Music boot camp reality shows are all the rage in China and South Korea, but unfortunately for one participant, that was not necessarily a good thing.
Vladislav Ivanov, 27, who speaks fluent Mandarin, was working on the Chinese reality boy band TV show Produce Camp 2021 as a translator for two friends. This is when he was approached by producers who asked if he was interested in joining the show because of his looks.
Ivanov, a part-time model, says they asked if he'd "like to try a new life" and he agreed, but seemed to instantly regret that decision. After giving half-hearted performances and asking viewers to vote him off the show for weeks, Ivanov was finally granted his wish after three months – and making it all the way to the final round of the show.
Produced by Chinese tech company Tencent, Produce Camp 2021 focuses on 90 local and overseas contestants vying for their spot in an international boy band that would comprise 11 participants chosen from the show.
Ivanov gave himself the stage name of Lelush, taking his name from Lelouch Lamperouge, a character from his favourite Japanese anime series Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion.
Early on, his despondent attitude about being on the show seemed to attract fans even more. He repeatedly said he didn't want to be in the contest and begged the audience to stop voting for him so that he could go home.
“Becoming a member of a boy band is not my dream as I can’t sing and dance,” he said in Mandarin on the show. “I hope the judges won’t support me. While the others want to get an A, I want to get an F as it stands for freedom.”
During the first round, while other contestants gave impressive, passionate performances, he performed a half-hearted and rushed Russian rap called Jackpot.
Yet his performance was a hit with the audience who seemed to love his reluctant and bored attitude while rapping. "Please don't make me go to the finals, I'm tired," he said in a later episode.
After making it to the final, surviving 10 episodes over the course of three months, he grumpily ate a lemon on camera, and said he hoped people would not support him again. “I’m not kidding,” he said.
Ivanov was unable to leave the show of his own accord as he had signed a contract which stipulated he would have to pay a fine if he breached it.
He was eventually voted out in the final episode, which was broadcast on Saturday. A Weibo hashtag related to his exit was viewed more than 180 million times and reposted more than 59,000 times, including by the Russian Embassy in Beijing. "Congrats, have a good rest," the embassy said.
While some thought that Ivanov's appearance was part of a publicity stunt to boost attention to the show, his friend and agency executive Ivan Wang, who hired him to translate, said otherwise.
"He declined repeated participation requests by the director of Produce Camp 2021. He just said yes after getting bored on the island. He thought joining the show might help his introverted personality."
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
AT%20A%20GLANCE
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Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sept 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
Green ambitions
- Trees: 1,500 to be planted, replacing 300 felled ones, with veteran oaks protected
- Lake: Brown's centrepiece to be cleaned of silt that makes it as shallow as 2.5cm
- Biodiversity: Bat cave to be added and habitats designed for kingfishers and little grebes
- Flood risk: Longer grass, deeper lake, restored ponds and absorbent paths all meant to siphon off water
Defined benefit and defined contribution schemes explained
Defined Benefit Plan (DB)
A defined benefit plan is where the benefit is defined by a formula, typically length of service to and salary at date of leaving.
Defined Contribution Plan (DC)
A defined contribution plan is where the benefit depends on the amount of money put into the plan for an employee, and how much investment return is earned on those contributions.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
