Kristen and I, two weeks ago, were invited to participate on a Chinese game show (this is not a joke). It was the Chinese version of the American show “Wipe Out,” and it was free to compete. Basically, you just have to complete a series of obstacles without falling in the water, and every finisher gets a free refrigerator! Then all the finishers would compete at a later date — the fastest finisher winning a car.

So, when our school asked us and a few other classmates to participate, it was a no-brainer. The worst that could happen is that we would embarrass ourselves on regional/national (?) television. The school coordinated everything… signed us up, and even caravanned us to the course across town.

The men went first. Kristen was able to film me from a TV in the dressing room so, for better or worse, that includes interview time and special camera angles. Yes, I was being interviewed in Chinese. No, I had no clue what they were asking me  😉

After the victory, I was exhausted. I spent way too much time on that revolving thing, since I had a hard time finding the red bullseye button. On a side note, before I started I gave a shout out to my mom, but they immediately turned the cameras to our friend in the stands. They thought she was my mom… my mom ages well 🙂

In all, we had 15 men compete that day, but they filmed all through July so I have no idea how many total men competed. Out of the 15, four of us won the fridge… all white dudes (3 from US and 1 from Canada)!

After the men were done, the women were up next. Kristen had to compete against 67 girls and she waited 5 1/2 hrs before she was called!  But when she was called, she was ready!!! It was cool, they let me walk beside her and film her entire race.

We are the proud owners of 2 new fridges!!! (Btw, you have to do the moving yourself)

We gave one to my “family” (who they kept showing during my video)…. after waiting and cheering in the stands for 6 hours, they’re more deserving of the fridge than we are!

Another cool thing is that after Kristen won, they interviewed us together which will definitely air on TV. Hopefully, we can find out when, and watch it. Out of the 67 girls who competed, 4 won a fridge! But most impressive is that the vast majority of those competing didn’t know how to swim… so on top of the anxiety of competing, they had to overcome their fear of drowning. You could see how freaked out they were when they hit the water.

We always wanted to compete on a game show, but who knew it would be in China! We’ve now qualified to compete for the car, but unfortunately we will be out of town and unable to attend! We’re super bummed!! Maybe next year.

We will end this blog with a couple of still shots that we took that day…