Ep. #19 Dating Asian Women: Attraction, Social and Cultural Differences with David Tian (Asian Rake)

[Angel Donovan]: Hey, this is Angel Donovan at Dating Skills Review with Dating Skills Podcast. Today we have David Tian, who is also known as the Asian Rake. And he's from Aura Dating, he's based in Singapore, and interestingly, he's also known as Dr. Date, which is kind of like the Hitch of Singapore. And he's a minor celebrity. He's been a lot in the news there and everything, and he even has some people kind of follow him around sometimes, so that’s kind of a funny twist right there.

He's a doctor (PhD) of Asian studies and was a professor at National University of Singapore for Philosophical Psychology and Asian Philosophy. So he has a really good academic, rigorous background into the whole area of Asian culture and psychology, and that's something that he's used within his dating coaching business, which has helped him. So it’s really good to have someone with a very rigorous background and a lot of experience. And he's been coaching since 2007. Hey, David, how you doing?

[David Tian]: Hey, great. Great to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. No problem.

[David Tian]: Yeah, it’s pretty cool too because you’ve had quite a bit of experience in Asia as well, so it’s really nice to be able to talk to a guy who understands the issues that are unique to this part of the world.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. And of course, we kind of go back a little bit. When did you go to China? I think my first year there was in 2003.

[David Tian]: I moved in ’05.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, so that's kind of how we know each other as well, because we’ve been in China and Asia for a while. So, obviously steeped in experience and much learnings.

[David Tian]: Yeah. Actually, on this podcast, I think you’re getting the two most experienced guys for China, in the English-speaking world anyway. So it’s pretty cool to be here.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah. And one other thing I just thought I should really add is that you’re ethnic Chinese. You’re from Canada, but you’re actually ethnic Chinese. So that's kind of… And I’m kind of white, so we’ve got kind of different perspectives here as well, I guess, from that perspective.

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: So that's something we could talk a bit about today, which might be interesting also.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: Alright, so what we’re going to do here is we’re going to talk about Asian women because it’s quite a topic especially since kind of like the rise of China and the rise of Asia and it’s been getting a lot more popular in the news and everything. Obviously there's like Asian women everywhere. There’s like the ethnically Asian in the US and in the UK and in Western countries, and then there are the Asian women in Asia who are kind of like original and they have a kind of different set of culture and so on. So for guys who are interested in Asian women, whether they be Western countries or in Asia, that's kind of another topic we’re going to be looking into because it’s a bit different.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: So, yeah, we’re just going to dive straight into the topic here with, basically, you know, is, are Asian women like culturally, ethnically Asian women, and Western women different or are they the same? Because you get different opinions on this. What is your take on this, David?

[David Tian]: Yeah, I think there's a big difference, but that difference, it can make a big difference when a guy’s trying to hook up or get a relationship going. But it’s a good idea to keep in mind that most of the psychology that we’re basing, or at least I’m basing, my dating skills training on is coming from evolutionary psychology. So what I like to tell guys in Singapore and throughout Asia is that the influence of culture versus the influence of millions of years of evolution is miniscule. So every woman everywhere wants a guy who’s confident, who’s charismatic, who’s dominant, who has a sense of humor.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: And so there's no change. But the little bit, the 5% that is different, can make a big difference at crucial points.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: So it is important to understand the culture and especially if you’re in Asia or if it’s a woman who’s surrounded by other Asians who are still thinking very much along the lines of an Asian culture that there are some really big points that could really trip you up later on.

[Angel Donovan]: Great. Yeah, totally. So, I mean, when we’re talking about Asia, are all Asians the same, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, you know?

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: I love that question. See, it only comes from a guy who really knows Asia, who’s been to Asia, because when you’re in the West you just think Asian food are the worst, and Toronto people say, “Hey, where do you want to eat? Do you want to go ethnic?” What the hell does ethnic mean, right?

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: Oh, you mean, like not hamburgers and burgers and pizza? Oh, I get it.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: But anyway, so yeah, Asia—you know, I did my PhD in the Asian studies department, and even there we felt a pretty big divide between South Asia, which is mainly represented by India and the surrounding countries there, and Southeast Asia, and then East Asia. So most of my research has been on East Asia, which means China, Japan and Korea primarily, and I think they are the most represented in pop culture and in America at least.

[Angel Donovan]: Yes.

[David Tian]: But there is a huge Filipino and Vietnamese community in America that's bigger than the Japanese or Korean community that most people don’t realize. The Vietnamese culturally are quite close to the Chinese, but the Filipino is an interesting mix of a lot of different cultures down there in Southeast Asia. So me, being now in Singapore, I’ve become very aware of the fact that there are a lot of different types of Asian cultures, and especially in Southeast Asia is the Muslim influence, which really throws things for a loop because in China it’s hardly even present in the big cities.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: So most of what I think we’re going to be talking about is applied best to East Asian women, and insofar as Singapore there's quite a lot of Chinese influence, and insofar as they share that, I think most of that is held in common.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: So the way I like to talk about it is in terms of the Confucian culture, [laughs] so Confucianized societies or societies within the greater Chinese cultural sphere.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: So Japan and Korea, they take their history largely out of China. So Japan created its national identity in the 700s AD in opposition or with China in mind as the major, the dominant culture in the area, and same with Korea.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: So they’re always defying themselves against the middle kingdom, China, and the same goes with Vietnam in the South. And now with Singapore and Hong Kong, the Chinese influence moving further South, I think the Confucian influence there is pretty strong.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, and you know, the whole Confucian angle has a big link to the 'face concept', you know, and it’s a really important topic, so what you have to understand when it comes to Asian women is face.

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: The thing is this also gets a little bit hyped, I think, the topic of face. Certainly when I first went to China, it was always the big thing, face, which I think it can also be translated to things that happen in the West as well, that face exists in the West as well, it’s just that it’s something, I mean for me, that happens more like you see more of it or it’s more noticeable in the East. Like how do you see that?

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it’s institutionalized in the East. It’s more formally recognized as a factor. Whereas in the West I think there's an emphasis on individualism that they don’t want to admit that they’re affected by such things as face. But all people everywhere are. I think that's one of the reasons why Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People is so effective in the West. And one of the underlying principles among the many rules or advice he gave is that you need to take into account how people feel about themselves in relation to other people, the people around them. For example, the advice that you can never win a debate, and the reason being even if you won the debate, you’ve now shamed this guy in front of all his peers and friends.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Yeah.

[David Tian]: And so you made him feel bad, so you lose a friend.

[Angel Donovan]: By making them lose face, right? That's kind of how you say…

[David Tian]: Exactly. By making them lose face, right. [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. [Laughs]

[David Tian]: Yeah. Whereas in Asia I think it’s because there's a name for it, I mean there's a concept and it’s very well-known and accepted, is they’re more sensitive to those issues. So in the West maybe you wouldn’t get faulted for making somebody lose face. They would just try to be logical and rational and look at the issues. But in Asia you can actually be faulted that you’re acting outside of social norms or contravening social norms by making somebody else lose face.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, exactly. So people can see you did something wrong, right? So if you do do something like that wrong when you’re with a girl, I think it gives her reasons not to see you again or not to continue the relationship. So you can actually kind of damage the relationship a lot more easily than you could maybe in the West.

[David Tian]: Right, right. You really have to pay attention about where she is in relation to her friends, her peers, anybody who might know her, and even, I’ve discovered just the hard way, people who don’t know her at all. So just this view that being in society means that you have to have a different standard of behavior.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup. Yup, yup. So let's… I mean, I always think it’s good to look at some kind of practical example, right?

[David Tian]: Right. [Laughs] Let's get specific.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I think these abstract things can be kind of hard to understand.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: So like if, say, one day you’re in a shopping center and you approach a girl and there's a whole bunch of people around, not people she necessarily knows, is face going to come into that situation at all?

[David Tian]: Yeah. Well, the more modernized and Westernized Asians get, the less concerned about what other people think about them matters.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[David Tian]: But most Asians care a lot about what other people think of them. So I found this to be especially true in Japan and Korea and in Singapore, and less so much in China but it’s still there, that she’s going to be very sensitive if other people are looking or watching.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: So if you’re drawing attention to yourself, so for instance, the pickup in Top Gun that Tom Cruise did.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs] Right.

[David Tian]: He grabs the microphone and starts singing, and the entire bar stares at her and the guy’s singing, you know, maybe this would be cool in the West and they think, “Oh, it’s just so sweet.” In Asia, you would basically be committing social suicide to draw that kind of attention to a girl.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: And even if she likes you, just by that pressure you’re giving her, it would just make her shut down.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. So yeah, definitely. So, I mean, one of the situations you kind of want to avoid is where lots of people are basically looking at them and looking at you interacting with them.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: And in some places it’s not normal to just walk up to people and approach them. And I can tell a funny story. I mean, this isn’t totally relevant to the whole of China anymore, but when I first got to Shanghai in 2003, I remember approaching one girl, and you know, I approached many and this actually repeated itself many times, and walking next to her in the street I just start talking to her, which is completely unknown, and people start looking at her, right? There's quite a lot of people around.

So the first rule of that is like, if you’re going to talk to someone in the street—and I think Shanghai is okay these days, but some of the other towns in China which aren’t quite as modernized—you probably don’t want to do it when there's a lot of people around. You want to do it when there's less people around so she feels less uncomfortable about it.

And so I remember that girl was just like, “I don’t know you. You’re a stranger. Don’t talk to me.” And I was like, “Are you serious?” It’s like, “Oh, you’re a stranger. You’re a stranger. Don’t talk to me.” And I was really confused by that because it was just something I’d never seen before.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: And I was like, “Really? Do we have to ask our parents for permission to talk to people now?”

[David Tian]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: “Oh no, it’s the boogeyman stranger,” kind of effect, right?

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: So I kind of thought that was funny.

[David Tian]: Yeah. Actually, what I’ve found a good adjustment in Asia is to start off with something really innocuous, like if you’re doing street approaches, if you ask for time or directions. Like if you ask for directions and it looks like you’re a tourist, which if you’re a foreigner, probably people will just accept that.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[David Tian]: Especially if you start with English. And people won’t be looking or staring, because they won’t think, “Oh, it’s pickup.” They think, “Oh, it’s just some lost tourist,” right?

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: So that’ll allow her to let her guard down as far as face goes, and then you can proceed more normally. Or here’s another example we could do. I like to wait at red lights [laughs]…

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: And then as people start crossing the road, that's when you open her. So everyone’s walking already. So she has to stop, and then no one will be looking at her because everyone’s going to be busy trying to get across the road.

[Angel Donovan]: Excellent, yeah. That's a nice one. I wouldn’t have thought of that one. [Laughs]

[David Tian]: [Laughs] Timing.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs] It’s all timing.

[David Tian]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: So you know, I mean this is actually very, very practical and useful advice here. It’s about timing and being aware of your environment, seeing that you don’t put social pressure on her, which is going to negatively affect the situation.

[David Tian]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: So you have to pay attention to that factor.

[David Tian]: Yeah, yeah. If you’re in a bar or club, you really need to focus a lot on positioning and getting mini-isolation so that her back is to her peer group if you’re going to escalate physically in any way, because otherwise she’s going to be super-sensitive about what her friends are thinking about her. And this is true I think everywhere in the world, but I think it’s especially true in Asia.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It’s kind of like it's magnified, right?

[David Tian]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: I think the great thing I learned in Asia was I learned about these things on a more subtle level because you have to [laughs]… And then when you come back to the West you actually see these things really powerful, because now you see like kind of in more depth how women are because you’ve noticed these subtle things and now you can see them…

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Because they were magnified in Asia.

[David Tian]: Yeah. You know what, the way I think about it is when you go back to New York or Toronto or LA, you can be messy.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, that's right.

[David Tian]: You can let go, be loose, and shit happens and you touched too far or you might spit out [laughs] because you’ve had too much to drink, and you can get away with all that. Whereas in Asia, the margin of error is not quite as large and you really have to keep your game tight.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, I totally agree with this, and it’s kind of interesting because I’ve been in Asia for the last five, six… Seven or eight years, right? And the last year I’ve spent in New York and London most of the time. And I was kind of interested to see if I’d lost my kind of dating abilities [laughs] for the West because it’s been so long since I’ve been here, and in fact, I just kind of really found that I could be more messy and things were working a lot easier than in Asia.

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: So it’s really interesting how it works out like that way.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: So that's kind of face. I guess like tied to face is the whole social value and community factor and how Asians tend to move around more in groups. So how can that affect like the way you want to organize your dating lifestyle or…?

[David Tian]: Well, a major mark against the foreigner coming in from nowhere and just cold approaching at clubs is that he ignores the fact that she’s probably there with a bigger group of people.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: If an Asian girl shows up at a bar by herself, I mean just like anywhere else in the world but especially in Asia, she’s DTF, like she’s looking to hook up.

[Angel Donovan]: Sorry, hey man, what does DTF mean?

[David Tian]: Down to…

[Angel Donovan]: Oh, down… Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. [Laughs]

[David Tian]: I learned that from a girl, so…

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: Not being misogynistic there. Yeah, anyway, so she’s looking to hook up, and if you see that capitalize it, but it’s pretty rare for a really hot girl to be there alone at a club. Like if you think in China, they usually have these… The hottest girls are usually with rich dudes who are buying bottles, and the typical Chinese club is just tables after tables after tables and a tiny dance floor.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: And the Chinese guys are playing dice and drinking, because they don’t dance. And there's just a lot of bored-looking Chinese girls sitting around the couch.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: [Laughs] But even if you’re the hottest guy, you approach that group, because of face, because of social circle pressure, she really can’t pay you any attention. She just has to look like a bitch…

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: Or those five-minute interactions, you exchange numbers, just totally down to meet up – as soon as she turns around, those guys can be in her face, the girls can be looking at her like, “You just talked to a random foreigner.” So I don’t mean this to scare any guys off from approaching at clubs in China or at tables, but it is a challenge, like they’re designed in order to ward off random people approaching them, sort of like on a chessboard when they do that, what’s that called? The castle move…

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: And the rook switches places with the king. That's sort of designed to protect the women and for there to be an intimidating presence there. And the key there is, just like with any long-term strategy with any guy who’s going to be doing this for longer than a few months, is that you really need to be building a social that has access, will give you access to cool guys who know hot girls. And once you’re in, it really just opens up much easier, especially in Asia, because it’s just a lot more about peer approval and because of this whole focus on face. It’s just that much more important.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Yeah. Much, much, much more important. Now, I think the other angle is that the signs that you’re reading from girls like these bitch signs like you were just talking about and other signs you get from the women in Asia sometimes can be very easily misinterpreted if you don’t understand the culture, if you don’t understand the kind of the situation you’re standing in. So like in particular, one of the areas I found is like where you don’t feel that the girl’s responding to you, you don’t feel that anything is really going on and it’s not moving forward, because she’s not really giving these signs to you. So is that something that you’ve seen a lot? Are there other kinds of signs and indicators of interest to use that are different from the West?

[David Tian]: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I first started doing this in China, I’d been trained in America, then when I went over I didn’t escalate very much and I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. Then I met this natural who was just amazing. He's from Iran, this Persian guy. He was 24 at the time.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: And he taught me the special type of cave manning. I called it Asian cave manning, which is where at the beginning you don’t touch the girl at all. You just sort of stick your face out there and you’re just meeting with your vibe. But once she accepts your presence, you can basically start cave manning at that point. So you put your arm around her shoulder, you bring her in and you just lead, lead, lead. And so I thought, “Well, I’ve got nothing to lose,” because I’m not getting anywhere waiting for what I then thought of as IOI, because I wasn’t getting any of those. So I might as well give this a shot, and if I get slapped then I’ll know I went too far. [Laughs]

So I started doing that, and then they just… So when I’m talking to them they look down or they’ll look away, or they'll do the shy thing or they’ll look disinterested. Then I put my arm around them, and suddenly they kind of look at me sheepishly but then they look back down, and I can just start doing stuff and I don’t get any resistance. And I’m thinking, “Wow, this is interesting. I’d never seen this happen in Michigan.” But it was a lot of just understanding the way that…

Yeah, I think a lot of it was the Asian romance as they grew up, like things like they didn’t have the Hollywood imprinting about how a man and a woman should be courting each other. So they’re just kind of clueless about this. Or they’ve been watching the typical Asian dramas where there's the shy girl…

[Angel Donovan]: Right. And then you have like, you know, if you look at those kinds of dramas, it’s always the guy who wants to do everything, right?

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: And so I think it’s just… You do see this sometimes in the West, and of course when we talk about Western dating you have to lead and all of this, but it just becomes really, really important in Asia because you’re never going to get the girl who kind of like takes the situation in hand. And she’s actually going to look like she’s resisting if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Because a lot of guys, if the girl was just standing there and she’s kind of not responding and not saying anything, they’ll think, “Well, this girl’s completely not into me.”

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: But, of course, sometimes that could be the case. However, oftentimes it’s just as you’re saying because she’s shy and you’ve just got to kind of warm the situation up and it takes a bit longer.

[David Tian]: Yeah. Yeah. Like you’ll never get… Well, I shouldn’t say never. It’s rarer to get a girl just looking deeply into your eyes when you first meet and for her to have this deep conversation with you, getting really excited and touching you. Like these are things that happen pretty commonly as signs of interest in the West, but in traditional cultures in Asia, it’s too masculine to be like that. It’s very masculine to stare someone down in the eyes and to interject in the conversation or to speak, or even to laugh loudly is considered unfeminine. They’ll cover their mouths when they’re laughing. A lot of these signs that we typically look for in the West of excitability or buying temperature are different.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: So one of the big inner game shifts or the mindset shifts that my clients have to experience, even Asian guys in Asia who have maybe read too much Western pickup stuff, is that as long as she’s there, standing there, and especially if she’s facing you, like direction of her hips, she’s into you. Like pretty much everything she’s doing is because she’s into you, unless she really just walks away. If she’s still there, just keep going and assume that she’s into this.

[Angel Donovan]: You know, that point you just made there, as long as she’s still there and she’s like facing you, is probably the biggest thing I learned that changed things for me in China, because it’s so simple but it kind of goes against what I learned in the West, which was you get a lot of signs, the girl starts hitting you, all sorts of stuff like that.

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: And now like it’s funny when I go to London and New York because it’s hyper-hyper-obvious when a girl likes me now.

[David Tian]: Yeah…

[Angel Donovan]: It almost feels like she shouldn’t be sharing like so much, like everyone’s going to be like seeing how you’re reacting, you know. And now I’m overly sensitive to it…

[David Tian]: [Laughs] Yeah. Wait. You're over sensitive to it? [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: Slow down, slow down.

[Angel Donovan]: Well, you say that, right? But I was in South Africa—just like a little story here—I was in South Africa, and African women are more, how would you say, more aggressive?

[David Tian]: Uh-huh.

[Angel Donovan]: You know, just like if you have more testosterone, you’re going to be more active…

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm. Right.

[Angel Donovan]: …and African women due to their ethnicity have a little bit more testosterone than other women. All women have it. And I kind of like that now, so I have had a couple of African girlfriends. But the first time like I approached some African girl and she kind of, you know, she responded… Well, she basically got in my face.

[David Tian]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: It scared the hell out of me. I was like, “I’m getting uncomfortable right now.” I’m not used to…

[David Tian]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: And that's just because I'm coming from Asia, the other extreme.

[David Tian]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: I was just like, what’s going on? This doesn’t work like this.

[David Tian]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: Like you’ve got stuff like, “Oh, maybe she’s a hooker,” going through your head.

[David Tian]: Oh yeah. Yeah. It even turns me off because what we’re saying is sure, the majority of the time, but you will still find women in Asia who have defied norms, social norms, throughout their lives. So you’ll find extremes in Asia, right? And so one of these extremes is a girl who’s just out there and goes for what she wants. And whenever I’ve had that, the first three times I met a girl like that, I thought she was a hooker, so I was asking questions like, “Are you working? Are you working right now?” [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: It took like four or five times till I realized that that was pretty rude. I was like throwing away opportunities… [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: Did you make them lose face? [Laughs]

[David Tian]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: Maybe just slightly.

[David Tian]: [00:26:24]

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Just to be clear, guys, if you ask that question in Asia, you’re probably going to make them lose face and it’s going to kill…

[David Tian]: [Laughs] Not a great question to ask.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, not a great question. So you know, kind of related to this escalation and her not showing signs, like what I thought about is like we see Asian women as a lot more feminine. A lot of guys like the facts that the Asian women have a very feminine culture, particularly in Asia still, which is different from the West. Some guys are attracted to that and they like it. Would you say that's like kind of true, like what you see in the culture over there?

[David Tian]: Yeah. A lot of the Asian mystique around Asian women is the fact that they are so feminine. I think they’re hyper-feminized, just like, I mean, African American males are hyper-masculinized in the pop culture. So that's one of the major appeals of meeting Asian women.

The more modern of women, in terms of the stereotypical modern woman, actually we’ll find a lot of these office-lady types in many Asian cities, and they might not be quite so feminine. But by and large, yeah, we’re looking at the shy behaviors, the feminine body movements, the delicacy that they have, the way that they move. That's pretty true, I found.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. And I think the point that becomes important to understand is apart from the fact that it’s a very interesting characteristic and something that, you know, if you haven’t experienced before, something that is worthwhile exploring maybe, is that you could see that femininity and those attributes and those characteristics as kind of like a lack of sexuality that you kind of see in the West, and that kind of makes you think, “Oh, she’s not interested in sex,” or “She’s not going to be as sexual.”

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: What would you say about that?

[David Tian]: Yeah, I coach a lot of Asian guys, so I think that they too are a little bit more on the feminine side of things just as men, and I think they suffer in pop culture from being overly feminized. So I think they understand that just because you’re feminine doesn’t mean you’re not wild in bed. And you know, one of the tropes in Western literature is the good girl who turns into the bad girl in bed, or this Madonna/whore complex that we have.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: And it’s definitely fulfilled in the fantasies of men who are chasing Asian women. And it’s true, I think actually the more conservative they are often means that the more that they’ll be malleable when they get into the bedroom. Whereas the ones who release all of their sexual energy in the club or the way they dress might not be quite so energetic. I mean, it’s sort of like they have all this pent-up sexual energy, and in any society where it’s a little bit repressed in some way, sexually repressed, then when you actually get them behind closed doors and the taboos are allowed, it gets that much more extreme.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally, and it’s one of the great things about Asia, I think, is you have that juxtaposition I think where, you know… So if you’re an Asian and you have an Asian girlfriend and you’re thinking that the sex should be kind of more traditional or that you shouldn’t be doing some things, you’re probably wrong and she probably actually wants the exact opposite. So you’re kind of reading that wrong because of the 'good girl' image.

[David Tian]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: And as you say, the repression is a big thing. It really does come out in great ways, great energetic ways. So it’s something that you’d kind of be denying her if you don’t take control.

[David Tian]: Yeah, and I think you do have to lead more though.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: But she needs to know that she has permission to be this way. I think society has looked down on that sort of behavior for so long…

[Angel Donovan]: That's a nice, good point.

[David Tian]: Yeah, you do have to be more dominant there.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, and I guess it’s setting the frame, because you know, judging people, like in the West we talk about like you should never judge girls, right? And you should never judge someone in a relationship and stuff because it doesn’t allow for open communication and the development of a relationship.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: In Asia I’d say this is even more important, and what I do, I don’t know if you do this, like I’ve got a Korean girlfriend at the moment and she’s quite young, so she actually hasn’t had many sexual experiences. So I made a very proactive stance to open her mind sexually when we were going out together, and I've completely unjudging and very open to talk about everything very openly so that she could follow that frame. You’re kind of leading with the frame. You’re saying, “Hey, it’s alright to talk about all this stuff,” right? And at first they give a better resistance, because socially it’s not what they’ve learned in the past, but if you just stay very relaxed about it and you don’t judge her by anything and you say everything’s cool, then she’ll really get into it. And it’s amazing how she’s blossomed into this extremely passionate young girl.

[David Tian]: Nice. Yeah, a big part of talking about sex, well, sexual topics, in Asia is just to be very clinical about it, like you never want to show that it’s because you’re horny or anything.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[David Tian]: Or doing it just behind her back, but to just behave this is something that adults do, “Check this out,” and “What do you think?”

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: And then just talking about it in a very matter-of-fact tone, making it look like the frame is that this is a normal part of adult life, what’s wrong with people, you know, “I don’t understand people who don’t get this,” and that’ll really open… I mean, that's also the advantage for them dating foreigners, because if they’ve dated a foreigner, if they’re dating a foreigner, that means they’ve taken that step to accepting a new world, and then they haven’t defined the boundary of where that new world ends, and part of this new world is often sexual. And so they’re open to experiencing new foods, new dress, new culture, new language, and new sexual techniques or sexual behavior.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Yeah, and you kind of brought up a topic that we hadn’t touched on, which becomes more important as you go to, how would you say, less internationalized basis, is that if you’re a foreigner, and as we were saying earlier, if you approach a girl, but if you’re a foreigner it’s going to have a bigger impact because it’s more unusual, right?

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: So there's kind of more social pressure on her, and if she’s not actually dating a foreigner, it’s kind of a big step for her in terms of doing something different because she’s expected to kind of like date the locals. So she’s already standing out and she might not feel comfortable with that person. You have to be aware of it.

[David Tian]: Right, right. So we go back to our very first concept we were talking about with face.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[David Tian]: Just dating a foreigner, like being seen with one hand in hand or on some kind of date-like activity, or even actually not even a date-like activity, just looking like you’re close friends, it’s a social statement.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: It’s still the case, I think, in Korea and Japan and China, even though these are very modernized places. As a foreigner, you still have to be aware of that dynamic of the outsider/insider.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So does this apply to ethnic Chinese like yourself or is it only for caucasians?

[David Tian]: Yeah, until we open our mouths, [laughs] we can go under the radar. But we dress differently…

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[David Tian]: Depending on how you dress, but we can look just like the locals. But if they see you talking together… But the other thing too is, so for those Asian guys who are thinking about meeting women in their heritage country, it’s a really big plus there for you because what the locals will think isn’t that you’re a foreigner. They’ll treat you as a local who’s coming back. So I kept getting that everywhere in China and Taiwan, “You know, you’re one of ours.” They keep reminding me that, “You’re Chinese and it’s so nice to have you back in our country.” And they’ll even thank the girl for rescuing me back from the West. [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: And keeping me here “where he belongs” sort of thing. But if I’m meeting women in Japan and dating a Japanese girl, I don’t think I’d benefit from that association.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, yeah.

[David Tian]: So that's just, yeah, a minor benefit for me there. [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, I think it’s interesting you bring that up because, I mean, like obviously if you’re going to a place like China, with the socioeconomic backgrounds, a lot of people making less money than you, which isn’t necessarily true in Shanghai today. Some people are doing very well themselves.

[David Tian]: That brings up a really great point, because we’re talking about the misconception that Asian girls are easy and we started off with talking about how you have to maintain face and we’re talking about how when we go back to the West we can be sloppy.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[David Tian]: And so I think one of the reasons why there's this misconception is because it’s formed in the West when Westerners are hitting on tourists or foreign students who are there to have an experience, sort of like a spring break experience. But also for those men who go to third-world countries, so China used to be one of those, let's say in the nineties definitely and in the early part of the 2000s, and even now in some of the smaller cities, where girls are looking for a passport out or a plane ticket, so you have that, girls looking for a husband, and this can make it very easy for you to hook up if you’re a white guy or a foreign guy. But in the big cities like Shanghai, even if they’re making a lot less than you, the girls, there are guys that—so the hottest girls will be hounded, like will be looking for the top 1% guy.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[David Tian]: And in Shanghai, with 20 million or more, we’re not even talking the top 1% guy because that's a shitload of people. We’re talking about the top 0.1% guy or higher who has the means and the connections. And it’s usually pretty tricky nowadays for a foreigner to come into Shanghai and show off his wealth.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: If he's not able to do that in New York, he's not going to be able to do that in Shanghai.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, because it’s expensive, right?

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: I mean, if you want to take on these tables, you know, it’s got the whole bottle service concept down, right?

[David Tian]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: The same way as the US.

[David Tian]: Right, yeah. The bottles are going to be cheaper than in the States generally, but that doesn’t mean you can compete, [laughs] because the guy next to you, the Chinese next to you, will have three magnums, three canons and is going to have a Hummer waiting for him outside.

[Angel Donovan]: Exactly, yeah. It’s quite amazing the amount of wealth there. And I think it’s also fair to say that the socioeconomic background of someone is actually kind of more important in that environment because it’s something that been scarce for so long.

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: So everyone in China is focused on building wealth right now, right? All of my Chinese friends, they’re building their empires, and you know, the same reason we went there, kind of like it was the China gold rush, right? So everyone went there, it’s about investment, it’s about business. And so they’re all excelling in that area where before basically there wasn’t all this capital, there wasn’t all this money. Everyone was kind of the same.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: So it’s really a differentiating factor now. So I think you do see, you know, not in a bad way, but it is something that's important. And your security, what they call security, is also seen as important. So, are you financially stable? So you can get more judged on it, and I think what some foreigners get wrong is like they come to Shanghai and they don’t have a lot of wealth, they don’t see that aspect of it and they’re not seeing that element play out.

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Sometimes you have to, you know, if you don’t have that kind of money, you have to compensate in other ways.

[David Tian]: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, that's a really good point. It’s one that I don’t like to dwell on because I’d have to end up admitting that Asian societies are extremely materialistic.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: But I’ve noticed this. I see dating coaches coming in from overseas, from America, from London and the UK, and they want to do, for instance, daytime approaches, and they’re dressed in a T-shirt and jeans and they’re approaching the girls in the Gucci and the Pradas…

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Right, right.

[David Tian]: And immediately, you know, for daytime you have to make them stop. So your first impression is actually really important. And I’ve seen them get waved away. You know, they don’t even give them the time of day.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: And largely, they don’t even get to have their game, like they can’t even get a word out, and it’s because they just don’t look high-value.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup, yup, yup. Your first impression is very important in those scenarios.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think also there's… So even in New York there are subcultures of like the hippies and the people who are into the Buddha and meditation, and so they don’t want to seem materialistic. But in Asia there isn’t a strong anti-materialistic strain.

[Angel Donovan]: That's true, yeah. There's nothing to stop it.

[David Tian]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: So it lets itself out more because you don’t have that kind of social barrier pushing back on it.

[David Tian]: Totally, yeah. And people are just proud of it. They just don’t see why they could be wrong to want 50 LV bags or whatever.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. I mean, I think it’s just a question of like economic development, right?

[David Tian]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: The Western countries went for economic development earlier, so they went through… You know, we used to talk about the yuppies, right? In England.

[David Tian]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: I don’t know if you had that in the US, but yuppies were the guys who did exactly the same in the UK, that they had all this money, they were throwing it around, and it was a known segment, right? And yeah, China and these other places are just going for that same…

[David Tian]: That's right, yeah. So yeah, that's the case in Japan. You’re right, because Japan’s been having wealth much longer, and they have a lot of cool subcultures like the skaters, and you know, they have a lot of cool subcultures. But yeah, in China, and even in Taiwan—a buddy of mine just went there and he was like really shocked that it wasn’t working the way it usually does for him in the West. Yeah, well, you might be hearing all these Asian girls are easy, but when you’re aiming for the hottest girls, the kind of competition that you’re dealing with will often put you into the status and power and money race.

And you need to just get your foot in the door. So it doesn’t take that much to just be presentable and for her to give you a chance, and then you can let your game, as far as your verbal and nonverbal skills, take over. But you have to look the part.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup, totally. Alright, so David, this has been a great talk. I just want to touch on one thing before we go because we spoke about this being important before we started this, is calibrating touch with Asian women.

[David Tian]: Yeah. Well, this came to a head very recently for me last month, a few weeks ago.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: I was at this club and my girlfriend was there, and we were in different parts of the club because we were working. She’s a coach as well. We were working with different people. So she was dancing with her cousin and her cousin’s boyfriend on the dance floor, and this group of five or six guys—who I later realized were from a small-time dating skills company locally—surrounded them and were shouting, “Hug! Hug! Hug! Hug!” So I don’t know if you might notice this technique from other coaches, but this is not that uncommon.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: So, to exert the peer pressure and just make it happen. So they were going, “Hug! Hug! Hug!” but they had surrounded them. And it’s important to realize that attractive women in their childhood and youth have all experienced some level of sexual trauma, like maybe some family member got too frisky with them or some teacher or something, and to trigger any of those anchors is really bad. So one way to trigger that anchor is to surround them with guys. And it was towards the end of the night, so the dance floor wasn’t super-crowded.

So they just kept ignoring them, trying to ignore them, and then after a while I guess the guys realized they weren’t going to get a hug. So he grabbed my girlfriend’s wrist, like forcibly trying to… and said, “Come with me,” and starting walking and dragging her…

[Angel Donovan]: Wow.

[David Tian]: So she shook off his hand and said, “You know, I know exactly what you guys are doing and you suck.”

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: She basically told him, “Have you heard of Aura Dating Academy?” [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: “Well yeah, I’m one of their coaches.” And he was like, “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.” He tried to pretend like he didn’t know, but then he's like, “Oh yeah, David’s outside.” [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: Like yeah, you know. The boyfriend never gets any respect. Whatever.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: So what was interesting to me was those five or six guys, they were all Singaporean, but they were trained under this guy from a small-time company who the head of that company is based in Texas.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[David Tian]: And you can do this, like we were saying, you can be sloppy in America, you can cave man a lot harder, you can grab a girl over the shoulder and you can put over your shoulder and walk out and laugh, you can pick a girl up and swing her around on the dance floor in the West, in many places, not all, but in Asia there's a much bigger polite zone. People are used to paying more attention to personal space.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. You know, as you’re saying this, what I’m thinking is, I mean, tell me if this is nonsense or whatever, but the way I’m thinking of it is it’s kind of like in Asia, it’s like you should approach girls like they’re higher-value than they are, like compared to the West.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm. Right.

[Angel Donovan]: Whereas in the West you can be more sloppy with their social value.

[David Tian]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: So if you approach girls like they’re celebrities in Asia, you’re going to do really well because you’re going to get past all of this politeness and all of these… Because it’s kind of like Asians are more socially sensitive as well, so they kind of get this… They have a greater social intuition, and so you can lower your value quite easily and mess it up.

[David Tian]: Oh yeah, totally. Yeah, right. They’re much more socially sensitive. So yeah, if you treat a woman with respect, you’ll do really well. Like one of the first times I learned this was back in 2006. I met this Iranian guy I was telling you about.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: He's the type of guy where we walk into a club, I get a text message, I look down at my phone, check my phone, and I look up and he's making out with some girl.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: But he's pulled off into the bathroom and comes out of the bathroom five minutes later. [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: Wow, that was quick. Anyway, so in the first week we went out. We were talking to this girl and she had a necklace. She had a really interesting pendant. So I pulled on the pendant and took a look at it. Now, this is a normal thing to do just because there's this idea that you want to get kino or you want to get touch early on.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[David Tian]: So some guys just like, “Oh, I got to touch her,” and that's their mentality. So that was mine back then too. So I grabbed them like, “Oh, cool. I got to touch her a little bit.”

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: And then he slapped my hand right in front of her and said, “Don’t touch her.” And I’m like, “What?” And so he puts his hands in front of him sort of like a schoolgirl pose and covering his crotch, and leans forward sticking his lips out and says, “I’m in love with you.”

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: Like, “I’m in love with you.” And she didn’t know what he was saying. So she says to me in Chinese, “[speaks in Chinese]?” So it’s like, “He wants to make love with me?” And then I told him that. He's like, “No, no, no. I don’t want to make love with you. I’m in love with you.” [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[David Tian]: So then they went off later, the two of them. So I was like, “Okay, this is interesting.” So he doesn’t touch at the beginning like I was saying, right?

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: He's respectful of their space and everything.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: But he just puts himself out there. And this is a very specific style, obviously, but I took that lesson to be that you don’t need to get touched early and often in Asia if you get attraction.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. And I think you can get that attraction more easily with the verbal communication and so on if you’re doing it well.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So now, you know, eye contact and…

[Angel Donovan]: Almost because—you were talking about repression earlier in sexuality. I remember one of the things I found was that I would kind of like game a girl and trying to get her to react and she’d look like, you know, she'd have the shy look, not really reacting, and then after a little while she’d kind of explode in emotion, right? So it was like it was this repressed… It was kind of like that repressed emotion that would eventually spill out, and then it’s okay to start kinoing and…

[David Tian]: Oh, that's great, yeah. Yeah. That's right. So you build up the sexual tension. So if you just get that eye contact and the sexual thoughts going but you don’t touch her yet, when you finally do she explodes.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. So I’ll give you, I mean, this is really interesting. This is way back in 2003 when this first happened to me. I was just like, “What’s going on?” right? I was actually in Nanjing Xi Lu and I was at Plaza 66, which is the big luxury kind mall in Shanghai, and there was this girl. And so I approached her in Starbucks, so it was an easier situation to talk to her, not in the street, back in those days. And we’re talking, and I’m just like, I’m just doing my thing, talking, talking, talking, talking away, and she’s just kind of sitting there and she’s drinking her coffee or whatever. And this goes on for a while, and about 15 minutes or 20 minutes into it—she hadn’t really said anything—all of a sudden she goes, “You’re so cool!” [Laughs]

[David Tian]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: Right? And I was just like, “What happened?” right? Because she hadn’t like shown any sign, and all of a sudden, boom, the emotions kind of spilled out.

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: So what you don’t see is the kind of… You know, in the West they’ll start touch you immediately and everything.

[David Tian]: Mm-hmm. Right.

[Angel Donovan]: Sometimes in the East it does spill out eventually and it kind of comes out in more of a burst, and that's something to watch out for.

[David Tian]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: I don’t want to say that everyone’s like that, but that's kind of how it can happen.

[David Tian]: Yeah. It’s also, yeah, it’s the romantic ideal in Asia too. Like you see this in Western societies, Western movies, that there's this chummy, chummy friends vibe between a guy and a girl…

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[David Tian]: Whereas in Asia that kind of relationship is much more rare, to have like a chummy, chummy guy/girl friend going on. So when a guy and a girl are together, there's still this awkwardness, and part of that is they haven’t lost the sexual tension. Because you know, when a guy and a girl get really chummy, they’re touching each other, hugging each other, but it’s platonic, right? So maybe the guy’s frustrated but the girl feels no sexual tension at all.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[David Tian]: But in Asia, because of that traditional and because of the repression there, there's that underlying, like this boiling underneath of sexual tension. And it’s really cool because you can see this in the Asian cinema, Asian movies, too…

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, totally.

[David Tian]: …is that, yeah, the girl looks down and she’s quiet and silent until the moment arrives. So yeah, I enjoy that.

[Angel Donovan]: I do too.

[David Tian]: It’s a lot more of like back in the Victorian days when you could be able to exploit that.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup. Alright, I’m coming back to Asia next month, man.

[David Tian]: [Laughs] Yeah, man…

[Angel Donovan]: Soon. I’m looking forward to it.

[David Tian]: [Laughs] What took you so long?

[Angel Donovan]: I know! But it was good to see the West again and see what it’s like…

[David Tian]: Yeah, so that you can appreciate Asia even more. [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: Right. No, but wherever you are around the world, you know, I love all countries. I’ve lived around and I have to love all countries differently, but there's definitely something to be said for Asia.

[David Tian]: Yeah. Well, come visit us in Singapore and in Thailand and wherever we are in China.

[Angel Donovan]: Totally. Just look us up. David, this has been amazing call. Tons of really interesting discussion…

[David Tian]: Yeah, great.

[Angel Donovan]: …that I’ve never seen written or published anywhere, so I’m sure it’s got a lot of value to the guys. And yeah, great, looking forward to see you, man.

[David Tian]: Alright, yeah, me too. Thanks for the invitation. Can’t wait to hook up again.