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发布时间:2010年08月05日, 已有 5 人推荐
原作者：
来源I Was Almost a Chinese Dating-Show Star – By Benjamin Haas | Foreign Policy
译者xyzlaughinwind
Several times a day I hear the theme song from If You Are the One, the hit Chinese dating show, blaring from my co-worker’s cell phone: It’s an embarrassing techno mix with a man’s voice wailing, “Can you feeeeel it?!” But what really makes me cringe is something else. It’s not the show’s blatant materialism, or the Chinese government’s aversion to the program. It’s the fact that I was once a contestant on the show. A film crew visited my home and recorded an episode for the dating show at Jiangsu Satellite Television in Nanjing. But almost no one but me knows about this bizarre episode, because when it came time for my segment to air, my portion was cut out, censored, or as we say in China, “harmonized.”
一天内我听了好几回《非诚勿扰》的主题歌，这是中国时下正火的速配约会节目，我同事的手机铃声就是这个，一来电震耳欲聋：这种电子音乐极其刺耳，混杂着一个男人的尖声嚎叫，“Can you feeeeel it?!” 不过让我真正受不了的不是音乐，不是这节目明目张胆的物质崇拜，也不是中国政府对节目的批判反感。而是我曾经是舞台上嘉宾之一这一事实。一位影片工作人员参观过我的房间还为南京的江苏卫视速配节目拍了一集记录片。不过除我之外几乎没人知道这破事，因为到了该放有我的那期节目时，我发现我被剪掉了，审查没通过，或者用中国话说，被“河蟹了”。
If You Are the One premiered in January and has since become a national phenomenon. The format is copied from the British dating show Take Me Out. The Chinese version is in your face about money; male contestants will frequently show off their bank statements and luxury cars in an effort to woo interest from a parade of 24 women, who will either pass on them or vie for a date. One memorable female contestant, Ma Nuo, was once asked by a guy if she would like to go on a date with him and ride on the back of his bicycle; she famously responded, “I’d rather cry in the back of a BMW.” She has since been banned from appearing on television.
非诚勿扰一月份首播后迅速在全国蹿红。节目设计山寨了英国速配节目Take Me Out。中国版本在金钱问题上肆无忌惮。男嘉宾会反复亮出银行存款名车豪宅以通过24名女子的检阅，这些女子要么灭灯拒绝要么争取一场约会。有一个印象尤深的女嘉宾叫马诺，一次一个男嘉宾问她愿不愿意坐在他的自行车后座上跟他约会，马诺的回答已成经典：“我宁愿坐在宝马车里哭。”从那以后她就从电视上销声匿迹了。
The show’s popularity has also been a curse. As ratings went up, so did government scrutiny. In China, popularity and influence go hand in hand, and that makes the government nervous. Previously, a drama discussing topics like China’s spiraling real-estate prices and local-government corruption, Wo Ju (“Dwelling Narrowness”), was taken off the air midway through the first season after it began to attract a large following. Or, as the director of If You Are the One told me, “You can say whatever you want in China, as long as you’re not influential. The government doesn’t care what you say if no one is listening.” But if someone is listening, it’s a different story.
节目的流行反而成了祸根。随着收视率攀升，政府审查也越发严格。在中国，声望和影响力密切相关，这就让政府紧张不安。早先，一部关于中国房地产价格暴涨和地方政府腐败主题的电视剧《蜗居》在第一季播出时引起巨大反响，于是中途被禁播。要不，非诚勿扰导演这么跟我说：“在中国你想说什么都没问题，只要你是个无足轻重的小人物。只要没人听，政府根本不在乎你说什么。” 不过要是有人听的话，那就是另外一码事了。
About two months ago, I applied to be on the show. My Chinese co-worker thought the novelty of being a foreigner would give me a leg up, and he was right. A week later I got a call from the director.
大概俩月前，我申请上节目。我的中国同事觉得作为一个老外，上去肯定新鲜，条件对我有利，他说的不错，一周后我就接到导演的电话。
When I arrived at the station, I entered the meeting room and was greeted with familiar signs of China, despite the modern-looking building: A group of men gathered in the corner were chain-smoking, another group of playing games on their cell phones. The director’s first words to me were a reminder of what I couldn’t say. “You can’t talk about religion on TV,” she said. “China is an officially atheist country, so there is no mention of religion on TV or radio.” She also told me I couldn’t mention television shows that had been banned, or other potentially controversial topics.
到了电视台后我走进会议室，受到熟悉的中国式友好接待。尽管建筑看起来很现代化：一拨人聚集在角落一根接一根的抽烟，另一拨人正玩着手机游戏。导演上来就提醒我那些话不能说。“你不能在电视上谈论宗教，”她说道，“中国是一个官方宣称无神论的国家，所以不管电台还是电视台都不能提宗教问题。”她还告诉我不能提到被禁播的电视节目，或者其他潜在的有争议性话题也不能提。
When I first went on stage, the familiar theme song played and I was greeted by oohs and ahhs from the audience. I announced my name and where I was from, and then the 24 female contestants had their first chance to reject me based on looks alone. A few turned me down on the spot.
我一上舞台，熟悉的主题曲响起，观众们冲我发出一片惊叹声表示欢迎。我自报了家门，然后24名女嘉宾就可以享用她们的第一轮选择权，以貌取人决定是否淘汰我。现场有几盏灯灭掉了。
During the recording, I thought things were going well. I said I liked “open-minded” girls, a euphemism in Chinese for sexually liberated women, which was greeted with much laughter.
节目录制时，我觉得情况进行的还算顺利。我说我喜欢“开放的”女孩，在中国这是对性解放女性的一种委婉说法，招来了很多笑声。
I received the obligatory, “You look like Harry Potter,” comment and responded with my standard comeback, “I’m much more handsome than him.” Everyone in China thinks I look like Harry Potter, and that response usually gets a laugh. A woman said she liked me because she thought mixed-race babies were cute. “I think if we had mixed-race babies, they would be very cute,” I replied.
按规定我得被评头论足，“你长的像哈利波特，”这样的对话几乎成了惯例，“我比他可帅多了。”在中国人人都觉得我像哈利波特，我的回答总招来笑声。一位女士说她喜欢我，因为她觉得混血婴儿很好看。“我想要是我们生几个混血宝宝，肯定都非常漂亮。”我答道。
Most Chinese think foreigners, even those living in China, can’t speak or understand a word of Chinese, so she assumed I had misunderstood her. In other words, she didn’t get the joke. It took some intervention on the part of the host to make her understand that that was my roundabout way of answering her.
大多中国人认为老外，甚至那些住在中国的老外，既不会说，也听不懂中国话，所以她觉着我误会了她的意思。换句话说，她没理解我讲的笑话。主持人插了几句话让她明白我的回答是以间接的方式回应她。
By the end of the show, there were still eight women interested in going on a date with me. I went through the final round and picked one, becoming the first foreigner in this history of the show to do so. I walked off the set, hand in hand with Ai Xuanzheng, a young Communist Party member from Guizhou, to romantic piano music. (Unfortunately, she lives in Shanghai and we never did end up going on a date.)
节目到最后，还有8位女士有兴趣跟我约会。我通过了最后一关，选走了一位，成为节目史上第一位成功的老外。我和贵州的一名年轻的党员郑爱轩在浪漫的钢琴曲中手牵着手走下台来。（不幸的是她住在上海，我们一次也没有约会过。）
When it came time for my segment to air, I watched the entire episode, but it never appeared. The following week the director told me, “You were censored because you were successful.”
到了该放有我参加的那期节目时，我一点不落的看完了整集片子，可是连我的影子也没见。来周导演跟我说：“你审查没过因为你居然把着妞了。”
I’m not surprised I was cut. There is a good degree of nationalist sentiment in China, and while seeing the two foreign contestants before me fail is entertaining, the image of an American male dating a Chinese girl is much more controversial. It happens quite frequently, of course, but it seems the government doesn’t want to encourage it.
我对自己被剪掉一点也不吃惊。在中国存在很强的民族主义情感，我前边有两个老外都失败了，这个可以拿来娱乐大众，可一个美国男人跟一个中国女孩约会的镜头可太富有争议性了。当然这种事并不稀罕，但是政府看来并不鼓励这样的现象。
Or perhaps it was my somewhat sexually suggestive comments that offended? The audience seemed to laugh, but in a country where pornography is officially banned, my directness may have aroused the government’s ire. After all, the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, complained just a week before my episode was to air that dating shows were “vulgar.” In the end, I’ll probably never know.
要不也许是我有点性暗示的回答冒犯了谁？观众看起来都觉得挺好笑的，不过在一个禁止公开色情表演的国家，我的直言不讳可能会引起官员的不忿。毕竟官方喉舌人民日报在我那期节目前一个星期就撰文批评了速配节目“低俗不堪”。管他的，谁知道呢。
My brief role as a Chinese reality star did give me insight into one thing: Ultimately, Beijing still sees television as a tool, not a source of entertainment. That’s why foreigners are prohibited from working at any television or radio station, all of which are still owned by the government. Even the most seemingly frivolous of topics can bring down the axe at any time. So much for wondering If You Are the One.
我在中国短暂的明星生涯起码让我看清了一件事：归根到底，北京始终把电视节目看做是一种工具，而不是娱乐资源。这就是为什么外国人不能上电台电视台工作的原因，这些资源都属于政府所有。即使看起来多么无关紧要的话题也随时都有可能被砍掉。有关非诚勿扰的好奇就到此为止了。
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