Feb 2nd, 2008 - Chinese Game Show

I don't usually watch a lot of tv. When I do, it's almost always sports of some kind, or the food network. Today I was hanging out with my F-I-L (father in law) and of course he doesn't speak a word of English. We just nod at each other, shake hands and sip our tea. Occasionally he'll say something to me, at which point I'll turn to my wife with a dumb look on my face.

"Do you like your tea?"

"Why yes of course I do." I say.

Then he looks at my wife for translation. If this was the UN, we would all have those little ear pieces on so as nobody would feel left out.

I guess our best father-son bonding moment came when we were watching television together. Like I said, tv is not something I live for, but at least it's something we can do together. Flipping through the channels, my dad finds a show he likes, says something to me, points at the tv and I nod and smile. It's decided. We'll watch this.

As far as I can tell, it's some sort of game show. Under the name of the show, they actually have English words. It says "Wanna Challenge" with a giant question mark. I guessed that it's some sort of "truth or dare" game like we played as kids. There was one weird thing though. All of the contestants were white people, and the host of the show was Chinese. They had the contestants doing all sorts of crazy stunts. The first poor sucker had to put out a house fire using only bottled water. He would spit it out in a big spray, nearly torching his face every time. He actually got the fire out though!

The next event was a bit stranger. There were these 2 bodybuilders sitting at a table with headphones on. Across from them was a big fat guy, who looked like Michael Moore. A Chinese girl would take a number off a wall and hand it to this crazy looking host. On the other side of the number there was a song title. Some of the songs were English, others were Chinese. Ok, here's where it gets weird. The 2 bodybuilders with headphones on would flex their pectorals to the beat of the music. One guy was doing the rhythm and the other one was playing lead breast. The even weirder thing was that the contestant was getting every single one correct! I guess he's some sort of Federal Breast Inspector or something. He's just off duty today so he decided to go on a game show.

There were other crazy events, like a guy lying on the hood of a car being driven around in circles while using the front tire as a potter's wheel. He actually made a very nice vase in the end. It's not the most cost-effective way to make a pot I suppose, but it made for damn good tv.

The other events were as follows:

-Try to fit 7 people inside a giant balloon

-Make a rope from a roll of paper towel and have a small child shimmy between 2 buildings on it

-Lif a car off the ground using a series of fire hoses pointed at the ground and attached to the sides of the car.

-Drive a car on top of 2 vertical plates of glass, running between the tire treads.

-make a dog walk down stairs backwards, balancing a glass of water on his head

There was 1 common thread with all of these feats of idiocy. The contestants were always caucasian, and the person putting them up to it was always Chinese. I think they should otta change the name of the show from "Wanna Challenge" to "Look what we can make the stupid white people do." Sign me up! I think I can probably crack 50 coconuts with my face or allow a tarantula to nest in my eyeball or something. Now that's good tv!