Korean Job Discussion Forums

jrwhite82 · Joined: 22 May 2010

Colbert mentioned this on his show the other night.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/340895/july-06-2010/the-word---the-white-stuff

bacasper · Joined: 26 Mar 2007

Rent a White Guy

Confessions of a fake businessman from Beijing

By Mitch Moxley

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.�

cont'd at link