Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Companies Rent White Foreigners
The job market may look bad here, but if you're in China, and you happen to be white, all you need is a suit and tie. An increasing number of Chinese companies are willing to pay any price to have a few fair-skinned faux employees walking around. From the article: "'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."
They rent us because we can pronounce our L's and R's
"I want to be a rent boy for the Chinese!"
If the Chinese hire them to hang out around the water cooler, does that make them coolies?
The gift that keeps giving.
This is news?
I rent people all the time in Amsterdam's red light district!
I've always been more of a "ESSE QVAM VIDERE" fan myself. ("To be, rather than to seem.") State motto of North Carolina. Guess Ah'm just a sample countreh boy aht heart aftah all.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
if you throw a party, you have to put out crackers
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So you know nothing, you do nothing, but people just pay you to hang around.
Sounds like a booth babe to me.
Now it's open to men!
Something a little similar occurs in Korea. The biggest employers of foreigners in Korea are the US military and language schooling, whether at public or private institutions. Now, the fun thing is, schools much, much prefer white teachers, because there's a perception here that white face means English speaker. Someone with an Asian face, on the other hand... maybe the school is trying to pull something.
I got turned down for a few job applications for no real reason, and I'm pretty sure it had something to do with my skin tone.
Just got back from Japan.
They do the same with Blacks over there, mostly with hip nightclubs and the sort.
I had a couple of friends go live in China for a couple of years. She was teaching english, he did that but also picked up some other "jobs", one of which involved, as far as he could tell, being shipped around to various places in China, dressed up in a suit, and having drinks poured down his throat until he couldn't walk anymore. Near as he could figure, he was supposed to be playing the role of the representative of a foreign company which was working with the Chinese outfit which had hired him, since that would make them look good to possible business partners. Sounds like a pretty surreal situation.
Did the Chinese get the idea from Mad Men?
Je ne parle pas francais.
The problem is, if they're hiring Americans then they probably won't be able to "walk around" all day, seeing as how the typical American isn't quite that athletic. I wonder how they would feel about their image if they were hovering around in a hoveround lol.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I lived in China for a few years, and had two of these gigs. Once, I had to pretend I was someone from the midwest interested in investing in a chemical factory somewhere. It got very surreal, because once the conference started, even the people who hired me seemed to forget that I was just playing a role...the extent of the communal illusion was mindboggling. In another one, I had to pretend I was the coworker of some guy who knocked up a Chinese woman, representing him at they're own wedding that he couldn't attend for "business reasons".
This is nothing new.
About 10 years ago I interviewed with a few companies in Taiwan. There were several who pretty much wanted to hire me as the token foreigner. One or two of them thought I might bring new ideas to the table, but I'm sure their corporate culture would pretty much squash any new ideas. One company in particular was more direct about what they wanted. They wanted to convey a more international image to make themselves more appealing to investors.
A lot of companies in Asia have this obsession with passing themselves off as an international corporation. Every two-bit company has the word "international" in their name. Their English name, because the vast majority of companies in Taiwan and China have an English and Chinese name. I guess it's aspirational in some ways. It's not simply that they want to impress, it's the belief that doing these things will lead to the perception turning into reality and I think some of it is linked to how Japanese companies became successful. It's like they think success will just happen without looking at the fundamentals.
In hindsight maybe I should have taken that job. I probably would have done little to no work and there were a bunch of cute girls working there.
I might be the only person here who's actually done this, so I can attest to the fact that a) it does happen b) quite frequently and c) it was a lot of fun. I live in Shanghai as a teacher but was rented for a weekend-long product presentation as up-and-coming American architect (with vast Italian-architecture experience). They pre-wrote the speech and created the ppt in first person so it seemed real, and the draw for this was incredible. Face is extremely important to the Chinese -- "perception is reality" is a ground-rule for living here. But with flexible-enough morals, free meals, a private driver, pre-arranged tours, my own 5-star hotel suite and pay is a pretty great deal for what was only about 2 hours work!
Stuff like this is part of why one should never, ever, invest in Chinese stocks even if they are ADRs on the US exchanges.
could you elaborate on how this story reinforces that point?
So renting people because of the color of their skin is legal again.
Sounds as if Diaper Dave is at it again.
After reading the article I see that "Any price" ranges from $44 to $300. Great summary, slashdot!
So, what do you do for a living?
I stand around.
What's the title of your occupation?
I'm a Professional Poser.
Does it pay well?
For not doing shit? Hell ya.
Life is not for the lazy.
It the obvious extension to outsourcing jobs. First American jobs go offshore, then Americans.
Vote for Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman so they can send your job to China! Help restore republican economic policies.
Should anyone blame the Chinese for discovering the republican secret for job "creation"? They want to enjoy the benefits of crony-capitalism too. We wanted them to drop communism and become capitalists. It seems we now have evidence that they have.
So I'd like to know where people get the notion that doing well is al about money? Monetary-wise I'm doing "not too shabby." Still I find being with my family the best time money can buy. Remember that when you kick the bucket the only thing you can be proud of is the way you were with the ones you loved. I'm an atheist but I maintain that if anything could be brought to the other side, that "thing" could only be related to the good vibes spread on earth. And although the "good vibes" thing isn't sure at all, you will absolutely leave your riches here.
Don't think "us" western people are particularly better at doing the stuff that really matters. Everywhere around the world there will be people enjoying the good company of others.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
being a rent boy to anti-gay crusading republicans.
republicans are beginning to see what its like to be in the minority. I suspect it will be mostly the Chinese, who will laughing at such water-cooler jokes.
"What the mind can conceive, the body can acheive."
I guess that explains why Rush Limbaugh is in such great shape.
why Hally Barbour spent so much time in China raising money for republican causes.
are actors. I thought white boys knew this.
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
The other white meat.
Once they start producing their own generic clones, the price will go through the floor.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
"What the mind can conceive, the body can acheive."
I guess that explains why Rush Limbaugh is in such great shape.
How does that correlate to Stephan Hawking?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
...That only fucking works for white people.
It was never the Chinese people that were the problem, it was the Chinese Communist Government. /it's still communist //just like Russia ///only wearing a different image
WHERE DA WHITE WOMEN AT!?!?!
Really ?
often named 'five star technologies' or some such, and staffed with Indians from India, not just the technology consultants but also all of HR (imported from India) and legal and what not, just have a token white receptionist (for American accent while answering phones) and a web page full of photos of white americans. Somehow all this is supposed to make one think that they are a multi-national technology consulting business, when in reality there are just a body shop peddling Indian consultants.
Form Over Substance will always lead to:
1. Milk that "looked" good but actually contaminated with melamine.
2. Toys that "looked" nice but can cause lead poisoning.
3. Dr. Martens shoes (used to be known to last over 5 years) that "looked" durable but (when manufacturing was shipped to China) now won't last a year.
4. Companies that "looked" cool and stable but actually a sweatshop.
5.
6. Profit!
I spent 2 years in China working for a software outsourcing company. Although there were a handful of other Americans at the company, I was the only one that wasn't of Asian descent. It was funny, really -- any time important people toured the company, they'd always stop by my desk to introduce me, even though I wasn't any sort of important role. Just being the "token white guy" got me a decent amount of attention. It was quite odd.
In general, though, being "white" in China still has privileges. I was in one of the most modern cities in China (Shenzhen, near where all your iPods are made) Just a friendly smile would set young women in hysterical giggles. Random people at the bus stop would ask me if I would be their friend. The banks would let me skip the line and go to the VIP counter. My Asian-American friends, on the other hand, didn't get nearly the special treatment. While people would compliment my horrible butchering of the Chinese language, people would ask them why they couldn't speak better. Sadly, I guess that means that racism is still thriving in some parts of the world....
And where do I sign up?
- Soup is really good.
It is not just a Chinese phenomenon mind you. You see similar things (albeit with their own unique twists due to their historical peculiarities) in the Dominican Republic (everyone wants to marry a lighter-skinned person to "improve the blood") or Mexico (ever seen a Mexican soap opera? Everyone but the maids look like I dunno, Iceland.) But for a nation like China where culture dwells so much on its national pride (to the point of being chauvinistic and xenophobic towards foreigners and their own minorities), I find this self-directed racism (which it is no matter how you cut it) quite entertaining, in a "poetic justice" kind of way.
Don't be silly
Black holes, of course.
man this shit is so lame. It's not even funny, and no one clicks on it. If you're gonna troll, it should at least be something humorous...
That's just another thing that the Chinese are faking. Welcome to the country where everything is copied or fake.
How many /.ers have rented a Chinese woman?
/raises hand
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
How is hiring pretty looking hostesses any different than this. I hear that some companies in the US prefer people with blonde hair and white skin to be their representatives, especially public representatives. If that isnt face what is? Sometimes event organizers "rent" pretty looking models as ushers for their events. So everyone around the world uses 'pretty faces' (depends on what you mean by pretty) to show a different "face" to the world.
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
I've done this 20 years ago. I'd be jetted around China meeting various people and introduced as a "business partner". Of course, I didn't actually do anything except smile and talk on casual subjects. Still, it was interesting and fun at the time. The benefits were good too.
I asked at one point "why", and I was told "Chinese don't trust Chinese. Chinese will trust Chinese who have Western business partners, so if you are my business partner, they'll trust me and I'll get the business".
Hard to argue with that.
Hint: The phrase token black guy didn't come from china.
I sho does luv bein white!