TanTan is very popular among Chinese users. I tried it in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan. It fits into the broader dating in Asia picture, but it has its own traps.
The profiles are lower quality than on Bumble, and there is a lot of scam and paid love out there. If you go in, go in with low expectations and a sharp eye.
TanTan Premium and Boosts
You can buy TanTan Premium to see who liked you. As far as I remember, there is a separate, cheaper package that only shows the people who liked you. It is worth taking that one instead of paying for the full Premium.
Boosts are a waste. They promote you to the entire world, so you end up getting likes from other countries. That is not what you want if your goal is to meet someone locally.
Scams and Traps
They will try to scam you. A common one goes like this: a “single mom” contacts you and pushes to meet immediately for sex. She keeps the conversation about sex and hookups to turn off your brain.
When you are ready to meet, she says she wants you to bring condoms and an Apple Gift Card to keep her kids busy while she is with you. Then she asks you to send the gift card code first, so she can set the kids up with a game before she leaves to see you. Once you send the code, she disappears.
An easy way to avoid scams is to filter out non-verified profiles and empty profiles with only one or two photos. Scammers don’t bother filling out a profile.
Hookers
They reach out to you, you chat a little, and it turns out she is “traveling alone” and down to meet right now. But “she charges”. The photos are fake, so even if you agree, the girl who shows up will not be the girl in the pictures.
Who You Meet by Country
It really depends on the country.
In Japan, Japanese girls don’t use TanTan. The women you find there are tourists from Southeast Asia: the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. The upside is that most of them speak English.
In China, the girls mostly don’t speak English on TanTan. It is not easy to meet someone if you don’t know Mandarin, but you can still try. The same language barrier rules apply here: keep it simple, use translation when needed, and do not turn the chat into an exam.
In Hong Kong and Macau, there are a lot of Indonesian and Philippinian women who work as live-in housemaids. They usually get only one day off, Sunday, and can’t sleep away from their host family’s home. Many of them are also Muslim. Some of muslim girls on TanTan tend to be modern, but they grew up in a conservative Islamic society, so don’t expect too much. If your goal is to increase the body count, this is not the group for you. Swipe left.
Filipina women are more open to tourists and to relationships with foreigners. Be gentle and generous with them, and you’ll get what you want.
Bottom Line
TanTan can work, but it is noisy. Filter hard, ignore the boosts, and assume that anyone pushing to meet “right now” is selling something. If you keep your expectations low and your guard up, you’ll occasionally find a real match. For most local women, though, I still get better results on Bumble.