NOTE: A glossary of all Chinese terms used is at the end of the chapter!
"Hello, everyone, and welcome to Idol Producer. I am Zhang Yixing. For a month, our hard-working trainees have been practicing non-stop to bring to you the performance you are about to witness: our very own theme song, 'Ei Ei.' Can you spot your favorite trainee?"
The director raises his hand, his eye on the main camera man. The director nods, and Yixing smiles again.
"So, did you spot them? Your favorite pick? Make sure to always vote for them every day! Your votes are very important to them, and will soon determine their official rankings. But first, let's take a look at their own choosing process: how they chose their day-one ranks."
BACKSTAGE
A gaggle of trainees enter the loading room. The staff herds them toward the mirror and stacks of stickers. The stickers are lettered from A to F, and the five trainees peer at them, keeping a safe distance away from the higher letters.
Except one. Wang Ziyi runs his fingers over the stacks, one by one, prowling, until he reaches the letter A. It feels like gold between his fingers as he considers it, tests it.
The trainees are a group of four boys and one girl, and all but Ziyi chat nervously, looking anxiously at the Cs and Ds and Fs. The girl, Wang Ziyu, picks up a D and presses it between her two palms, muttering a quick prayer.
"Please accept me," she says, squeezing her eyes shut.
Ziyi peels the backing from the A and sticks it on his nametag. He grins. "What do you think?"
"I believe in you," says one of his teammates.
ASIDE
"If anyone in our group deserves an A, it's Ziyi," says the teammate. "He works the hardest out of all of us. He trains all day, all the time, and even helps us when we are struggling. His skill are meters above ours."
"You have to consider whether the A accepts you, not the other way around, ge," Ziyu says.
"Don't discourage him!"
She curtsies. "Sorry."
A light by the door flashes.
"Time to go!" Ziyi exclaims, rubbing his hands together. "Ready?"
The D sticker is still in Ziyu's hand, slightly crumpled and damp from her clammy hands.
"Xiaomei! You still haven't put on your sticker!" one of the boys yelps, and Ziyi's head snaps toward her.
"Hurry hurry hurry," he says, and takes the sticker from her hands, peeling it and smoothing it onto her name tag. "Pay more attention, okay?"
"Kuai dian!" the staff say, and the trainees jostle each other, hurrying toward the door.
STAGE
The room is in cacophony. It's huge; an Olympic-sized swimming pool could fit inside, or maybe even two. Two sets of pyramid-shaped bleachers overlook the stage area, each one filled with rows of seats, the numbers on the backs of them decreasing the higher up they are, and the extravagance and size, too. They're at an angle to each other, and nestled between them, at the bottom, are a row of chairs along a lengthy table.
Trainees are scattered across the bleachers, girls on the left and boys on the right. The girls all chat excitedly; one is up and dancing around; two others scream their conversation three rows apart. A small group of girls make their rounds, shaking hands and introducing themselves to each fellow trainee.
The boys, on the other hand, are more quiet. They talk amongst themselves, occasionally branching out or shouting to a girl on the other side.
The big screen flashes: SIMPLY JOY ENTERTAINMENT. Finally, the noise makes a brief pit stop as the read the name, and a spike as they read ONE A.
The trainees emerge; Ziyi saunters, full of confidence; the other boys wave, eyes darting nervously around the new faces, and Ziyu ducks her head, staring at the ground or her team, anywhere except the nearly hundred curious eyes.
"Hello, we are from Jiandan Kuaile!" they say, and the boys continue, according to script, "We are BBT!"
"And I am not," recites Ziyu, focusing between the two pyramids and plastering on a smile.
"Ke'ai, ke'ai!" shout some girls from above. "Huanying!"
Not meaning to, Ziyu cracks a real grin, and blushes when she realizes. Embarrassed, she waves, inciting more welcoming shouts.
"We have to choose our rankings, huh," says one of her teammates, and her eyes dart toward her brother.
"Relax," he says, patting her back, and then turns to the boys' side, already setting his eyes on the empty top seat.
He races up the steps, two at a time, while the other boys walk toward the bottom ranks.
With a deep breath, Ziyu makes her way toward her stairs, too. She scans the open seats for an easy target; the top is already mostly gone, not that she would have dared, anyway; the middle is crowded with lines of same-company trainees. Hastily, she ducks into a bottom row and claims seat 78.
BACKSTAGE
This group is rather noisy. Three girls and six boys huddle at the center of the room, chanting and grunting.
"We are Mavericks! Yi, er, san, jiayou!" They break, hands flying in the air, and cheer.
"Pick your letter grade!" the staff say, and the nine trainees chatter excitedly, looking at the stacks of stickers.
Two of the girls nudge each other encouragingly. One of them, Meng Ruijing, pulls her friend by the hand. "Jiejie, let's both get B's."
ASIDE
"You have to set your expectations as your goals. That's the only way you can guarantee reaching them." Ruijing says, sagely. "That's why I chose B: I hope that we can do well, and that we have earned it through our hard work, but of course there's always room to improve. There will always be someone better than me, and my goal this show is to grow to be a better version of myself." She nods. "Always a growth mindset."
"Ruirui, you could get an A," replies the other girl, Jung Tsui, with a mischievous smile.
"Both B's, both B's," says Ruirui, and takes two stickers for the both of them.
Meanwhile, the third girl meanders down the row of stickers, oohing at each one. "该选哪个呀," she complains, throwing pouty expressions at her teammates. "Help!"
"I'm choosing B," says Li Xikan.
Yu Mingjun snatches an A, and prances around the room as if he'd stolen it.
Huang Beibei huffs. "I guess I'll choose... C!" She grabs it, wiggling it like a prize.
"What made you choose that?" retorts Xikan. "Put it back. Go lower."
"Too late!" she grins, slapping it on her nametag. "Whenever I don't know the answer on a test I always choose C."
"And how often is that, huh?"
"Uh... ninety percent?"
"You should have entered a stupidity competition instead," Xikan says.
Beibei kicks him. "Say that again and I'll cry."
"I'm older than you; don't hit me! And if you cry you'll mess up your makeup!"
The light above the door flashes. Ruirui grabs Beibei, dragging her away from Xikan. "I hope you know you're on national TV."
"The world deserves to know my true self," says Beibei, sticking her tongue out at Xikan, who giggles.
Jung Tsui pats down the flyaways in Beibei's hair. "Be more careful, Xiao Bei."
STAGE
"大家好，我们是迈瑞娱乐！请多多关照！"
"欢迎！" shout some scattered voices, and down below, the Mavericks team bows.
Beibei hops up and down, waving at the trainees above, while Jung Tsui and Ruirui whisper to each other, scouting out the open seats. Upon deciding, they link arms with Beibei.
"Stop waving, come on," Jung Tsui says. "Another team is waiting to come out!"
"Okay, okay," Beibei whines, and follows them up the stairs. "Where are we sitting?"
"Thirty-one to thirty-three," says Ruirui. As they make their way up the stairs, the girls shake hands with the other trainees, introducing themselves, and sharing words of encouragement.
"Nice to meet you, nice to meet you," Ruirui says, smiling warmly, and Jung Tsui adds, "一起加油！"
"Your outfits are so cute!" blurts Beibei, and "Can I have your hair?! It's so soft! Can I touch it? Can I?"
"Jiejie, stop," Ruirui sighs, apologizing to each of her victims. "She's just very excited, sorry," she explains.
ASIDE
"What's it like to train with Huang xiaojie?"
"It's, uh..." Ruirui lets out a deep sigh and facepalms. "I love her, really, but she has to be the dumbest person I've ever met. I mean that in the nicest way possible. A true dumb beauty. Beibei-jie is our team's little puppy."
ASIDE
"Training with Beibei... uh. Well." Jung Tsui scratches her head. "It's funny, our team really is diverse. There's me, with a masters in astrophysics, there's Meng Ruijing, who studied abroad in England, and then there's Huang Beibei, who failed her college entrance exam and is relying on her pretty face for a living now. She's super cute and sweet, but I really have no idea what goes on in her brain."
BACKSTAGE
"Before I take a sticker," the trainee says, looking directly at the production staff, "I wanna know: how many seats are left?"
The camerawoman glances at the assistant director. "Uh—"
"About twenty," says the assistant director.
"What about the top seat? The number one?"
The two staff members glance at each other. "...No," the assistant director finally says. "It's already taken."
"Okay, well, can I still take it? If the other girl leaves?"
"Uh... not... not really." The staff whispers; some are concerned, some plain taken aback.
"So I can," says Yang Meiling, nodding. "Thanks." She grabs an A and walks out the door.
STAGE
"Hello everyone," Meiling says, bowing. She smiles, and it's almost a smirk. Whispers start up around the bleachers.
"She's so pretty," one girl gushes.
"She looks like a heartbreaker-type idol. A man-killer."
"She's not Chinese, is she? Is she mixed?"
A boy claps his hands over his heart playfully, and another girl sighs appreciatively.
"My name is Yang Meiling, or you can call me Amelie. I look forward to competing against you all." She stared at the girl in the number one seat as she said it, and smiled as she strode up the stairs.
As girls attempted to make introductions, she gave them small, dismissive waves, her eyes not leaving the top seat. The girl at the top began to fidget, her eyes darting around at her friends for encouragement.
"There are no more seats up there," one girl called.
Meiling ignored them. "Hi," she said, extending her hand.
The girl stood up from the number one seat, smiling a bit in relief. "Hi, I'm Wendy. Oh, you scared me a bit. I almost thought you were gonna take my seat!"
"Nice to meet you, Wendy," Meiling said, laughing. "Well, you should have more confidence."
"Tha—"
"Sorry, could we hurry a bit? Someone else is coming out. Move."
"Huh?"
"Wendy, haven't you realized? This seat belongs to me."
GLOSSARY
哥 (ge) - older brother; older male
小妹 (xiaomei) - little sister; affectionate name for a younger female (literally, little younger sister)
快点 (kuaidian) - (go) faster
简单快乐 (jiandan kuaile) - Simply Joy
可爱 (ke'ai) - cute
欢迎 (huanying) - welcome
一二三 (yi er san) - one, two, three
加油 (jiayou) - let's go; fighting; you can do it (literally, add oil)
该选哪个呀 (gai xuan na ge ya) - Which one should I choose?
大家好 (da jia hao) - Hello, everyone
我们是迈瑞娱乐 (women shi mairui yule) - We are Mavericks Entertainment
请多多关照 (qing duoduo guanzhao) - Please take care of us!
一起加油 (yiqi jiayou) - let's jiayou together