ABSTRACT
Extramarital relationships are a fact of life in most societies, and China is no exception. As the following story illustrates, certain aspects of Chinese extramarital relationships are culturally unique. A senior executive told us that he once attended a dinner party in Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi. During the dinner, he noticed a female undergraduate student go out of her way to flirt with a middle-aged businessman whom she had just met for the first time. When our informant saw her again a few years later, he discovered that this young college student had agreed to be the businessman’s mistress for three years in exchange for an apartment and a car, thus achieving her objective for attending the dinner party.
