Rent a White Guy

Mitch Moxley worked in a unique industry in China: being a white man. Apparently, it's beneficial in the eyes of some Chinese businessmen to have white men standing around looking important. So that's what Moxley and others have been paid to do:

“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.”


Link via Fausta's Blog | Image: University of Texas

Previously: Meet a Black Person

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Seems like the job for me, anybody looking to hire, I cover all the skill sets and requirements plus I am American that can already speak pretty darn good PuTongHua.
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This is no different than using model for promotions, but it's so silly that the people think that a white guy’s presence would make their business more desirable. Seriously, anybody that needs anything done right knows that they need a woman’s assistance. :P
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