By ADAM CENTURY
Published: August 5, 2011
CHANGSHA, China
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Han Yuanjiang
On the popular Chinese dating show “Day Day Up” last month, from left, Ou Di, Lucy Lu, Qian Feng and Adam Century.
THE object of my affection was within reach. Yu Wanlin, a former winner of the Miss Chongqing beauty pageant, stood across from me on the set of “Day Day Up,” a Chinese dating show with more than 100 million viewers. She blushed when our eyes locked, accepted my invitation to dance goofily onstage and giggled promisingly when I inquired about Chongqing’s culinary treats.
Then, in a comparison that left me speechless, she told me I bore a striking resemblance to Jesus. I had close-cropped hair and little more than a 5 o’clock shadow. Despite Ms. Yu’s assurances that she had meant to flatter — “Jesus was in fact a very handsome man” — I could manage but a bewildered gaze in return. With an intimation of my impending mortification, I faced the camera head-on and plunged into the alternate universe of Chinese dating shows.
My embarrassing fate should not have come as a surprise. As a freelance writer who has lived on and off in Beijing for the past several years, I’ve watched Chinese dating shows develop a reputation for their intentionally humiliating formats and emphasis on materialism. In April 2010 a male suitor asked Ma Nuo, a contestant on the hit “If You Are the One,” whether she would be willing to ride on the back of his bicycle. She infamously replied, “I would rather cry in the back of a BMW.”
While Westerners may imagine Chinese television as a staid remnant of the Communist-controlled information system, the reality is that more than a decade of media commercialization has made television here — particularly provincial satellite channels with national audiences — provocative, even by Western standards.
Satellite outlets like Hunan TV, the creator of “Day Day Up” and the second-most-watched station in all of China, often face less stringent censorship regulations than China Central Television, known as CCTV, allowing the smaller, decentralized outlets to challenge CCTV for ratings supremacy.
Nowhere has this regulatory divide been more apparent than in the realm of dating shows, which populate the provincial channels but remain largely off limits for CCTV. “If You Are the One” has been at the forefront of the divisive new genre. In that show 24 women are presented with a succession of handsome men. The bachelors then undergo an intrusive and ego-deflating round of questioning in which bank statements are often exhibited and salaries made public.
The show’s debut on Jiangsu TV last year prompted a number of imitators. The episode of “Day Day Up” that I appeared on last month featured seven foreign men trying their romantic luck with an equal number of stiletto-wearing Chinese women.
The show opened with a test of superficial impressions. Before we even had a chance to talk with the objects of our affection, we had to choose our favorite based on curves and smile alone and present her with a bouquet of roses. Empty-handed, the least popular woman defensively declared, “Foreign men are not my vegetables,” implying that she intended to stick to a strictly domestic diet in the future.
Beneath the glossy veneer of a dating show the program felt more like a clichéd confrontation between Chinese and foreign cultures. The male wooers were given placards typecasting our identities: I was a “shining American,” whatever that meant; the South Korean was the “stay-at-home introvert”; and the British contestant was obviously the “gentleman.” More difficult to label were the Ukrainian kung fu master and the Syrian gynecology student who moonlighted as a male model in Beijing. We spanned seven countries and four continents, an array meant to underscore not diversity but the perceived incompatibility of foreign men and Chinese women.
“Foreigners are usually used on Chinese television in order to highlight China’s cultural discord with the outside world,” Miao Di, a professor of television arts at the China Communications University in Beijing, told me. “All shows use foreign guests occasionally as a fresh injection of entertainment.”
This subtext became much clearer after the show was edited. (On that score, at least, the Chinese producers are no different from their American counterparts, who are routinely accused of manipulating reality via editing.) When the hosts — reminiscent of Austin Powers in their capris and pinstriped shirts with sunflower-adorned lapels — asked me what type of woman I like, I carefully emphasized independent personality and literary taste. This was distilled into a crude “I like bigger, curvy women.” The post-production “Ahhh” from the crowd made my answer sound like a kind of revelation, as if all American men shared a predilection for the plus-sized.
Similarly, the interview with the Syrian contestant lasted roughly 20 minutes, but the post-production version was cut to about 30 seconds and focused solely on his religious polygamy. On the broadcast he’s shown half-jokingly asking a female contestant if she would be willing to become his fourth wife, the limit under Sharia law. “In China we have equality between men and women, so absolutely not,” the woman stiffly replied.
My nadir was still to come. In the finale, when the Korean and I both picked Miss Chongqing, Lucy, an American-born Chinese woman from Miami, was left dateless and dejected. Her puppylike entreaties tugged at my heartstrings, though, so I moved to her side, earning a relieved smile in return. That’s when she stonily rejected me, to the cackles of the audience.
Going into the show I knew that my chance of success was slim. In this consumerist crowd I had neither property nor a car to my name. And in a country that is 93 percent ethnically Han, outsiders remain something of a novelty whether we like it or not. Miss Chongqing has since befriended me on QQ, China’s largest instant messaging program. “I thought you were going to pick me,” she messaged recently. Perhaps there is hope yet.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 7, 2011, on page AR15 of the New York edition with the headline: Looking for a Date as China Looks On.
纽约时报：一个美国小伙子的中国“相亲”记(图) 综合新闻
美国帅哥讲述中国相亲记，如此尴尬的经历让他一生难忘。
我所钦慕的姑娘触手可及。在中国一档拥有超过1亿观众的相亲节目——《天天向上》的片场上，重庆小姐余婉宁就站在我的对面。当我们双目相交，她面泛酡红；当我邀她上台笨拙地起舞，她一口答应；当我请求品尝重庆美食，她也咯咯笑着允诺。
可她之后的一句话让我哑口无言，她告诉我，我跟耶稣长相神似。我留着一头短发和一下巴胡子渣。尽管她强调说这只是奉承话——“耶稣实际上是个很帅的男人”——我仍然只能报以迷惑的眼神。当初我就做好了遭受凌辱的准备，直面电视镜头，一头扎进中国相亲节目的大坑里。
我的尴尬经历并非意外。作为一个过去几年旅居北京的自由作家，我亲眼看着中国的相亲秀发展成现在这模样：故意羞辱人，并看重物质。在2010年四月的《非诚勿扰》节目中，一位男嘉宾问马诺是否愿意坐到他的自行车后座上，马诺毫不留情地回答：“我宁愿坐在宝马里哭”。
可能在某些西方人眼里，中国电视节目还是政党控制下的信息平台的遗留产物，现实则是，十多年的媒体商业化已把中国的电视产业带到今天这个地步——尤其是收视覆盖全国的省级卫星频道——极富“挑动性”，即便以西方标准来看依旧如此。
全国收视率第二高、并一手创办《天天向上》的湖南卫视就是中国卫星电视台的代表。这些电视台通常比中央电视台CCTV受到更少的审查监管，这样一来，分散的小电视台就能挑战CCTV占据统治地位的收视率。
这种管理的轻重之分在相亲节目上表现得最为淋漓尽致：相亲节目在地方频道受众颇广，在中央电视台则难被视为禁区。《非诚勿扰》为这种新形式的分隔打响了头炮。节目中，一组帅气的小伙子先后接受24名女嘉宾的围观。这些单身汉随后还需经历粗鲁而伤自尊的问答环节，银行结单和工资数额常被公之于众。
这档节目去年在江苏电视台首映，随后便有大批跟风模仿者。我于上月参加了《天天向上》，节目中，七名外国男嘉宾要在七名穿着高跟鞋的中国女子身上寻找桃花运。
节目开场测试了第一印象。甚至在亲口和女方交谈之前，我们就必须通过曲线以及笑容来选出最爱，并送上一束玫瑰。有个在此轮最不受欢迎的姑娘两手空空，她反击道：“外国男人不是我的菜”，言外之意就是她吃定窝边草了。
在相亲秀光彩浮夸的表面之下，这档节目更像是老生常谈的中外文化碰撞。男性追求者们分到人手一板，上面标明自己的身份。我是一个“阳光的美国人”，虽然我有点不知就里；韩国人则是“宅男”；英国嘉宾自然就是“绅士”了。另有乌克兰的功夫大师和叙利亚的妇科学学生（并在北京兼职模特），这俩人就较难归类了。我们来自七大国，四大洲，如此阵容不是为了强调多样性，而在于强调外国男人与中国女人之间显而易见的矛盾。
中国传媒大学的苗棣教授告诉我说：“在中国的电视节目里，外国人通常被用来凸显中外文化的冲突。这类节目都会偶尔请来外国嘉宾，为娱乐性注入新鲜的内容。”
节目的真实意图在其剪辑后昭然若揭。（至少在这点上，中国电视节目制造方和他们的美国同行并无二致，后者经常利用剪辑来篡改真相，因而受到指责。）节目中，主持人——让人依稀觉得是奥斯汀·鲍威斯（《王牌大贱谍》）穿上了紧身裤和领子上饰有向日葵图样的条纹衬衫——询问我喜欢哪种类型的姑娘，我小心地强调了独立的个性和文学品位。但这些内容都被选择性消失，只剩下一句“我喜欢丰满有曲线的女人”。后期制作还配上了观众“啊~~”的惊唿声，好像我的回答揭示了某种现实——所有美国人都偏爱大号女人。
同样，和叙利亚青年的对话持续了约20分钟，但剪辑后的版本只剩30秒，唯独对准的他宗教上一夫多妻的部分。在播出的片段中，他半开玩笑地问一名女嘉宾是否可以成为他的第四房——伊斯兰教法规定的上限。那个女子冷冷回答：“在中国男女是平等的，所以一定不会。”
我的倒霉事还没完。在节目尾声，我和韩国人都选择了重庆小姐，而生在迈阿密的Lucy则无人问津、郁郁不乐。她小孩似的哀求扯动着我的心弦，于是我选择了她，并被她报以嫣然一笑。就在这时，她冷冷地拒绝了我，引起观众一片哄笑。
参加节目之时，我就知道成功的几率微乎其微。在这群信奉消费主义的姑娘面前，我既没有房又没有车。在这个汉族人口高达93%的国家，外来人口依然是新鲜玩意，不管你乐不乐意。重庆小姐从此将我从QQ上踢掉。她最近给我发信息说：“我以为你会选我。”也许还有戏吧。
