In China, socialite boot camps promising to transform ordinary women into marriage material for billionaires have come up.
At $5,000 per course, these programs don’t teach women how to become wealthy: they teach them how to appear wealthy enough to attract it.
The phenomenon gained attention when a suspicious photograph surfaced showing Amy, who reportedly operates one such boot camp. She was seen alongside Luna and Moka Fang: two ordinary women who married famous Chinese actors.
Luna worked as a flight attendant before marrying Taiwanese-American star Wilbur Pan, while model Mocha Fang wed actor Aaron Kwok. The picture sparked speculation that these marriages weren’t fairy tales but carefully orchestrated social climbing operations.
China’s massive wealth concentration creates the perfect environment for this industry. The country has between 450 and 1,000 billionaires, depending on methodology, and nearly 6.5 million millionaires, which is second only to the United States. These boot camps promise access to that world.
The curriculum spans three core modules. First, physical transformation: participants receive makeup tutorials mimicking celebrities like Angelababy, color palettes that signal wealth, and wardrobe advice emphasizing timeless neutrals over trendy logos. Some programs even recommend cosmetic procedures to achieve the desired look.
Module two focuses on movement and behavior. Students learn proper posture, how to walk gracefully, voice modulation techniques including strategic pauses, and even the correct angle for tilting one’s head,. They practice eating refined foods, describing flavors with elaborate vocabulary, and sprinkling English phrases into conversations to appear sophisticated.
The third module addresses digital presence. Participants stage photo sessions in rented luxury hotel suites, sharing photographers and props with classmates. The result: Instagram feeds filled with identical images. Same hotels, same handbags, same poses, these are all designed to project effortless wealth while requiring enormous effort.
This concept isn’t entirely new. Europe has maintained finishing schools for centuries, Russia operates “princess schools,” and Eastern Europe runs bride agencies training women for wealthy foreign husbands.
America has its own sugar baby coaching services. Historically, finishing schools even served military purposes. During World War II, Britain’s Special Operations Executive used them to train female spies whose social poise enabled intelligence operations.
The poster child for this phenomenon became Ye Ke, an influencer whose relationship with superstar Huang Xiaoming appeared to validate the boot camp promise. Following his divorce from Angelababy, Huang pursued Ye Ke, whose carefully constructed online persona embodied everything these courses teach. Their relationship seemed proof that the system worked.
But Ye Ke’s viral cake-tasting video exposed the performance behind her polish. Her excessive use of English words, including substituting the verb “do” into Chinese sentences when simpler options existed, revealed the training. Public opinion turned swiftly. Her manufactured lifestyle, once admirable, suddenly felt fraudulent.
Chinese authorities have recently moved to crack down on so-called “CEO romance” micro-dramas. Critics argue that these short-form shows, which glamorize ordinary women marrying billionaire businessmen, feed the same delusions of effortless upward mobility these boot camps capitalize on.
These booth camps offer underprivileged women tools to access elite circles otherwise closed to them. Yet they also reinforce systems where female worth ties directly to appearance and performance, where landing a wealthy husband represents the ultimate achievement.
