM, to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the lady is interested in. You pretty much know going in that she wants, and that is a serious long-term relationship leading to marriage.

As to using individual features or functions on our site, if you’re not new to dating sites or social networks you’ll find it easy to pick up how things work. But we pride ourselves on good service, so if you’re having any issues figuring things out just hit our contact link or write to service@chinalovematch.net and we’ll be happy to work you through the problem you’re having.

Chinese people generally take pride in the way they look, and like to be clean, well shaved and well kempt. In addition, Chinese people have not picked up the way Westerners now dress in ultra-casual clothes, like slobs some would say, and they tend to dress for everyday like we would dress for a semiformal function.

You’ll be doing yourself a big favor by looking your best in your photos. Put on your best clothes for the most part, shave or trim your facial hair, wash and comb your hair. Don’t look lazy. Look like you care about your appearance.

You’re looking for a woman from a different culture than your own, and the likely reason you are doing that is because you’re disappointed in the way the women in your culture are presenting themselves to you.

So, don’t make the mistake of treating Chinese or Asian women the same way you treat the women you are disappointed in. Recognize they are different and treat them as they deserve to be treated by learning about and recognizing their cultural differences and respecting those differences.

Chinese women are pragmatic; they are from a culture in which romantic love as we see it is not necessarily the standard of love they have grown up with. Traditionally marriages have been organized by the parents, and even today even adult Chinese women in their thirties or forties are not going to marry a man their parents don’t approve of.

Marriages are expected to start out as near strangers and to grow into strong, familial relationships over time. The love that develops tends to be something closer to a combination of strong friendship and deep respect, than the passionate, romantic love that we are looking for.

Having said that, if a Chinese woman is on our site, then she has either already been through a failed marriage, or is someone who thinks outside the box, and is looking for someone who will love her in a more romantic way than a Chinese man is likely to love her.

Someone who will treat her as an equal partner in life, but who respects her for playing her role as the female and who lives up to his role as the male. Generally, she expects him to be the primary provider and herself to be the primary homemaker and caregiver, but she’s also a realist and will look at also having a job to supplement the family income.

Assuming that they can expect Chinese women to think the way women from their own culture think. It amazes me how men come looking specifically for a woman who will be different from what they’ve been used to, but when they meet her they treat her as if she’s the same.

Expecting young Chinese women to be searching for old Western men. The truth is that Chinese women might be looking for men who are 5 to 10 years older than them, because they think those men will be more settled and better providers.

But if that 25-year-old sexy little thing says she’s happy you are 62, you can bet the reason she’s happy is in your bank account, not your pants or your charming personality.

Letting the Chinese woman push them too fast into making a commitment to date only them. These ladies are frequently under intense family pressure to get married, as we’ve discussed, and they tend to want to start talking about planning your trip to China in the second chat and calling each other husband and wife by the 4th chat.

The guys in this situation must slow things down and take their time meeting the right woman for them.

Posting photos of themselves wearing next to nothing (or worse). We don’t allow nudity and we expect the women on our site to be treated with respect. These women are sexually curious, and they are not prudish, but they do expect that sex comes after a mutual attraction has developed, not before you can even remember her name.

On our sites we flat out treat any member who asks another member for money, whether a loan or a gift, before they have physically met in the real world and developed a relationship built on trust, as a scammer. And we kick them off the site immediately.

If money keeps coming into the conversation on her end, whether it is complaining about how she can’t pay her rent this month, or she wants to know how big your house is, whether you have a mortgage or not, what car do you drive, you need to start thinking cautiously. The first one is likely a scammer and the second one may well be a gold digger.

Having said that, many Chinese women are quite well off, and some of those questions may well be her acting cautiously. If she’s got a great job, owns a couple of homes and drives a BMW, she may be trying to make sure you’re being sincere and not out to skin her.

The thing is that scammers and gold diggers are in it for the money. They’re going to really push you into believing they love you so they can get into your wallet, but they don’t want to waste their time and efforts, so they will always find ways to find out more about your financial situation.

Someone sincerely looking for a loving husband or life partner is going to be concentrating much more on who you are and how you think. Money might come up, but it won’t be on their mind constantly.

I strongly believe that every guy should be planning a trip to China and should try to plan to meet a few women who are of interest. This isn’t going to be easy, and these women will know what you are up to because otherwise you be coming just to see them. Don’t make sex a mandatory part of the deal. If it happens because you both want it to happen that’s ok, but it isn’t fair to make it a condition of meeting.

However, more often than not that spark you felt over the internet isn’t there when you meet in real life. A trip to China is not cheap so use it wisely.

I wrote a 3-part blog on this subject titled “Find Your Chinese Love by Having a Long Term Plan”. If you read the first part, at the bottom is the link to the second part, etc. I recommend that blog to everyone because there are comments below each part that also offer good information from some of our members.

If you are looking for a lifelong love and a great life partner, don’t be in a rush. You need to take your time, meet a number of women and then narrow them down to the ones you are really interested in. The men who are really successful are the ones who treat the online dating experience as a journey to be enjoyed.

They are kind and respectful of every woman they meet, and they are honest about what they are looking for. When they realize that someone isn’t their match they tell them so in a kind and generous way, but they try to remain friends, and then they can help each other better understand each other’s culture so they can both improve their chances of meeting their special someone.

CLM is in some ways more like a dating community than a dating site. Through the blogs and forum people get to know each other and make strong friendships. And frequently people first bump into someone on the blogs or forum that they find interesting and go search him or her out on the dating site.

I highly recommend that new members of CLM, which is free until you are trying to communicate with someone, and very inexpensive even then, go to the blogs and start reading them from the earliest ones to the latest. That’s a lot of blogs. Over 1500 articles.

But you can learn so much about Chinese dating, Chinese women and CLM on those blogs. The first ones are more valuable because they are so focused on the dating process and on what to expect from the Chinese women. People are always amazed by the CLM blogs. There just isn’t anything like them anywhere else on the internet.

Also go to the Magazine and start reading it from the oldest articles to the newest. It is also loaded with great information to help members succeed at finding a great love match.

If you have questions about CLM, or about any aspect of China, Chinese women, Chinese dating or anything else involving China, hop on the forum. Not only will many members address your questions, but I often hop on there to respond to member’s questions.