
Rent-a-Foreigner in China - mtuncer
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/opinion/rent-a-foreigner-in-china.html
======
sly010
My girlfriend took me to a club in her hometown in Urumqi, Xinjiang. Multiple
times random people came over to shake my hand and congratulating me for -
basically - being a foreigner. One guy told me "I will kill you", but then he
told my girlfriend "Thats the only sentence I know in english and I don't know
what does it mean".

~~~
javindo
I had a very similar experience - I'm also quite fair due to Albinism which I
think raised far more attention than the average white person over there! I
had many people wanting to take their photograph with me, constant staring and
quite a few girls approaching me on the street/subways/shops.

One of the most endearing things was when somebody would try to test out their
very limited knowledge of English on me at random, they'd often seem quite
proud of themselves and I was always happy to oblige.

(Incidentally my girlfriends home province is also Xinjiang!)

~~~
dongchongyubing
I think you will have different experience in big city .

------
bigtunacan
In my mind at least, this is both quite odd and yet fascinating at the same
time.

It makes me think though of a Chinese intern that used to work for me. She
would make comments about how "good looking" white people were from time to
time, and how she thought Chinese people were ugly. When she would see
pictures of my kids she would say things like, "You have the cutest children
ever; Chinese kids are so ugly."

On top of this there was another Chinese intern who was quite close with her,
and obviously interested in starting a relationship, but while she liked him
she said she could never be more than friends because he was ugly. In reality
he was a very normal attractive young Chinese man. He was friendly, well
educated, well groomed, but he never stood a chance with her because she was
repulsed by her own race. I found the whole thing to just be very sad.

~~~
mc32
It's not sad. People can like whatever they like or dislike whatever they
dislike. It's easier to understand if you neither see her nor him as Chinese,
nor foreigners as foreigners, just see them as people with different
attraction characteristics. Thinking that her preference is sad is the other
side of the bias coin.

Let people like whomever they like for whatever reason they state or function
under.

It's like a flavor preference in food. Preference for one flavor over another,
whether indigenous or not, is not sad.

~~~
jordigh
No, it is not just a matter of flavours. It's a deeply ingrained and
institutionalised bias that happens all around the world. You see it in
Mexico, in India, in France, in China, in Nigeria: white is pretty. Sweden and
Norway are widely regarded as the ultimate in beauty.

I wish I knew why this happened and how to fix it. It's a giant problem that
should not exist.

~~~
hnrem
This seems one sided. Many white guys love a darker tone. What about Brazil
turning out supermodels? I couldn't list or count any, but every time I hear
something about models there seems to be a Brazil reference.

~~~
PopsiclePete
Really? I can't think of a single one from Brazil besides Giselle Bundchen.
And she definitely has some German in her. I think the vast majority of super
models are European, especially Eastern European - Czech, Hungary, Russia,
Ukraine, etc.

~~~
mc32
Then why do so many people go to tanning salons? It's a signal you had time
for leisure, you could spend time at the beach, you didn't have to work. So
its not tanness itself people are attracted to but what it signals. In Asia,
its the opposite, being pale, means you don't have to do manual labor, work
the fields, so people look to seem paler so as to appear of higher classes.

------
chkuendig
See also the record of a model hired as a fake beauty queen to promote all
kind of events in the provinces:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/lif...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/life-
as-a-fake-beauty-queen-in-small-town-china/382409/)

 _“I’ve been Miss Brazil, Miss Poland, and Miss America, and I’m still pissed
I was never Miss Canada,” Lora, a model from Toronto whom I met in Beijing,
told me recently. “Some Polish girl got it instead.”_

------
jordigh
"And if you truly can't squeeze out the funds, but still want to project an
international atmosphere, I suggest using black people. They have a very open
personality yet are quite cheap."

Oh. My. God.

I do wonder why does this seem to happen universally in the world? Why does
apparently every culture think whites are pretty and blacks are ugly? I think
it's more than European colonialism. It seems to be ingrained even in
children.

The following example from Mexican children comes to mind:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrMUnw4Xt-k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrMUnw4Xt-k)

I could translate it if anyone's interested, but they basically show kids a
white and a brown doll and ask them which one is good and which one is pretty
and they all uniformly point to the white doll.

~~~
smtddr
I've always assumed this was because America/Europe's culture has influenced
everyone else's. Pretty much everyone watches and is heavy influenced by
american TV. We know what ideas and images American media portray _(think
standard blonde barbie doll image)_. Then speeches like this have to happen -
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPCkfARH2eE](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPCkfARH2eE)
...and articles like this must be written -
[http://thehairpin.com/2014/09/white-beauty-
myth](http://thehairpin.com/2014/09/white-beauty-myth)

History of how black people tried bleaching our skin or straightening our
hair. I still cringe that my wife wears weaves from time to time because I
always remember the history of why black women do that; how it all started. I
comfort myself by trying to think that they've taken & owned the weave in the
same way black people have "taken" the N-word into their own identity...
sorta....kinda...maybe...... it's complicated.

~~~
sigterm
This is not true. Even ancient Chinese had a strong preference for light skin
tone. My understanding is that darker skin usually means a person is more
exposed to sunlight, presumably from farming work, which is an indicator of
lower social status.

~~~
smtddr
That should be specific to a dark brown Chinese person; not to an African
American. Since we know the average Chinese person does not have dark brown
skin, seeing such a person would make you wonder why that is. e.g., we know
dirt/mud is brown and generally shouldn't pick up a hand-full off the ground
and eat it... but people still like the image of chocolate deserts. The color
red represents danger is an almost universal way _(assuming it 's because
seeing blood is usually a bad sign for all humans and animals)_... but people
don't look at a red rose that way.

 _> >This is not true_

You can't really claim that America's history & media has nothing to do it.
You can debate to what degree, but to dismiss it completely is impossible.

~~~
gwern
> That should be specific to a dark brown Chinese person; not to an African
> American.

If the preference were an idealized optimal algorithm, perhaps; but people are
adaptation-executers. The simplest rule is 'lighter skin means richer', and so
when one runs into an African, it's not necessarily perfect. (Although given
how many poor African immigrants there are in China now, I'm not sure that's a
bug rather than a feature.)

------
ianstallings
Dude, rent-a-foreigner is not the preferred nomenclature. _Models that serve_
, please.

Edit: I guess I'm supposed to have a serious response to this. Uhm, I don't
have one. This is bat shit insane and should be mocked and laughed at. Not
discussed and analyzed. Or better yet, how about we talk about how goddam
_offensive_ this is.

~~~
clamprecht
Has the whole world gone crazy?

~~~
tormeh
How about hiring strippers for a funeral?

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/24...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/24/china-
to-citizens-stop-hiring-strippers-for-funerals/)

(the reason is that the funeral is regarded more as a goodbye party for the
deceased than a mourning ceremony for the ones left behind)

~~~
mhurron
> How about hiring strippers for a funeral?

Most funerals I've been too really did need something to liven them up.

------
henpa
This happens all over the world: not just China. Take Abercrombie & Fitch for
example. The only difference is that, when only "white people" won't do it,
then go for fit models, sub-celebrities, etc.

------
ekianjo
It's not exactly the same thing but there is a similar kind of attitude in
Japan, where foreigners are kind of used to promote products or services -
giving it a "cool" factor that a Japanese person would not have (presumably,
because I find that silly in the first place).

~~~
LLWM
Tommy Lee Jones has to pay the bills somehow.

~~~
ekianjo
Indeed, poor Tommy must be riddled with debts to accept being used in that
way, promoting one of the worst can coffee brands of Japan...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-CKxRWiMoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-CKxRWiMoY)

------
restalis
I wonder, can one (such "international rented person") make a living out of
such business?

~~~
fredsted
VICE did a segment on it on their HBO show recently. The people in the segment
definitely could, one got 2 offers a day. But noone knows how long it'll last.

~~~
VLM
Its poorly documented but "everyone knows" that around the peak of the
previous housing bubble, female models were hired to sunbathe at neighboring
condo units during open houses. Hiring attractive people to make an
area/company/whatever more attractive to increase sales commissions seems to
correlate with bubble era operations. That would imply a relatively short
lifetime for the business model.

~~~
tormeh
That's really clever. The same concept could probably be used for cars. You
could probably stretch it a little further. If you're selling really expensive
sports cars you could hire models to pause, stare and smile at the client
during test drives around the neighbourhood.

Manufacturing proof that "pretty women like men who own this" sounds like a
winner, honestly.

------
hiby007
So basically using white people to increase the valuation of the project?

I wonder if there is some data around this?

~~~
wozniacki
Largely correct.

Vice covered this recently [1]. Available on HBOGO [2]

[1] Rent a White Guy: Sneak Peek (VICE on HBO)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPW83Bzv-
dA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPW83Bzv-dA)

[2]

Egyptian Tomb Raiders & Rent a White Guy ( Season 3 Episode 8 )

[http://www.hbo.com/#/vice/episodes/3/30-egyptian-tomb-
raider...](http://www.hbo.com/#/vice/episodes/3/30-egyptian-tomb-raiders-and-
rent-a-white-guy/synopsis.html)

~~~
tegansnyder
That Vice episode was really amusing.

------
Aqwis
The most odd and/or concerning thing here is that the buyers are naive enough
to be fooled by a few white people standing around in otherwise empty
buildings. I'm sure those random expats they rented aren't exactly top actors
either.

~~~
clamprecht
Is it much worse than Americans being fooled by good looking models on
cigarette ad billboards? It worked so well they had to outlaw it!

------
doctorstupid
At Japanese weddings there is sometimes a white man dressed as a priest. I
guess that Asian restaurants in the West often have a similar 'Hire-an-Asian'
policy to make the food seem more authentic.

~~~
droidist2
Asian restaurants usually have all Asians running them, although I'm from the
Northeast US where we have lots of Asians, maybe it's different elsewhere? I
think maybe the UK has a dearth of East Asians. Actually when they say "Asian"
they typically mean Indian and Pakistani.

~~~
LordKano
In my city, there are several "Japanese Steakhouses" and pretty much all of
them have a staff made up of mostly asian employees.

Once, after our hibachi chef was finished cooking our meal, someone at the
table asked him if he was Japanese. He looked around and in a hushed tone said
"No, we are all Korean."

~~~
jnem
Ive noticed almost all sushi places, ramen places, teppenyaki places, etc in
San Jose area are primarily owned by Korean businessmen and women (used to
work at a few of them back in the day and can confirm at least part of that)

------
amolgupta
Hard to read articles with autoplay views at workplace

~~~
kbart
Agreed. [AUTOPLAY] tag would be nice.

------
yellowapple
Stop trying to make autoplaying videos happen. They're not going to happen.

On another note: this looks fun. Where can I sign up?

------
dmritard96
Being white in china is totally bizzarre. Been doing it for the last 4 months.
Automatic celeb status.

~~~
KMag
A friend got married in Shanghai in 2008, a month or two before the Beijing
Olympics. I went to Beijing for 10 days after the wedding, and there were lots
of tourists from the Chinese countryside in Beijing. Lots of people stopped me
and wanted photos of themselves shaking my hand, asking my Chinese-American
friends to step out of the frame. Once or twice I thought maybe I had been
mistaken for an Olympic Athlete.

------
penonthedesk77
Can you imagine the outrage that would ensue if such a thing were common in
the US? Is holding other countries to 'lower' standards implicit racism?

~~~
nmyk
It is common in the U.S. White men fetishize Asian women like crazy.

Though, what's even more common is cultural appropriation of material goods.
E.g.:
[http://whitegirlsandindianheaddresses.tumblr.com/](http://whitegirlsandindianheaddresses.tumblr.com/)

This isn't the same thing as what OP posted, yes yes I know. Rather, these are
all instances of the same larger thing.

------
bowyakka
this reminds me of
[http://ghostswithshitjobs.com/](http://ghostswithshitjobs.com/)

------
toolsadmin
No big deal really - just shows that there is a market for everything in this
world.

------
madengr
If you "rented white people" to sell housing in the USA, there would be a
shitstorm of controversy.

~~~
tim333
Though if you hire good looking people to sell housing then it's business as
usual.

------
bowyakka
This reminds me of this
[http://ghostswithshitjobs.com/](http://ghostswithshitjobs.com/)

