Lonely hearts get lessons in love

Ruan Qi, 43, is a professional dating consultant who makes a living teaching men how to woo women.

"That pair of pants is much better. Remember, never show up with shorts if it's your first date," says the life coach to his 20-something student Zhang Weidong.

Zhang paid 4,980 yuan ($811) for Ruan's three-day course including theory and practical classes to learn how to pick up, and chat up, girls.

Ruan Qi (third from right) gives instructions to one of his students on how to chat with girls at a Shanghai subway station. [Gao Erqiang / China Daily]

Zhang, a factory worker from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, came to Shanghai on the weekend especially for the costly training. "The tuition is as much as one month's salary," says Zhang. "It was painful to spend so much money on this but I think it's worth the money as I'm learning lifelong skills."

With only a primary school education, Zhang refers to himself as "diaosi" which refers to a specific group of young men from humble backgrounds who do not have well-paid jobs or good looks.

Zhang says he's not good at "dealing with girls". "I'm too shy to talk to any of them and the tricks I learned from the Internet aren't working in reality, things such as telling the girl I can read palms to tell her fortune in order to hold her hands," he says.

Ruan says Zhang is typical of his students.

"They call themselves ‘diaosi' in a self-deprecating manner to distinguish themselves from young men who are born into decent families — the ‘tall, rich, handsome' wouldn't come to me for help in the first place," says Ruan, a Beijing native who graduated with a degree in psychology from China's top college, Peking University.