2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 64

As a female contestant, I was free to stand there quietly and look as lovely as an arrangement of flowers, if I wanted to. But I was determined not to let this opportunity pass. Even if I could make an impression on the audience that is as light as a baby's footprints on a dusty floor, that would be a start.

The best way to do that was to make conversation with the male contestants. Thankfully, FCWR debuted a wide range of personalities. We had YuanYuan the archer, Hang the cowboy/stock broker, Mr. Lee the coffee shop owner, Justin the Michael Jackson dancer, Dayan the ER surgeon, and Victor, the Buddhist who got fired from his promising career at HSBC but bounced back as an investment banker – these were the male contestants of the Canadian edition, a most vibrant crowd of characters whom I never would have expected to meet at a dating show in China.

The problem is, when their backgrounds are so vastly different from mine, it's hard to find common ground from which to develop a conversation. I also have to admit most of the men weren't particularly striking to look at (not that this mattered of course). The majority of their faces blended into a blur. But I do remember in one episode, when a muscled guy descended from the "elevator", all the ladies perked up with their eyes wide, and this collective thought scrawled blatantly on their foreheads:

Finally, there's a stud!

Girl Number One raised her hand and immediately commented on his appearance:

"The male contestant looks very Chinese."

"What do you mean 'very Chinese'?" Meng Fei demanded in jest, "Are you trying to say his eyes are too squinty?"

"Um..." Girl Number One stammered as she tried to come up with an explanation.

I raised my hand.

"Number six," said Meng Fei.

"I know what Number One meant. The male contestant looks like a terra cotta warrior."

Everyone burst out laughing. Though I meant it as an objective observation.

"Terra cotta warrior? Does he look like he has just been dug out of the grave?" Meng Fei joked.

If you've been to the terra cotta warrior site in Xi'an, you'd know there are numerous pictures along the information boards explaining various warriors in various combat positions, the weapon he's holding, the purpose of the weapon, his rank in the army, so on and so forth. In these photographs, you'd sometimes come upon terra cotta warrior celebrity look-alikes. Yao Ming (the basketball player), Zhang Yi Mou (the film director), Chen Dao Ming (the actor), they are all there. When these celebrities' pictures are juxtaposed against their terra cotta warrior look-alikes, you'd think they found their long lost twin from the Qin Dynasty. (No joke!) Maybe we do recycle faces after all. Historians theorized because the statues were made 2200 years ago, interracial, inter-tribal marriages were difficult to achieve due to limited mobility, so what the Qin sculptors captured were the Chinese faces in their most primitive state – the quintessential Chinese face in its purest form.

So when I said the male contestant looked like a terra cotta warrior I really meant it as a visual aid.

Guan Xiao Lei, the male contestant, is a 30-year-old Fortune 500 risk analyst, with an easy smile, and a pleasant, confident demeanor. He seemed like someone I could strike up a conversation with. I was ready to ask him a series of follow up questions, when he announced that he'd come specifically for one girl, and that girl is none other than, Number 7.

Oh Gawd.

My heart missed a beat. As if her shining aura isn't shiny enough already, here comes a dedicated stud highlighting it into further prominence. At hearing his declaration of love, most girls turned off their lights, ready to watch the developing romance from the sidelines. Just then, my worst fear came into reality, in a form of a question. Posed by Lejia.

"What do you think is the difference between you and #7?"

I froze for what seemed like an eternity. My mind raced. But instead of feeling an influx of smart thoughts that came with the rush of blood to my face, I only felt the throbbing of my forehead, my pulse slamming.

On the surface, she's more successful than I am. Holding down a full time job with two published books under her belt. She has the best of both worlds. And that's what people want.

As for me, I had a consuming job. If I continued down that path for another 30 years, I feared I would grow old and die with the feeling that I had wasted my life, that I sold my time to a career that wasn't enjoyable or meaningful. The nature of my old job didn't allow for much quality writing on the side. I wrote better when I could spend more time on it. Since my circumstances allowed me to write full time for a while, so that's what I did. But the decision to give up my former career wasn't easy. For a lot us, simply admitting to ourselves "I'm in the wrong job" is terrifying. Because that's all you have. To give up all that you have and all that you're familiar with is terrifying. I don't know if I'm trading it in for something better. But I knew what I wanted, was not that.

Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. In my nervous state, my mind was drawing a blank. At the time, Lejia's question poked at a tender and vulnerable spot that I hadn't yet come to terms with myself.

To the audience, the difference is clear as day. Number 7 is employed, published, stable. Good marriage prospect. Me: unemployed, unpublished, unstable. Bad marriage prospect.

But I didn't believe for a second she was better than me. It bothered me that the audience seemed to think she was. I knew there was more to what I was doing than the accomplishments laid on the table. But I didn't know how to express it. I was never more aware of what it's like to chafe against the forces of conventional thinking than at that moment in my life, under the spotlight, under the scrutiny and judgement of the audience. My cheeks burned like a sweet potato about to blister in the fire.

"I would need to think about it," I said, "What do you think is the difference between #7 and me?"

"Umm, I don't know," LeJia said anticlimactically, "I don't know you very well."

With that, I thought we had come to the end of the discussion. For the subsequent male contestants, I continued to make an effort to speak to each one of them. Sometimes to ask a question, other times to say something kind. And just as I was asking a clean-shaven, smooth-skinned young man from Toronto a very basic question, Le Jia jumped in:

"This guy is definitely not right for you!"

Taken aback by the outlandish remark, I asked, "What kind of guy is right for me?"

"The crazy type! A nomad from the dessert, with a big beard and dirty hair!"

And I thought, oh god, you are so full of sh*t. I can't believe my mom is your fan.

"Why do you say that?" I asked him.

"A girl who watched a movie and went crazy, decided to quit her job and travel the world. No normal person can contain her. She needs a beast from the wild who's just as crazy."