{"id":18694,"date":"2011-01-05T03:01:22","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T03:01:22","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-01-05T03:01:22","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T03:01:22","slug":"chinese-companies-burnish-images-by-renting-white-guys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=18694","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Companies Burnish Images By &#8220;Renting White Guys&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chinese Men think White Men are prestigious to deal with!<\/p>\n<p>Mitch Moxley, a writer in Beijing, had a piece in the July\/August issue of the Atlantic that I can&#8217;t believe I missed.<\/p>\n<p>Though the article, titled, &#8220;Rent a White Guy,&#8221; is a few months old, it still bears a mention.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI call these things \u2018White Guy in a Tie&#8217; events,&#8217; a Canadian friend of a friend named Jake told me during the recruitment pitch he gave me in Beijing, where I live,&#8221; Moxley wrote. \u201cBasically, you put on a suit, shake some hands, and make some money. We&#8217;ll be in \u2018quality control,&#8217; but nobody&#8217;s gonna be doing any quality control. You in?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moxley accepted the challenge.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Six of us met at the Beijing airport, where Jake briefed us on the details. We were supposedly representing a California-based company that was building a facility in Dongying. Our responsibilities would include making daily trips to the construction site, attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and hobnobbing. During the ceremony, one of us would have to give a speech as the company&#8217;s director. That duty fell to my friend Ernie, who, in his late 30s, was the oldest of our group. His business cards had already been made.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He described the experience of a friend, &#8220;an American who works in film, [who] was paid to represent a Canadian company and give a speech espousing a low-carbon future.&#8221; Another &#8220;was flown to Shanghai to act as a seasonal-gifts buyer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Recruiting fake businessmen is one way to create the image\u2014particularly, the image of connection\u2014that Chinese companies crave,&#8221; Moxley explained. &#8220;My Chinese-language tutor, at first aghast about how much we were getting paid, put it this way: &#8216;Having foreigners in nice suits gives the company face.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sounds like a great gig. In fact, it&#8217;s a great enough gig that a commenter going by the name of &#8220;Prometeo&#8221; is willing to wait for an opening he&#8217;s suited for.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Guess I don&#8217;t qualify for the job. Too bad,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;Call me when they [have] a &#8216;Rent a Puerto Rican Guy&#8217; event.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>via www.minyanville.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chinese Men think White Men are prestigious to deal with! Mitch Moxley, a writer in Beijing, had a piece in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"njaiyo","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/255e26fc52858afad234c2c1d44c946e16c565fd0ef5615b0c1caa793897759d?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Chinese Men think White Men are prestigious to deal with! Mitch Moxley, a writer in Beijing, had a piece in","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":157,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"njaiyo","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=6"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/255e26fc52858afad234c2c1d44c946e16c565fd0ef5615b0c1caa793897759d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1\">News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}