do not disturb without serious intent

A jauntily titled Chinese rom-com released in 2009 by director Feng Xiaogang has given name to one of the most popular Chinese TV shows in 2010. Both chronicle the hit-and-miss affairs that is finding marriage (though not necessarily love) in a society with the following complications...

• women like men to provide - a house and a car being the minimal precondition to marriage
• men of all ages like women in their 20s (which Chinese people refer to as 'Lolita-syndrome', seemingly without realising the implications of paedophilia)
• ergo, women who have left, or are leaving their 20s and men financially unable to provide have problems finding other halves
• chauvinism is not dead, but romance might be

So the show selects 24 vaguely eligible single women of differing educational backgrounds, jobs, ages and in each episode put 5 vaguely eligible men there to face up to their questioning: anything from the way they walk, the way they talk, the way they dress, their ideals, jobs, financial circumstances, hygiene habits, what type of bed they like to sleep in, what kind of food they like to eat, is fair game to be exposed, criticised and shamed on national television. Sounds like a typical Blind Date-esque dating show, sadly minus Cilla Black, but the show has achieved great notoriety in China for revealing the deeply materialistic (some may choose to say realistic) way marriage is viewed in this country.

• the woman with a PhD wouldn't marry anybody with a lesser academic qualification / most men would be too afraid to marry a woman with a PhD
• the man who came from a poor rural background to work as an electrician in the big city is looked upon with disdain by the 24 women until they found out he earns 20,000RMB a month
• one man very neatly divided up the number of times he would grudgingly cook dinner (twice a month) against the times he expected his wife to cook (the rest of the month)

The whole show has come under great criticism in the Chinese media for encouraging what is known as 'gold-worshipping' social attitudes. It all started when one of the female contestants rejected a male suitor who had persistently chosen her throughout the show on the basis of his financial condition. One rather damning comment and several thousand rounds of Chinese whispers later, it became enshrined in the now infamous 'I'd rather sit in a BMW and weep, then sit on the back of your bicycle and be happy'.

Of course, nobody likes to think that marriage today is based on such heart-breakingly realistic criteria but I think the show is actually a very apt window into the way people do see things here. It would be so fascinating to do a sociological study via the show. Re-watching the first ever episode of Sex and the City last night I found Carrie & co lamenting the dearth of love to be found in the city. Two decades on, and one continent away, it seems that the search for love is not even on the agenda.