Going on the world's most watched dating show "If You Are The One" in China was the most unforgettable experience of my life

Video of my "If You Are The One" episode

"If You Are The One" is a Chinese dating / talk show with approximately 50 million viewers per episode. The show starts off with 24 women standing on stage each with a light in front of them that they can turn off at any time. A male contestant walks onto the stage, talks to the women and shows them videos of his life. In the span of about 10-15 minutes, the women decide whether they want to go on a date with him, by either turning their lights on or off.

My family and I have been following the show since it came out 6 years ago. While watching the show, my parents would sometimes say: "This girl seems good for you", or "watch out if you meet someone like this", or "if you went on stage, don't do this". I was always impressed by the guys who went on stage despite how well they performed, because I thought that I could never go on it myself. The thought of being judged by the whole world terrified me.

Towards the end of last year my dad read an article saying they were looking for Australian contestants for "If You Are The One". He told me to look into it. I looked it up and yes, he was right, the Australian TV channel SBS has partnered up with the Chinese Jiangsu TV channel to find 10 male Australian contestants for If You Are The One. Only 10 males out of all of Australia, and somehow my dad thought I had a chance. Seeing him having this much confidence in me I decided to fill out that application form. Nothing could ever come out of this, I thought, as I was filling it out.

Surely enough, after a couple of weeks, I got an email from one of the directors of the show, asking to interview me over QQ (Chinese equivalent of Skype I guess you can say). I got dressed up for the interview, forgetting that they could only see above my chest anyway over the webcam. The director was nice but asked me some very deep questions. What qualities do you want in a girl? What failed in your past relationships? Which girls do you like that are currently on stage? I thought I answered them particularly badly. My dad wasn't too impressed when I told him I couldn't remember which girls were on stage. "You should have studied before the interview" he said.

Somehow, I passed the interview. They flew two directors from China to Brisbane just to film my "About Me" videos. We spent two days filming my life in Brisbane, including my house, my brother and I playing tennis and basketball, strolling on the Gold Coast beach, and so on. Just about every scene was filmed repeatedly a dozen times at different camera angles and distances. I had to borrow three friends to act as my ex girlfriends to film the flashbacks of failed relationships. Some bystanders were weirded out by watching me chase my pretend ex-girlfriend in the shopping centre which was a funny experience.

The support I received from my parents, relatives, and friends were so overwhelming that I stopped caring about whether I can actually get a match on the show. My kung fu master sacrificed his Sunday filming kung fu and rock climbing with me in the rain. My friends made up poems about me to say how good I am as a person in the friend interviews. I knew that I should be thankful for living a great life and I was incredibly lucky to have them and whether or not I can meet "the one" is now secondary.

The big day came when I actually had to go on the show. I flew to Nanjing, China and stayed at a 5 star hotel (paid for by the TV station) in the same room as one of the other male contestants. We got along really well and he even helped me with some fashion tips. It was my first trip to China as well (I was originally from Taiwan) so I was super excited. We started a day with a practice walk on stage without the women there, which was awesome because it's always different to see something in real life rather than on TV.

After putting some make up on for the second time in my life (the first time was a joke at a dress up party), and a brief 2 minute introduction of who the girls are on stage through an Ipad, I watched the first contestant getting his lights dimmed out and then I was shoved onto the stage. I practiced the greetings about 20 times before I went on so I said that smoothly but I had no idea what was about to happen next. My face started twitching unwillingly and I was so nervous I couldn't get words out of my mouth.

I came across very formal and nervous. The host even said "you sound like this is a job interview" which was edited out of the final cut. I was told beforehand that I wasn't going to perform anything on stage (thinking back on it, this was probably a set up), so I hadn't prepared any routines to perform. When a lady asked me to perform kung fu, I knew I was going to screw it up but I did it anyway. I thought I did pretty poorly but apparently it wasn't too bad after I asked a few people about it. My kung fu master told me that the point of performing on stage is to train to conquer your fears, so he thought I did well.

If you watched the episode you probably found out that I didn't get any matches. However, I was reassured by the director that I would get many, many e-mails after the show aired. Initially I was super upset mainly because I felt like I was a disappointment to my friends and family, and after watching every other contestant after me getting a match except one, I went back to the hotel tired and upset. The next day I hopped on a train as early as I could and went on a random unplanned road trip around China (this will be in another article).

After the show aired I was getting an unbelievable amount of attention. The whole time I have been single, I have heard that women often get loads of e-mails on dating sites, and now this is happening to me. For about a month after the show aired, every day I would get five or six e-mails from women who I have never met before, saying that they loved my appearance on the show (my e-mail was on the screen at the end of the show) and that they were interested in getting to know me. I faced a totally different problem - how could I pick who to keep talking to out of all those women? It was perhaps harder than before to have so many choices.

Six months later, even though I am still single, I feel a lot more confident about myself having gone on one of the biggest stages in the world. I still don't know when The One will show up, but I know that when I do meet that special person, I will appreciate her for who she is and do my best to make her happy.

Feel free to ask me any questions about my experiences with the show and I'll try to answer them the best I could :)