A still of Big Brother. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Korean formats have been dominant on Chinese television ever since. A major difference between South Korean shows and Western ones is the former's heavy reliance on celebrities. It can be summed up as displaying "the extraordinary side of ordinary people" vs "the ordinary side of extraordinary people".

For Go Fighting!, Sun Honglei, who has won many acting awards, says that his participation was "30 percent acting and 70 percent being himself" and Huang Bo says he didn't have time to think of acting. "As every task was new, I was just sweating all over trying to familiarize myself with the rules and routines of the show," he adds.

Sometimes, "being oneself" means making a fool of oneself, which satisfies the innate voyeurism of the public. For some of the shows, stars have to show their family members, residences or slices of their private lives.