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Interesting and well-written article I thought:

by James Palmer (2013)
Mistresses are big business in China, where no official is a real man without his own ernai. What’s in it for the girls? ...
[Extract]
‘If you’re an official, you have to have a mistress, or at least a girlfriend,’ Xiaoxue said, ‘otherwise you’re not a real man. I used to have this friend who was a fake mistress. She was best friends with a gay guy — not a “duck” [male prostitute], just a normal gay guy — who was an official’s boyfriend. So the official would pay her to come out with him and pretend to be his mistress.’

aeon.co/magazine/society/why-young-women-in-rural-china-become-the-mistresses-of-wealthy-older-men/

Anchor Moy wrote:Interesting and well-written article I thought:

by James Palmer (2013)
Mistresses are big business in China, where no official is a real man without his own ernai. What’s in it for the girls? ...
[Extract]
‘If you’re an official, you have to have a mistress, or at least a girlfriend,’ Xiaoxue said, ‘otherwise you’re not a real man. I used to have this friend who was a fake mistress. She was best friends with a gay guy — not a “duck” [male prostitute], just a normal gay guy — who was an official’s boyfriend. So the official would pay her to come out with him and pretend to be his mistress.’

aeon.co/magazine/society/why-young-women-in-rural-china-become-the-mistresses-of-wealthy-older-men/

Good article.
"She’d walked the common path for country girls becoming mistresses, or ernai (literally, ‘second woman’). She’d gone to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, at 17, where she’d worked as a hostess at a karaoke bar at a hotel, before moving to Beijing to do the same. Her work involved entertaining men, including, if they paid enough, sleeping with them; that was how she’d met her lover, who’d offered to set her up after their fourth ‘date’."
Sounds vaguely familiar

that was how she’d met her lover, who’d offered to set her up after their fourth ‘date’."
Sounds vaguely familiar

You waited until the 4th date ??

The second wife (or Xiao San more commonly on the Mainland than er nai - which is used more in Canton and Hong Kong) is a standard feature of many Asian cultures. In Thailand, for example, that's the mia noi.

Throughout history, wealthy men have had mistresses but it's exacerbated in Asia where the first marriage is normally for convenience (business/family) rather than love.

One thing these articles neglect to mention is how often rich women take younger (and paid) lovers in China too. I used to drink in the Shangri-La bar and once a week a dozen wealthy Chinese ladies would turn up with their young lovers... no-one bats an eyelid. It's the culture.

logos wrote:

that was how she’d met her lover, who’d offered to set her up after their fourth ‘date’."
Sounds vaguely familiar

You waited until the 4th date ??

Never set your mistress up with a house before the fourth date (Keeping a mistress 101)
In fact better make that four years.