I want to add one more thing to this because it's pissing me off, because I know of these type of teachers that fall for preying on their students (for some the students are under 21 and it's not really all that different when you are talking about 1 or 2 years), and what often starts with 1 student quickly becomes 2 or 3…

So let me ask you this question. Is a 23 or24 year old girl to old for you?

If your answer is no, as it should be, than you can meet a Chinese lady who has already graduated from university. They are everywhere. If you can't meet one than you either are not appealing enough, OR you are not trying. Nobody is going to complain if you are dating a young woman with a job who has graduated. That really and truly is two adults (well, more or less). I've taught in a public university for 3 years, and I can tell you there's an enormous difference between freshmen and seniors.

So, unless the young, educated, independent women will have nothing to do with you, there's really no reason to date students. Thus, you must firstly admit to yourself that you are for whatever reason unable to meet a young adult who is independent and educated, and further you are desperate enough to turn to students where you work to find female companionship. Worse still is you distort reality to find excuses to justify taking advantage of a situation which was never intended to be an arena for older Western teachers to pick sexual provender from.

Additionally, those students always have their exams and are busy. You risk damaging their education by taking them away from their studies. I hope you don't think you are teaching them valuable lessons about the adult world or, to use another poster's ridiculous claim "sexually liberating" them. In fact, you are interfering with their ability to succeed in university by distracting them from their studies, and quite likely causing them emotional turmoil, embarrassment, confusion, and you name it. That probably doesn't matter to you, because you haven't thought about it. Mostly you are thinking about the tingly sensation you are getting from being so close to a barely legal girl. Gimmie a break. Grow up.

So, I say, you want to date a beautiful young Chinese woman? You like young women? Fine. Go out and find one. If you fail. If they don't like you. Then you can think about what you really must have to offer to students in the romantic realm. You will know for certain at that time that they are ONLY dating you because you are a Western teacher.

There's no excuse to not date outside the university. None at all. I don't want to hear, "they don't speak English." I lived in a tiny city, by Chinese standards, and there were plenty of young women who spoke English, including scores of college graduates from the previous years.

#1 Rule for teachers in China = Don't try to date the students (it's just as pathetic as doing it in the West). If you do, you are weak, cowardly, pathetic, and a hypocrite (because I know damned well there's no way, if you had a 21 year old daughter, you'd be happy with her sleeping with her 44 year old transient foreign language teacher from some other country, who is divorced… You'd want her to meet someone appropriate and not just be the sex-pet of some middle-aged dude who justifies it by how turned on he gets).

Cheers.