Why Dating Shows Are so Popular in China Nowadays Essay Example for Free

Why Dating Shows Are so Popular in China Nowadays Essay 1.Introduction In recently years, Chinese television has been picking up the trends of reality shows, especially dating shows. These fast emerging match making shows have captured millions of viewers and have become very popular in Chinese society. Although the shows contain lots of problems and bring up many controversial topics in our lives, nearly everyone in China is enthusiastically watching one or more of these weekly dating shows. The question is, why? Historic reasons, social reasons and commercial reasons have all contributed to the dating shows popularity. 2.Dating shows nowadays Every Saturday and Sunday night on television, a jury of more or less than 20 single women question a few guys one by one after watching his introductory videos; then press a button to turn off the light if they think the guy is not â€Å"date-worthy†. After three rounds of interaction, if there are girls keeping the light on for the candidate and he likes one of them, he succeeds in the match. And if all twenty-four lights go off, the male loses. In turn, guys can first choose his favorite girl and if he survives the trial, he will have a chance to pick a girl for a date. Most of the shows have the similar pattern. Sometimes situations would inverse, which is a jury of guys can judge a few women one by one. Basically it could be describe as a process of young men and women judging and choosing each other. If lucky, one could find himself or herself a date. Apart from the participants, there will be a humorous host to help organize; also, there will be two or three guest experts to give comments and advice to the participants. 3. Historic Reasons The changing of Chinese women For centuries, patriarchy was rooted deeply in Chinese society. Chinese women owned very limited choice in their lives, especially their marriages. In fact, in Han Dynasty, the Three Obediences and Four Virtues that set the standards of behavior for women. It required women to obey her father and other male family members. In traditional Chinese culture, females should be quiet, tender, compliant and conservative. Pillai (2009) said in her article Women in the Ancient Chinese Culture, â€Å"For almost two thousand years, the life of the Chinese woman was unbearable.† Therefore, they had almost no freedom in choosing husbands. As they have equal chances to receive higher education as men do, now urban Chinese women are becoming more open and self-confident. Faced with completely unfamiliar male candidates, knowing their performance will be shown on TV to millions of viewers, the ladies on stage are never afraid of speaking their opinions on life and marriage and make judgments on the male candidates. It seems that women are in charge of the game—they decide a man’s fate on the stage. All these facts seem to indicate that the Chinese society is going to enter an era of feminism. So compared to ancient China, women in modern China are offered a lot more opportunities to take positions and influence society in their own way. The changing of Chinese dating pattern Back in ancient China, a matchmaker was instrumental in settling a marriage. They provided communications and consulting astrogical charts to ensure the compatibility of the prospective bride and groom as well as the two families. So in ancient China, there was little opportunity for getting to know your future partner, since the heads of the bride and groom’s families would arrange marriages. Sometimes the couples first meeting was on the day of their wedding, a situation most singles today would find outrageous. What is happening today is both men and women are giving more freedom when comes to choosing who to date and who to marry. One can decide his or her date based on various personal standards. By participating dating shows, participants can meet all kinds of potential partners and more likely to find someone who fits their requirements. The changing of people’s attitude towards dating and marriage According to the previous historic reasons, men and women could hardly meet each other before marrying. Therefore, their marriages were purely for reproducing, for relations between families and mostly for stable life for the rest of the lives. So in ancient China, when a man or woman tried to find a life partner, they were not really looking for a love of the life rather than a wife who can take good care of the family or a financially reliable husband. According to what Chen (2003) said in her article Marriage and the Family in China, â€Å"to many people nowadays, income, housework and procreation are no longer top priorities; more important is having a loving, loyal and understanding spouse.† To make a conclusion, two people marry nowadays is because the pleasure that connubial relationship brings them. 4.Social Reasons Viewers’ psychology When browsing the Internet, you can see lots of people are talking about the dating shows. The funny part is, lots of people don’t really buy the performance or the fake romance on stage and they are talking about how lack of intelligence those shows are. Then why those shows are still so popular? I read lots of people’s comments and it shows that many people are watching those so-called boring shows because they are boring after work or on the weekends. Watching those dating shows can take large amount of their dull time. Moreover, viewers have been intrigued by the guests outspoken remarks and the occasional arguments that break out. Liu (2011), the Chinese psychiatrist claims that curiosity is born with human beings, so the curiosity and the tendency to the privacy are innate. As another reason why people enjoy the show, viewers tend to enjoy watching other people’s sometime dramatic dating process and conversations during partners, which originally should be private and personal. Social controversial topics bring up by the shows The show is more than a dating game. It is like a multi-dimensional mirror that reflects social values.—Lin (2010). Materialism Bergman (2010) writes in his article, China’ TV Dating Shows: For Money or for Love, that in China, more and more young women nowadays consider true love as materials. In spite of the outlook or character of the possible suitor, what really concerns those girls are whether or not they have houses, the size of the houses, and wealthy bank account and someday also a fancy car. One famous case involves Ma Nuo, a 22-year-old girl who showed up on Chinas most popular dating show, If You Are the One. She arrogantly rejected a male contestant’s invitation of bike riding and then came up with the famous and controversial reply, Id rather cry in a BMW car than laugh on the backseat of a bicycle. Ma is not the only one, there are far more girl participants thinking and acting just like her. These girls on the stage represent and reflect this generation’s materialism that has become the trends in our society. These girls bring materialism to their dating has brought up social controversy. Chen Zhigang, a critic and playwright, said, They have grown up in a society that is quickly accumulating material wealth. They are snobbish. They worship money, cars and houses because the highly developing economy has made them do so.† This phenomenon is unimaginable back in the China 10, 20 years ago. Are those material girls wrong and superficial? Or is it an improvement in China showing nowadays people are becoming more and more realistic? Some people disdain this materialism while some others say it’s understandable. This is a very controversial question brought up by the dating shows that worth thinking about. Sheng Nan and Sheng Nu (singles who are in their late 20s and over 30) The popularity of television dating programs reflects a collective anxiety of single people, particularly the colony of sheng nan, sheng nu, and their families, said Xiang Jianxin, vice-president of Baihe.com, a dating network company. Dating shows provides lots of Sheng nan and Sheng nu a platform to meet potential date so they often appear on the dating shows. They tend to be successful on their career but they don’t have much time in their life to meet potential dates and need help on finding a good relationship. Unlike the old China, where young men and women would get marry at very young ages like 20 or younger, people’s marry age seems to keep postponing. More and more young people are now focusing on establishing their career instead of finding a good marriage. Therefore, as they get older, they start to be anxious about this marriage thing under the pressure from their family and society. Compared to ancient China, although women in modern China are offered a lot more opportunities to take positions and influence society in their own way, traditional patriarchal values still play an important role. Influenced by such social atmosphere, women are always look for men who are more wealthy and successful than themselves, while men prefer women who have inferior education, incomes or intelligence than they do. This situation can be considered as a social dilemma, which was very much brought up by the dating shows. Conversations on the topic of career verses love can often be viewed on the stage of the dating show. How will this complex be solved? People are very interested in this controversial social problem. 5.Commercial reasons Television companies’ commercial exploitation Commercial exploitation means media or business company hype for their own benefits. By exaggerating, normally they can reach the commercial effect that regular news or advertisement can’t. Usually commercial exploitations are well planned and fellow some routine. The show is as dramatic as a TV soap opera, says Liu Tingting, a married office worker in Beijing and regular viewer of the show. Browsing the comments for the shows on the Internet, you can see many people pointing out that plenty of the dramatic plots and conversations happen in the dating show are planned ahead. Sometimes the television company pays for some pretty women to participate the show and those women are simply acting on the stage. Cha (2012) claims that dating shows are also in the show business and are counted as entertaining shows. This means its ultimate goal is to entertaining the public and to increase its viewer base. Finally it benefits from the popularity. So those participants are used as tools to become popular by the shows in some way. Also, the host and the guest experts play very important roles in the shows. They sometimes judge the participants, sometimes make fun of them and always come up with dramatic comments. Television company draws viewers’ attention by presenting dramatic and controversial scenes on the stages, and eventually reach their goal of profiting. Therefore, in some way, the reason why dating shows are so popular in China is television companies’ commercial exploitation. Personal commercial exploitation Like television companies, there are certain kinds of people who want to become famous by showing up in the public, in this case, the stage of popular dating shows. This is also called commercial exploitation. Nowadays in China, attending dating shows has somehow become a shortcut of become a celebrity. Now we have already got a bunch of dating show stars, some of who have now even starting to take commercial offers and have made a lot of money. Remember the BMW girl Ma Nuo? She can be a great case here. Ma Nuo, a shallow, sharp-tongued, single girl, treats her chastity like used toilet paper because she wants to be a super star, one netizen, Wang Xi Jie, wrote on the popular Internet forum Tianya.cn. There is one article on the Chinanews online that talked about this personal commercial exploitation phenomenon. In this article, the author pointed out that nowadays is getting more and more common to have different girls commercial exploiting themselves on the dating shows and listed several popular ways of how they did it. By being typical material girl, by being cute like a child, by talking in a very sweet voice, by making shocking decisions, by being intellectual and by posting sexy photos can all be the methods of becoming famous. Those girls who acting like this have started to make money by their popularity. In Chinese society, now so many young people want to become famous by taking shortcut rather than making effort. So due to the fact that one can easily be known by the public simply by being dramatic, dating shows become more and more popular with the young girl.