Photo illustration for TIME.
In Shanghai, it's not just the men who have expensive mornings after.
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He Works Hard for the Money
She's Bored and Rich. He's Young and Handsome. Yuan Will Bring Them Together
By HANNAH BEECH Shanghai
Jane Zhu loves the full-bodied bordeaux at PuJ's bar in Shanghai's glitziest hotel. She also loves the cigars, which are, she concedes, nothing but excessive phallic symbols to be smoked with high-roller abandon. But what Zhu likes best are the sexy, well-honed bodies out on the disco floor. "The pickings are best right here," Zhu says, exhaling puffs of Montecristo smoke. "Which one shall I take home tonight?"
Lovers were once only a rich man's prerogative, but in today's urban China, married women like Zhu want it all, too. Empowered by rising incomes and left alone by wandering husbands, many city women see no reason not to taste the eye candy at places like PuJ's themselves. In the past five years, female infidelity has contributed to 30% more divorces nationwide, according to a study conducted by the All-China Women's Federation. Many women applaud the change—even though they may not approve of rampant bed-hopping. "Even a decade ago, women didn't have that much power," says Li Yinhe, a sociologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. "But today, they have the money to buy everything, including sex. It's really no different than being a man."
Certainly, Zhu, a well-paid interior decorator, lives it up as much as any self-respecting Chinese businessman. She's juggling two lovers at the moment, lavishing them with designer Italian suits, fancy Cantonese meals and portable CD players. Usually she keeps them hooked with such tokens, but occasionally she'll pay straight cash for a night of pleasure. "I know my husband does the same thing when he's traveling on business," she says. "So why can't I?"
Michael Zhang is out there to oblige women like Zhu. He's dressed for success in a sleek, pin-striped suit and a passable faux Rolex. Girls say they like his strong jaw and jutting cheekbones. Married women prefer his listening skills and languorous back rubs. For an all-night chat session with these lonely wives, Zhang expects only a good dinner and a little farewell gift, like a leather cell-phone holder or monogrammed gold lighter. But if they want something more, he expects at least $120 in cash. "We never talk about price beforehand," he says. "That's tacky. But these women know how these things work."
Most married women don't go for the flashy gigolos who haunt karaoke parlors in their black-leather togs. They're for the younger girls who hanker to pair up with a bad boy for a night. Instead, rich urban wives want the kind of guy they envision for their daughters: well-mannered, well-groomed, well-heeled. By day Zhang sells real estate, and his Beijing apartment is filled with pale blond Ikea furniture. He doesn't need the money, really, but he's longing for a new Zegna suit, and his latest patron—the 48-year-old wife of a property magnate—has promised him a spring shopping spree. "We're good for each other," he insists. "I give her confidence about her sexuality and she helps me finance things I could never buy on my own."
For her part, Zhu has no worries about her own sexuality. Her husband told her he had no interest in her three years after they got married. That was back in 1974, when they were young Red Guards tilling the unforgiving earth in remote Gansu province. "We got married for convenience," says Zhu. "Now I get to live my life for myself." She sips her bordeaux and crooks a finger at a well-muscled specimen circling the bar. As he starts approaching, she takes a last puff of her cigar and grins: "It's wonderful being a modern Chinese woman, isn't it?"
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