爱思英语编者按：电视主持人杨澜是中国最大的名人之一。她曾在国内具有强大影响力的电视台担任电视栏目主持，以极具亲和力的主持风格倍受广大电视观众的喜爱。曾主持《正大综艺》、《杨澜访谈录》等电视栏目；曾被评选为“亚洲二十位社会与文化领袖”、“能推动中国前进、重塑中国形象的十二位代表人物”、“<中国妇女>时代人物”。
 

TV host Yang Lan is one of China's biggest celebs. Will the propriety and pragmatism that got her there keep her from becoming the mogul she wants to be? A story of fame, ambition, and reality in modern China.

"We have some work to do." Yang Lan, one of China's most famous women, doesn't so much say the words as turn them into a command. It is the last day of taping for her reality show, New Girl in the Office, and in a sweltering Beijing studio, Yang is coaching an audience of college-age women. Despite the heat, the students sit ramrod straight, their eyes glued to the regal star who stands before them in her gold Prada gown and Prada shoes. ("I wanted it to feel more formal," she says later.) She is about to teach them how to clap.

"There are three forms of applause: First, fast and furious," Yang tells the women. They clap feverishly. "When the comedian says funny things, there's the appreciative clap." They clap slowly. "The third is like when a political consultative conference is about to end, and you want it to be over so bad." They flatten palms together robotically.

Yang's face melts, but just a little, into the smile of a teacher pleased with her charges. Pleasant but not too warm, genuine but slightly distant, that smile has, over the past 20 years, become one of the most recognizable in the world's biggest media market. Yang's rise to fame has been unique in modern China. Two decades ago, she answered an open casting call for a slot as cohost on a new Chinese TV variety show. She was picked for her pluck -- when asked during her audition whether she would "dare" to wear a bikini, she replied that at nude beaches in France, it would be too conservative to wear even a bikini -- and has since parlayed her never-say-fail attitude into stardom. She has interviewed both Bill and Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, and Kobe Bryant. When the Shanghai Expo was casting celebrity spokespeople, they chose seven men (including Yao Ming and Jackie Chan) and Yang.

She has sought to turn that fame into a full-fledged business empire. Yang has created new programming for TV -- including one of the first shows targeting women -- and set up sites on the burgeoning Chinese-language Web. She has bought print publications; she sells credit cards; she's even hawking a co-branded jewelry line with Celine Dion. She and her husband, Bruno Wu, are one of China's richest couples; Forbes has estimated their wealth at about $300 million. All of which has led the foreign press -- and her own handlers -- to rarely miss an opportunity to call her the Oprah of China.

Yang Lan, 42, has done wonders to achieve what she has so far, being careful to maintain her above-the-fray image while morphing with the fast-shifting landscape. "You do what you can do," she says with a sigh in lightly accented, fluent English. Some of her ventures have succeeded -- her interview show has been one of the past decade's megahits -- while others, including her Sun TV network, have been huge flops. Through it all, she has held on to her biggest asset: her fame. Liu Yingqi, vice president of China Life Insurance Co., which sponsors New Girl in the Office, says, "She's the audience's Yang Lan, society's Yang Lan."

“我们得做一些功课。”杨澜，中国最有名气的女性之一，并不经常以这种命令的语气说话。她的真人秀节目《寻找杜拉拉》正在北京的一间闷热的录影棚里录制最后一期节目。杨澜正在指导一群女大学生观众。虽然天气很炎热，学生们腰杆儿挺得笔直，目光紧紧地黏在了站在他们面前穿着Prada 的金色长裙和皮鞋的明星女王。她将要教这些观众如何鼓掌。

“鼓掌的类型有三种：首先，快速而热烈，”杨对这些女性听众说。他们热情地鼓起掌来。“当喜剧演员说到一些好玩的事情，应该报以欣赏式的掌声。”观众们鼓掌的频率放慢了。“政协会议闭幕就属于第三种，这时你们的掌声传达出来的情绪应该不是欢快的。”这些观众一起机械式地鼓动他们的手掌。

杨的脸上出现了老师满意于自己的职责那样的微笑，愉快但并不太温暖，真诚但又保持一些距离。这种微笑在过去的20年里，已经成为了世界上最大的媒介市场中最为人们熟悉的面孔之一。杨在现代中国一举成名的过程非常独特。20年前，她在为一档新的综艺节目《正大综艺》选拔主持人的比赛中因自己的勇气而获得赏识。当评委们问道她敢不敢穿比基尼时，她回答说在法国的裸体浴场，即使穿着比基尼也会被人们认为过于保守。从那以后她抱着绝不认输的态度进入了综艺圈。她采访过包括克林顿、希拉里、基辛格以及科比在内的诸多名流。当上海世博会挑选名人代言时，他们选择了杨澜和其他7个人。

她试图把这种名望转变为成熟的商业帝国。杨澜创办了包括第一批针对女性的栏目在内的新的电视节目，还建立了一个中文站点。她收购过出版商，卖过信用卡，甚至还与席琳•迪翁一起联合创办珠宝品牌。她和她的丈夫吴征是中国最为富有的夫妻之一，《福布斯》估计他们的财富价值在3亿美元左右。所有这些使得外国媒体以及她的同行们一有机会都会称她为“中国的奥普拉”。更多信息请访问：http://www.engbus.cn/

42岁的杨澜创造了一个奇迹，她一边精心保持着自己在荧幕上的形象，一边体验商界这片变化莫测的领地。“要做那些力所能及的事情。”说这话时，她操着流利的英语微微叹了口气。她的冒险有的成功了——她的访谈节目至今仍被人们认为是过去十年的经典，而包括她的阳光卫视网络在内的其他项目却是巨大的失败。一路走来，她凭借的是她最大的资本：她的名望。刘英齐，中国人寿保险公司副主席，也是这次《寻找杜拉拉》节目的赞助者说“她是观众的杨澜，社会的杨澜”。

待续