China Part 7: Ai Wen's Dating Show

My Chinese friend Alyssa went on a dating show in Kunming. Emmy and I told her how fun it was to watch her on TV.
She said, “You know, you could go on the dating show too! I know the woman who produces it and she would love to have a foreigner on the show.”
“Well, but I have a girlfriend already.”
“No problem! It’s just for fun, just to have some entertainment.”
“Do it, that would be hilarious!” said Emmy.
And so Ai Wen was born. When I first arrived in China, I had chosen a Chinese name suited to my favorite pastime: Ai Jiao Zi, or “Loves Dumplings.” Sadly, my friends all agreed that Ai Jiao Zi was inappropriate for a dating show, so I picked Ai Wen. It means “Loves Culture,” and it’s the sound many Chinese people make when they try to say Irwin.
Alyssa’s producer-friend met with me Wednesday night to film a short profile. Their boss liked my interview so much that the TV crew came back on Thursday and spent two more hours with me. They called up Thursday night and said, “Our boss wants more footage, can we come by tomorrow for another hour?” Sure, why not.



This video aired on Kunming’s Number Two TV Station, but it still caught a lot of attention. The producers of “Every Possible Scheme for Love” told me it was their highest-rated show, ever. I was out of town on Sunday when it aired, but on Thursday my neighbor said, “I saw you on TV!” “Oh, on Sunday?” “No, this afternoon!” So they were rebroadcasting the show. They showed it at least five times over the next week. Thanks to satellite and internet TV, my fame wasn’t limited to Kunming’s 5,000,000 residents. During my travels, complete strangers greeted Ai Wen everywhere from Shanghai and Beijing to one-street towns on the Burmese border.

People recognized me on the street and whispered to their friends, but most of them didn’t approach me. Little kids were a different story. I was leaving my house when an eight-year-old girl toddled by on her way home from school. She looked up nonchalantly, chirped “Hi, Ai Wen,” and kept going. Gangs of ten-year-old boys and even some high school students showed up at my ultimate frisbee games, “looking for Ai Wen.” A couple of times, older men got drunk at restaurants and came over to my table. “Are you Ai Wen? We LOVE your show! We think you are so interesting and talented.” One university student walked over to me at a café, hands trembling, pulled out his cell phone and stammered “Are you Ai Wen? I think you are so brave, in fact you are my idol! Can I take a picture with you?”

Not all my encounters were so positive. My students didn’t have any TVs in their dorms, but their other teachers told them about the dating show. When I showed it to them, they laughed and laughed. I asked whether they liked it, and fifty female voices screeched “NO! You are a liar! This is not fair to Emmy! It is not okay to lie on TV!” Emmy loved their support, and managed to work my dating show into most of her lesson plans for the rest of the semester.

Our Mongolian roommate Dania constantly lectured me about how it wasn’t right to lie to Emmy. Then he would entreat Emmy to acknowledge the seriousness of my “steal-chicken-touch-dog” behavior. When Emmy’s dad came to visit, Dania warned Uncle Jim over and over that I was trying to find a Chinese mistress. When Uncle Jim said goodbye, Dania solemnly swore that he would watch me like a hawk.

For two days after the show, none of my fellow university professors mentioned it. Then on Wednesday, I was sitting on the teacher bus when a philosophy professor stepped on and spotted me.
“YOU! Didn’t I see you on Kunming Number Two TV Station?”
All around me, teachers leapt to their feet, chattering “He was on TV? Why? Which channel? What did he do?”
“He was on ‘Every Possible Scheme for Love’!”
“What? ‘Every Possible Scheme for Love’ is a dating show! A dating show? Doesn’t he have a girlfriend? He has a girlfriend, I met her! No, what? A dating show? A girlfriend? Really?”
They all turned slowly to face me.
“Well, I umm… the show, it was all fake.”
“No! He says the show is fake! Fake? How could it be fake? It was on TV! Really, it’s fake? Is that possible?”
Their eyes were hungry for answers.
“You see, my friend knows the dating show producer, and they wanted a foreigner. So I said okay.”
“But your girlfriend! What about your girlfriend? What did she say?”
“Well, she, like, encouraged me.”
“She encouraged him! Why would she encourage him? Doesn’t she know what kind of a show this is? How could she do that?”
“She knows it’s a dating show, she just thought it would be interesting.”
The teachers shook their heads and slowly sat down, muttering to each other about how clueless my girlfriend was.
“Well, if you find a beautiful Chinese girl on the show, remember that half-blood children are the cutest.”
“Oh, umm… thanks. But I’m not looking for a girlfriend.”

The next week, the TV producer called Alyssa. “Eight girls came in to record video profiles for Ai Wen. He should come in and watch them, he doesn’t have to choose a girl or meet them or anything.”
The TV crew filmed me as I arrived on my bicycle, walked up the stairs, and sat down in the studio. They filmed a close-up of my face while I watched each video. I tried desperately to appear equally satisfied with each girl, never too bored or excited.
The last video ended and the producer asked “So, which girl do you choose?”
“Well, uh, I thought you said, like, I didn’t have to choose one today.”
“But don’t you think you should just choose one? Did you like the first girl?”
“Oh, umm, no… I mean, yes, a little---”
“Okay so you will go on a date with her!”
“Wait, no… I think I want to wait. Right now it’s so stressful speaking Chinese, I can’t relax when I talk, so I want to wait, maybe, two months and study more before meeting a girl. Also I can’t talk about anything complicated yet, our conversations would all just be about simple things. I want to wait.”
“What about the two English teachers? You could speak English with them!”
“Oh! You see, umm… I came all the way to China to meet a Chinese girl, I don’t want to go out with a girl just because she speaks English, I don’t think that’s fair to the other girls.”
“It’s unfair? I see, yes, that makes sense. It is unfair. Okay, so we will wait two months.”

A few days later they showed Ai Wen Part II, with me staring neutrally at the eight video profiles and giving flimsy excuses. I never saw it, but that teacher on my bus did:
“EIGHT girls wanted to go out with you?”
“What? Eight girls? On the dating show? They wanted to be his girlfriend, really?”
“Oh, yeah, umm… yeah, eight girls.”
“They will be so disappointed…”
“Yeah…”
“Is your girlfriend worried?”
“No.”
“You know, Ai Wen, you don’t want these eight girls, but my son is 26 and he’s looking for a girlfriend, maybe you can give me their numbers!”
“Hey, my son doesn’t have a girlfriend either!”
“Oh, umm… no, that’s… well, I guess so.”
We exchanged phone numbers.

A week after Part II aired, the producer called my friend Alyssa.
“Alyssa, you know, someone called up the show and they said… well, they said that Ai Wen was holding hands with a foreign girl on his university campus!”
“Oh! Really?”
“Yeah, really. How do you explain this?”
“Well, you see, I don’t know anything about it. I’ll talk to Ai Wen.”
Two days later:
“Alyssa, did you talk to Ai Wen? What did he say?”
“So, I think, maybe he is not interested in making another show now.”
“Really? Ai Wen said that?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Oh.”
One week later:
“Alyssa, have you been talking to Ai Wen? Will he come back on the show?”
“You know, I think, Ai Wen said he is not interested. I think maybe he is not interested in ever making another show.”
“Oh. What should we tell the eight girls?”
“I don’t know.”

That was the end of the Ai Wen story. One girl called my university’s foreign affairs office, but they just told her I was a nice teacher and they didn’t know anything else. Pretty soon, Kunming Number Two TV Station stopped calling. People still pointed at me on the street, elementary school students cheered “Ai Wen!” as they scampered by, old women’s eyes shot open and they said “Wait! Didn’t I see you… I saw you… you were…”
“Yes,” I said. “I was on Kunming Number Two TV Station.”
“Oh, yeah, that was it. I knew it.”
“Yeah...”
“Yeah. Well, okay. Bye.”
“Bye.”

Only one person really remembered.
“Ai Wen, you can’t do this to Emmy! On the show you say ‘This man is for real,’ but you should say ‘This man is a cheater!’”
“I know, Dania. I know.”