共產檔
MISH - MASH
正文
Looking for a Date as China Looks On
By ADAM CENTURY
Published: August 5, 2011
CHANGSHA, China
Enlarge This Image
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.
紐約時報：一個美國小夥子的中國“相親”記(圖) 綜合新聞
美國帥哥講述中國相親記，如此尷尬的經曆讓他一生難忘。
我所欽慕的姑娘觸手可及。在中國一檔擁有超過1億觀眾的相親節目——《天天向上》的片場上，重慶小姐餘婉寧就站在我的對麵。當我們雙目相交，她麵泛酡紅；當我邀她上台笨拙地起舞，她一口答應；當我請求品嚐重慶美食，她也咯咯笑著允諾。
可她之後的一句話讓我啞口無言，她告訴我，我跟耶穌長相神似。我留著一頭短發和一下巴胡子渣。盡管她強調說這隻是奉承話——“耶穌實際上是個很帥的男人”——我仍然隻能報以迷惑的眼神。當初我就做好了遭受淩辱的準備，直麵電視鏡頭，一頭紮進中國相親節目的大坑裏。
我的尷尬經曆並非意外。作為一個過去幾年旅居北京的自由作家，我親眼看著中國的相親秀發展成現在這模樣：故意羞辱人，並看重物質。在2010年四月的《非誠勿擾》節目中，一位男嘉賓問馬諾是否願意坐到他的自行車後座上，馬諾毫不留情地回答：“我寧願坐在寶馬裏哭”。
可能在某些西方人眼裏，中國電視節目還是政黨控製下的信息平台的遺留產物，現實則是，十多年的媒體商業化已把中國的電視產業帶到今天這個地步——尤其是收視覆蓋全國的省級衛星頻道——極富“挑動性”，即便以西方標準來看依舊如此。
全國收視率第二高、並一手創辦《天天向上》的湖南衛視就是中國衛星電視台的代表。這些電視台通常比中央電視台CCTV受到更少的審查監管，這樣一來，分散的小電視台就能挑戰CCTV占據統治地位的收視率。
這種管理的輕重之分在相親節目上表現得最為淋漓盡致：相親節目在地方頻道受眾頗廣，在中央電視台則難被視為禁區。《非誠勿擾》為這種新形式的分隔打響了頭炮。節目中，一組帥氣的小夥子先後接受24名女嘉賓的圍觀。這些單身漢隨後還需經曆粗魯而傷自尊的問答環節，銀行結單和工資數額常被公之於眾。
這檔節目去年在江蘇電視台首映，隨後便有大批跟風模仿者。我於上月參加了《天天向上》，節目中，七名外國男嘉賓要在七名穿著高跟鞋的中國女子身上尋找桃花運。
節目開場測試了第一印象。甚至在親口和女方交談之前，我們就必須通過曲線以及笑容來選出最愛，並送上一束玫瑰。有個在此輪最不受歡迎的姑娘兩手空空，她反擊道：“外國男人不是我的菜”，言外之意就是她吃定窩邊草了。
在相親秀光彩浮誇的表麵之下，這檔節目更像是老生常談的中外文化碰撞。男性追求者們分到人手一板，上麵標明自己的身份。我是一個“陽光的美國人”，雖然我有點不知就裏；韓國人則是“宅男”；英國嘉賓自然就是“紳士”了。另有烏克蘭的功夫大師和敘利亞的婦科學學生（並在北京兼職模特），這倆人就較難歸類了。我們來自七大國，四大洲，如此陣容不是為了強調多樣性，而在於強調外國男人與中國女人之間顯而易見的矛盾。
中國傳媒大學的苗棣教授告訴我說：“在中國的電視節目裏，外國人通常被用來凸顯中外文化的衝突。這類節目都會偶爾請來外國嘉賓，為娛樂性注入新鮮的內容。”
節目的真實意圖在其剪輯後昭然若揭。（至少在這點上，中國電視節目製造方和他們的美國同行並無二致，後者經常利用剪輯來篡改真相，因而受到指責。）節目中，主持人——讓人依稀覺得是奧斯汀·鮑威斯（《王牌大賤諜》）穿上了緊身褲和領子上飾有向日葵圖樣的條紋襯衫——詢問我喜歡哪種類型的姑娘，我小心地強調了獨立的個性和文學品位。但這些內容都被選擇性消失，隻剩下一句“我喜歡豐滿有曲線的女人”。後期製作還配上了觀眾“啊~~”的驚呼聲，好像我的回答揭示了某種現實——所有美國人都偏愛大號女人。
同樣，和敘利亞青年的對話持續了約20分鍾，但剪輯後的版本隻剩30秒，唯獨對準的他宗教上一夫多妻的部分。在播出的片段中，他半開玩笑地問一名女嘉賓是否可以成為他的第四房——伊斯蘭教法規定的上限。那個女子冷冷回答：“在中國男女是平等的，所以一定不會。”
我的倒黴事還沒完。在節目尾聲，我和韓國人都選擇了重慶小姐，而生在邁阿密的Lucy則無人問津、鬱鬱不樂。她小孩似的哀求扯動著我的心弦，於是我選擇了她，並被她報以嫣然一笑。就在這時，她冷冷地拒絕了我，引起觀眾一片哄笑。
參加節目之時，我就知道成功的幾率微乎其微。在這群信奉消費主義的姑娘麵前，我既沒有房又沒有車。在這個漢族人口高達93%的國家，外來人口依然是新鮮玩意，不管你樂不樂意。重慶小姐從此將我從QQ上踢掉。她最近給我發信息說：“我以為你會選我。”也許還有戲吧。
By ADAM CENTURY
Published: August 5, 2011
CHANGSHA, China
Enlarge This Image
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.
紐約時報：一個美國小夥子的中國“相親”記(圖) 綜合新聞
美國帥哥講述中國相親記，如此尷尬的經曆讓他一生難忘。
我所欽慕的姑娘觸手可及。在中國一檔擁有超過1億觀眾的相親節目——《天天向上》的片場上，重慶小姐餘婉寧就站在我的對麵。當我們雙目相交，她麵泛酡紅；當我邀她上台笨拙地起舞，她一口答應；當我請求品嚐重慶美食，她也咯咯笑著允諾。
可她之後的一句話讓我啞口無言，她告訴我，我跟耶穌長相神似。我留著一頭短發和一下巴胡子渣。盡管她強調說這隻是奉承話——“耶穌實際上是個很帥的男人”——我仍然隻能報以迷惑的眼神。當初我就做好了遭受淩辱的準備，直麵電視鏡頭，一頭紮進中國相親節目的大坑裏。
我的尷尬經曆並非意外。作為一個過去幾年旅居北京的自由作家，我親眼看著中國的相親秀發展成現在這模樣：故意羞辱人，並看重物質。在2010年四月的《非誠勿擾》節目中，一位男嘉賓問馬諾是否願意坐到他的自行車後座上，馬諾毫不留情地回答：“我寧願坐在寶馬裏哭”。
可能在某些西方人眼裏，中國電視節目還是政黨控製下的信息平台的遺留產物，現實則是，十多年的媒體商業化已把中國的電視產業帶到今天這個地步——尤其是收視覆蓋全國的省級衛星頻道——極富“挑動性”，即便以西方標準來看依舊如此。
全國收視率第二高、並一手創辦《天天向上》的湖南衛視就是中國衛星電視台的代表。這些電視台通常比中央電視台CCTV受到更少的審查監管，這樣一來，分散的小電視台就能挑戰CCTV占據統治地位的收視率。
這種管理的輕重之分在相親節目上表現得最為淋漓盡致：相親節目在地方頻道受眾頗廣，在中央電視台則難被視為禁區。《非誠勿擾》為這種新形式的分隔打響了頭炮。節目中，一組帥氣的小夥子先後接受24名女嘉賓的圍觀。這些單身漢隨後還需經曆粗魯而傷自尊的問答環節，銀行結單和工資數額常被公之於眾。
這檔節目去年在江蘇電視台首映，隨後便有大批跟風模仿者。我於上月參加了《天天向上》，節目中，七名外國男嘉賓要在七名穿著高跟鞋的中國女子身上尋找桃花運。
節目開場測試了第一印象。甚至在親口和女方交談之前，我們就必須通過曲線以及笑容來選出最愛，並送上一束玫瑰。有個在此輪最不受歡迎的姑娘兩手空空，她反擊道：“外國男人不是我的菜”，言外之意就是她吃定窩邊草了。
在相親秀光彩浮誇的表麵之下，這檔節目更像是老生常談的中外文化碰撞。男性追求者們分到人手一板，上麵標明自己的身份。我是一個“陽光的美國人”，雖然我有點不知就裏；韓國人則是“宅男”；英國嘉賓自然就是“紳士”了。另有烏克蘭的功夫大師和敘利亞的婦科學學生（並在北京兼職模特），這倆人就較難歸類了。我們來自七大國，四大洲，如此陣容不是為了強調多樣性，而在於強調外國男人與中國女人之間顯而易見的矛盾。
中國傳媒大學的苗棣教授告訴我說：“在中國的電視節目裏，外國人通常被用來凸顯中外文化的衝突。這類節目都會偶爾請來外國嘉賓，為娛樂性注入新鮮的內容。”
節目的真實意圖在其剪輯後昭然若揭。（至少在這點上，中國電視節目製造方和他們的美國同行並無二致，後者經常利用剪輯來篡改真相，因而受到指責。）節目中，主持人——讓人依稀覺得是奧斯汀·鮑威斯（《王牌大賤諜》）穿上了緊身褲和領子上飾有向日葵圖樣的條紋襯衫——詢問我喜歡哪種類型的姑娘，我小心地強調了獨立的個性和文學品位。但這些內容都被選擇性消失，隻剩下一句“我喜歡豐滿有曲線的女人”。後期製作還配上了觀眾“啊~~”的驚呼聲，好像我的回答揭示了某種現實——所有美國人都偏愛大號女人。
同樣，和敘利亞青年的對話持續了約20分鍾，但剪輯後的版本隻剩30秒，唯獨對準的他宗教上一夫多妻的部分。在播出的片段中，他半開玩笑地問一名女嘉賓是否可以成為他的第四房——伊斯蘭教法規定的上限。那個女子冷冷回答：“在中國男女是平等的，所以一定不會。”
我的倒黴事還沒完。在節目尾聲，我和韓國人都選擇了重慶小姐，而生在邁阿密的Lucy則無人問津、鬱鬱不樂。她小孩似的哀求扯動著我的心弦，於是我選擇了她，並被她報以嫣然一笑。就在這時，她冷冷地拒絕了我，引起觀眾一片哄笑。
參加節目之時，我就知道成功的幾率微乎其微。在這群信奉消費主義的姑娘麵前，我既沒有房又沒有車。在這個漢族人口高達93%的國家，外來人口依然是新鮮玩意，不管你樂不樂意。重慶小姐從此將我從QQ上踢掉。她最近給我發信息說：“我以為你會選我。”也許還有戲吧。
評論
目前還沒有任何評論
登錄後才可評論.
