Approximately 600 people from Rice, Texas A&M, Texas State and the University of Texas at Austin watched a recent Austin version of the popular Chinese dating show “If You Are the One," held at the University of Texas. Photo by Zhongyu Yuan

By Zhongyu Yuan
For Reporting Texas

Everything went according to plan until love at first sight turned out to be something else.

Chinese students at the University of Texas recently staged an Austin version “If You Are the One,” China’s most popular television program, in which eligible young men and women evaluate each other for dates. The speed-dating begins with questions from females about almost anything. The women indicate interest with a heart sign, or rejection with a cross sign. Males who make the cut choose their favorite female, or not. No questions for the guys. If two people choose each other, it’s a match.

The popularity of the dating show among Mainland Chinese makes sense given that there are 1.2 young males for every young female in the People’s Republic. Competition is keen among males, and presumably the questions can come later. According to research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, by 2020 there will be 24 million “surplus” males of marrying age. The ratio seems to hold for UT, where 60.5 percent of Chinese doctoral students are male.

It didn’t hold on an evening in late March. Eleven women participated in the Austin game, but just five males came looking. That was enough. Six hundred people watched the match in a UT auditorium. Students were there from Rice, Texas A&M and Texas State, too. The show went on in Mandarin, which some audience members couldn’t understand. They didn’t seem bothered. At the end, two men paired with two women. Nine females and three males struck out.

The Chinese Students and Scholars Association, which organized the show under the slogan, “we provide dating chances but not to commit to marriage,” had run a flawless production that was about to be flawed. Immediately after the show, an anonymous post on the CSSA website said that one of the lucky couples—Song Shuang and Pan Chenxin—had been dating before appearing on the game. Traffic on the website spiked, and word of the apparent hoax spread.

“I admit knowing Pan before the show, and we crushed on each other,” says 21-year-old Song, a sophomore majoring in electrical engineering at UT. “But our relationship was at a swing, for I prefer seeing more girls before making our bond permanent. Maybe I am a bit playboy…but everyone can see I do not rush on her from the very start, but tried to look into others before finally settling.”

Pan, an advertising freshman, could not be reached for comment.

Yu Jun, a biology senior and association member, says on the website that the event will recur. The first game, he says, lacked enough participants, so members networked to find some.

“The association did not purposefully arrange anything about the content of the show,” he says. “As for the two’s relationship, we repeatedly confirmed every participants’ availability.”

Jay Wu, 25, a graduate engineering student and president of CSSA, says the plan is to hold a game once a semester.

“Despite controversies, the show is overall a success,” she says. “It binds the whole Texas Chinese community and provides topics that can go on and on through the years… Our next scheduled show is proposed to air on Nov. 11, known as the Bachelors’ Day” in China.