Changing his tune

Photo by Jiang Dong / China Daily

Gao jokes the show is meant to help people become popular at dinner parties and to help men court women.

The host says he's pleased to read Web comments from viewers, who say they spend 20 minutes watching the show and an additional four hours researching the topics.

Youku says Gao's show averages 1 million clicks an episode.

But not everyone likes it. Highbrow viewers believe he stoops to the lowest common denominator. Lowbrow viewers demand more eye candy.

So, Youku wants to give him a beautiful female co-host to raise questions for him to answer.

"Then, let her stand behind me and not talk," Gao says, jokingly.

But he was so talkative that he would talk for one hour for only the first question.

Youku may have good reasons to add the woman. Gao's Versace sweater and designer glasses make him stylish, but he’s generally not thought of as handsome.

But he doesn't complain about his looks.

"Everything else in my life is so right; you can't have it all," he says.

Gao was born with a silver — the Chinese say "golden" — spoon in his mouth.

His grandfather was president of the prestigious Tsinghua University. His maternal grandfather graduated from the Imperial College London and founded Shenzhen University.

He basically grew up on Tsinghua's campus, and studied in the top schools in China, before he, unsurprisingly, entered Tsinghua's electronic engineering department, one of the school's best majors.

He wrote On the Same Page as You at age 24.

Almost overnight, every young person knew the song by heart.

That tune and his later works made him a household name in the country. He later became a judge on the smash-hit variety show China's Got Talent.

The 43-year-old has a younger wife and a daughter, and splits his time between his Los Angeles and Beijing homes, working as a book author, composer, film director, judge and, now, talk show host.

Everything has gone right for him aside from one major bump in the road — he was arrested for drunken driving in 2011, after he left the first press conference for his film, My Kingdom.

He impressed many by stopping his lawyer in court to admit guilt.

"For me, the six months was not a result of the trial but also an atonement," he says.

"To be honest, if I was given a life sentence, I would have appealed, but six months is like a leaf falling from the tree of life — no big deal. I was a spoiled bastard in many ways before 40. So, maybe it was an opportunity to pay for my wildness and arrogance in my youth."

In jail, he read The British Encyclopedia and translated Garcia Marquez's novel Memories of My Melancholy Whores.

"I was too sensitive to read novels, so I turned to the encyclopedia, and translating Marquez’s book was comforting, because, as a 90-year-old man, he was more depressed than me. My depression seemed like nothing," he says.

The hardest thing for him in jail wasn't sleeping between a thief and a gangster but, rather, missing his daughter's development from ages 3.5-4.

After getting out of jail, he told his wife, a pious Buddhist: "Do not ask the Buddha for anything. We already have enough."

Gao has become even busier after his DUI.

A tour concert of his songs is going around the country, while Morning Talk airs weekly. He is scouting new vocal talent for a music company, and his next film is in progress. But he knows clearly what he wants from life — he plans to focus on music until he turns 60, after which he'll focus on writing and film directing.

"You can never write pop music at 60," he says.

"I don't complain about that. But you can always write a good book or direct a good film, no matter how old you are."

Contact the writer at liuw@chinadaily.com.cn.