The American Invasion of China

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The American Invasion of China

Post by Gawd » Fri Jun 18, 2010 2:34 am

Rent a White Guy
NOT LONG AGO I was offered work as a quality-control expert with an American company in China I’d never heard of. No experience necessary—which was good, because I had none. I’d be paid $1,000 for a week, put up in a fancy hotel, and wined and dined in Dongying, an industrial city in Shandong province I’d also never heard of. The only requirements were a fair complexion and a suit.

“I call these things ‘White Guy in a Tie’ events,” a Canadian friend of a friend named Jake told me during the recruitment pitch he gave me in Beijing, where I live. “Basically, you put on a suit, shake some hands, and make some money. We’ll be in ‘quality control,’ but nobody’s gonna be doing any quality control. You in?”

I was.

And so I became a fake businessman in China, an often lucrative gig for underworked expatriates here. One friend, an American who works in film, was paid to represent a Canadian company and give a speech espousing a low-carbon future. Another was flown to Shanghai to act as a seasonal-gifts buyer. Recruiting fake businessmen is one way to create the image—particularly, the image of connection—that Chinese companies crave. My Chinese-language tutor, at first aghast about how much we were getting paid, put it this way: “Having foreigners in nice suits gives the company face.”

.....
So this is Obama's plan to take over China: Rent white guys out.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/pri ... -guy/8119/

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Re: The American Invasion of China

Post by Wumbologist » Fri Jun 18, 2010 2:40 am

$1000 a week, no experience necessary? Where do I sign up? :lol:

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Re: The American Invasion of China

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Fri Jun 18, 2010 11:15 am

Gawd wrote:So this is Obama's plan to take over China:
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Re: The American Invasion of China

Post by Robert_S » Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:38 am

Gawdzilla wrote:
Gawd wrote:So this is Obama's plan to take over China:
Image
It's Obama's plan to get whitey out of the US once and for all. :smoke:
What I've found with a few discussions I've had lately is this self-satisfaction that people express with their proffessed open mindedness. In realty it ammounts to wilful ignorance and intellectual cowardice as they are choosing to not form any sort of opinion on a particular topic. Basically "I don't know and I'm not going to look at any evidence because I'm quite happy on this fence."
-Mr P

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Re: The American Invasion of China

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:42 am

Robert_S wrote:
Gawdzilla wrote:
Gawd wrote:So this is Obama's plan to take over China:
Image
It's Obama's plan to get whitey out of the US once and for all. :smoke:
Reminds me of that line from "Murder by Death".

"He was arrested for smuggling rich white guys into Mexico to pick lettuce."
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Re: The American Invasion of China

Post by Robert_S » Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:47 am

Gawdzilla wrote:
Robert_S wrote:
Gawdzilla wrote:
Gawd wrote:So this is Obama's plan to take over China:
Image
It's Obama's plan to get whitey out of the US once and for all. :smoke:
Reminds me of that line from "Murder by Death".

"He was arrested for smuggling rich white guys into Mexico to pick lettuce."
Who's gonna crash our economy next time if all the rich white guys are allowed to do things that are actually productive?
What I've found with a few discussions I've had lately is this self-satisfaction that people express with their proffessed open mindedness. In realty it ammounts to wilful ignorance and intellectual cowardice as they are choosing to not form any sort of opinion on a particular topic. Basically "I don't know and I'm not going to look at any evidence because I'm quite happy on this fence."
-Mr P

The Net is best considered analogous to communication with disincarnate intelligences. As any neophyte would tell you. Do not invoke that which you have no facility to banish.
Audley Strange

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Re: The American Invasion of China

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:50 am

Robert_S wrote:Who's gonna crash our economy next time if all the rich white guys are allowed to do things that are actually productive?
Jesus will come back (for the first time) before that happens.
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Re: The American Invasion of China

Post by colubridae » Wed Jun 23, 2010 7:13 am

What no anti-isreali shite. :think:

aw shucks! you aren't trying to shake off your image, hoping to look sensible are you? :biggrin:

Never going to work. :nono:
I have a well balanced personality. I've got chips on both shoulders

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Re: The American Invasion of China

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Wed Jun 23, 2010 10:52 am

colubridae wrote:What no anti-isreali shite. :think:

aw shucks! you aren't trying to shake off your image, hoping to look sensible are you? :biggrin:

Never going to work. :nono:
He's trying to diversify.

Ain't workin'.
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Rent-a-cracker

Post by FBM » Tue Jun 29, 2010 8:36 am

If they only paid more... :nono:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06 ... 2j3TP602Hz
For rent in China: White people
Beijing, China (CNN) -- In China, white people can be rented.

For a day, a weekend, a week, up to even a month or two, Chinese companies are willing to pay high prices for fair-faced foreigners to join them as fake employees or business partners.

Some call it "White Guy Window Dressing." To others, it's known as the "White Guy in a Tie" events, "The Token White Guy Gig," or, simply, a "Face Job."

And it is, essentially, all about the age-old Chinese concept of face. To have a few foreigners hanging around means a company has prestige, money and the increasingly crucial connections -- real or not -- to businesses abroad.

"Face, we say in China, is more important than life itself," said Zhang Haihua, author of "Think Like Chinese." "Because Western countries are so developed, people think they are more well off, so people think that if a company can hire foreigners, it must have a lot of money and have very important connections overseas. So when they really want to impress someone, they may roll out a foreigner."

Or rent one.

Last year, Jonathan Zatkin, an American actor who lives in Beijing, posed as the vice president of an Italian jewelry company that had, allegedly, been in a partnership with a Chinese jewelry chain for a decade.

When is being foreign a career advantage?

Zatkin was paid 2,000 yuan (about $300) to fly, along with a couple of Russian models, to a small city in the central province of Henan where he delivered a speech for the grand opening ceremony of a jewelry store there.

They have not told me what my name is today. I think it is Lawrence or something

--Beijing actor pretending to be a New York architect

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China
"I was up on stage with the mayor of the town, and I made a speech about how wonderful it was to work with the company for 10 years and how we were so proud of all of the work they had done for us in China," Zatkin said. "They put up a big bandstand and the whole town was there and some other local muckety-mucks."

The requirements for these jobs are simple. 1. Be white. 2. Do not speak any Chinese, or really speak at all, unless asked. 3. Pretend like you just got off of an airplane yesterday.

Those who go for such gigs tend to be unemployed actors or models, part-time English teachers or other expats looking to earn a few extra bucks. Often they are jobs at a second- or third-tier city, where the presence of pale-faced foreigners is needed to impress local officials, secure a contract or simply to fulfill a claim of being international.

"Occasionally companies want a foreign face to go to meetings and conferences or to go to dinners and lunches and smile at the clients and shake people's hands," read an ad posted by a company called Rent A Laowai (Chinese for "foreigner") on the online classified site thebeijinger.com.

It continued: "There are job opportunities for girls who are pretty and for men who can look good in a suit."

Click here for in-depth news on China

People like Brad Smith. When Smith -- the nom de plume of the Beijing-based American actor -- answered CNN's phone call on a recent morning, he was standing outside a meeting room at a Ramada Inn in Hangzhou, a city about 100 miles outside of Shanghai. Today's job: Pretend to be an architect from New York and give design plans for a new museum to local officials.

"They have not told me what my name is today. I think it is Lawrence or something," said Smith -- unlike some jobs, no fake business cards were given to hand out.

Earlier that morning he went over his script with his Chinese "business partners" at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. "It says, 'Good morning distinguished leaders. It is my privilege to participate in this program'," said Smith, who asked that his real name not be used for fear it could jeopardize future jobs.

If Smith is asked a question, he is told to pretend to answer as his "translator" pretends to understand.

Occasionally, these jobs can go awry. Smith said 18 months ago Beijing police showed up at his apartment after a financial company he worked at for a couple of months in Xi'an, a city in western China, allegedly swindled millions of yuan out of clients.

"That company said I was the guy in charge," he said. "I didn't even remember the company's name. After that, I decided I was never going to use my passport again with these fake companies. The small gigs are much less dangerous." Sometimes companies will hire Caucasians simply to sit in the office a few hours a day near the window where clients and customers can see them.

White women are also a hot commodity, sometimes to pose as phony foreign girlfriends, or, in the case of Vicky Mohieddeen, to pretend to be an oil tycoon.

Mohieddeen, who is Scottish, took a job in 2008 to attend what she describes as some sort of "oil drilling conference" in Shandong province for 300 yuan ($44). Several busloads of foreigners, with nationalities ranging from Pakistani to Nigerian, were trucked to the event, she said. They were greeted by brass bands and feted with a sumptuous dinner.

"I was like, 'Yeah, we have a lot of oil in Scotland.' I didn't know what to say. It was a bit nerve-racking. We were guests of honor of the vice mayor. We were put in a nice hotel. It was quite fancy."

For Mohieddeen, who had just arrived in Beijing at the time, the experience, albeit bizarre, was an introduction to a side of China most foreigners will never see.

"It is part of what China is all about, you know," Mohieddeen said. "There is quite an elaborate fantasy world going on here where if everyone buys into it, it does not matter if it is the truth. Those kinds of experiences give me a fuller understanding of the way the culture works."
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Re: Rent-a-cracker

Post by JimC » Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:50 am

Some sort of weird cultural inferiority complex...

"Our enterprise is important because even white people are involved in it..."

:roll:
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Re: Rent-a-cracker

Post by Thinking Aloud » Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:56 am

Look out - there's already a thread about this. It's called something like "America invades China".

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Re: Rent-a-cracker

Post by FBM » Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:57 am

Over here, they actually make us work for money. :nono: Gotta figure out how to import some of that Chinese approach... :plot:
"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it." ~ H. L. Mencken

"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."

"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion."

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Re: Rent-a-cracker

Post by Feck » Tue Jun 29, 2010 10:00 am

sounds like a job I could do ,oh ....no .... suit ,tie ,forget it
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Re: Rent-a-cracker

Post by FBM » Tue Jun 29, 2010 10:02 am

Thinking Aloud wrote:Look out - there's already a thread about this. It's called something like "America invades China".
Sorted. Thanks for the heads-up. :tup:
"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it." ~ H. L. Mencken

"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."

"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion."

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