The old, long-familiar phrase was made famous by Ma Nuo, a 20-year-old female contestant on the television dating show Fei Cheng Wu Rao (also known in English as If You Are the One).
"[1] In interviews after the show, Ma pointedly denied that she is a "gold digger" – saying that she "just wanted to reject [her suitor] in a creative way.
"[3] The blunt nature of the statement works well in the dating show's format, and is not the first controversial phrase to arise out of Fei Cheng Wu Rao.
It was cited by critics as a window to the "degradation of Chinese social values,"[2] and even drew the attention of government censors, who eventually forced producers to re-design the format of the show to be more professional and 'clean' of morally questionable content.
[4] The phrase also earned notoriety for Ma, whose purported pictures began surfacing all over the internet despite strong dislike from the public.