I woke up this morning with two words running through my head: “Reality TV”. Kind of a scary thought, huh? But what got me thinking about Reality TV is not the content, per se, but the business model: find a bunch of people, average schlubs, and film them acting as such; edit the content to highlight the schlub-iest moments and then put it on prime time television. Violà… instant ratings. Like all great ideas, I am kicking myself that I did not think of it first. Why, you might ask, should I consider myself so forward-looking as to think I should/could come up with that idea? Well, because what they call “Reality Television” I call “the average day in China.”

China is a country of “watchers”: people sitting around and simply studying other people being…well…people!?! One of the things that foreigners have to get used to here is what we would call “staring” … many here would call, simply, “observing the behavior of those around them.” I suppose that makes sense … there are so many people there that free content is always available. Several decades ago, just being a foreigner in China attracted attention. Go to the market, let a couple of Chinese words slip out of your mouth and you gained such a crowd on interested onlookers that you could put up a tent and charge admission.

Now, certainly, things have changed over the years. But many years ago, I was a spectacle, even in a big city like Shanghai where foreigners were not very common. I once asked a Chinese friend why everyone stared at me and he said, “Well, for thousands of years, all we’ve had to look at is other people who look like us … you are REALLY different, so we want to have a look!” That was tough to argue with, I must admit.

So I have spent countless hours entertaining local residents here over the years. I should have had an agent negotiate a contract for me, thusly: “Mr. Kedl is willing to shop for vegetables every Tuesday and Thursday and to mispronounce a minimum of 17 Chinese words while doing so. The neighborhood will provide no less than 83 gawkers, at least 11 of whom will attempt to help Mr. Kedl negotiate the transaction and another 6 will comment on the proceedings. Mr. Kedl will receive 10% of the front end and two points on the gross plus all residuals on local TV news footage.”

Not much has changed over the years in terms of the spectacle I create when shopping. The modern hypermarket has made for some great leaps in shopping convenience: too many choices are jammed into too little space at too high prices and NO room to negotiate. The beauty about shopping in China is that total strangers will feel very free to look into your cart and check out what you are buying. Many of them will feel even freer to comment on your purchases, particularly if they don’t think you can speak Chinese: “Hmmm….look at that foreigner…what in the world would he need with a toaster oven, a pile of hangers and three apples?? And he should get himself a real nose instead of that two-car garage he has holding up his glasses now!”

I was at my local hypermarket recently when one elderly lady tried to convince me – in animated sign language reminiscent of Helen Keller doing liturgical dance – that the milk I was purchasing was NOT the right milk and that, if I bought the one she was buying, I could get 2-for-1. I explained to her that my kids preferred this type of milk, but thanks for the advice. She walked away a bit confused, mumbling to her shopping companion “Why in the world wouldn’t he by the cheapest kind…and it almost sounded like he spoke Chinese!!”

But having a foreigner as the center of attraction is not necessary. Almost any activity on the street will garner attention from passers-by. The other day a motorcycle cop stopped a guy on a bicycle carrying a load (looked like three sofas and a cage of ducks). The cop dismounted his bike, sauntered over, Ponch-style, to the offending cyclist and stared at him. Immediately, a gaggle of pedestrians gathered around the two of them to see what would happen next. Not able to resist peer pressure, I joined the throng (it felt good to be the gawker as opposed to the gawkee). And you know what happened? The biker got a ticket.

The crowd went away happy, but I was left unfulfilled. No fight broke out. No blood was spilled. No threat levels went to Orange. A TV news anchor didn’t show up with his helmet of hair and don’t-believe-me-at-your-peril voice to intone, over a dramatic graphic sequence, What It All Means and Why You Should Be Very, Very Afraid. The dude just…got a ticket.

The West is trying to convince China that they need to change, to upgrade themselves to the “modern world”. Personally, I think China is doing OK, for the most part. However, if I were to be honest, I think China could add a bit more excitement to what is, essentially, a reality show here. I mean, if all of life is open for others to sit around and stare at, you should really go for it …you know, punch it up a bit, get better ratings and maybe raise ad rates. Cops shouldn’t just give someone a ticket: apply a little OJ and first have a slow-motion chase through downtown (actually, it would be slow-motion here in Shanghai because you’d never get over crawling speed through the traffic). An overloaded vehicle tips on the highway? Splash around some fake blood and have five people go at it, Jerry Springer style. Over-crowding on the subways could be solved if we could all vote someone off every stop (my choice would be the guy with the scary comb-over taking up two seats) or the guy who keeps losing his mobile phone signal and keeps shouting “Wei? Wei?” into his dead phone.

But I think the ultimate Reality Show here would be to demonstrate just how helpless some foreigners are here. We could put a collection of them in a row house off Chang Le Lu, give them only CCTV, no access to DVDs or any restaurant that ends in “on the Bund”, take away their Ayis, drivers and secretaries and see who lasts the longest. Guaranteed to make Survivor look like summer camp for sissies.