Many years ago I went on a bewildering two-week business trip to mainland China. I say bewildering because most of it degenerated into a string of meetings and drunken, overfed lunches and dinners where I mostly didn’t even know why I was there. There were ceremonial greetings, business cards were exchanged, people went on at length in Mandarin – a language for which I had all of three words – and I was rarely asked to say or do anything.
Finally figured out that my job, if I may speak cynically, was to be the white guy. As long as I smiled, wore a suit, spoke English with an American accent, little more was ever asked of me. It was weird and expensive and kind of insulting, but I saw a lot of nice scenery. Didn’t really mind very much – hey, how often does a guy like me get escorted around China? – except for the Karaoke. I had no particular opinion about Karaoke before that trip, and now I despise it with violent passion.
It turns out that sort of thing has become a cottage industry in China…
White people wanted: a peek into China’s booming ‘rent a foreigner’ industry
“White monkeys”, sort of hard to get more demeaning than that.
Karaoke – I could have killed that idea single-handed…I’m tone deaf…in a really bad way.
Hummm, I like Chinese food, the Chinese folks I’ve met over the years have been friendly, I can learn some mandarin…. Ah, if only the commute wasn’t so long.
Your comment about being the token white guy reminds me of being the “token husband” on business trips with my wife. Depending on where the trip was at she would be in meetings while I’d be pool side or at the slots etc… It was a hard life, but I was happy to step up.
Hmmm. When I hit the link it asked something about allocating 10Mb on my iPad and a percent dial starting counting up. Seemed a little too Chinese for me to continue!