
Life as a Fake Beauty Queen in Small-Town China - sidko
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/life-as-a-fake-beauty-queen-in-small-town-china/382409/?single_page=true
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brianbreslin
Years ago I remember reading stories of a market for "White" guys to rent
themselves out for business meetings in China. If you looked anglo, and could
look presentable in a suit, the Chinese companies would hire you to make them
look more serious as though you were their American officer/VP.

[http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06/29/china.rent.white.peop...](http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06/29/china.rent.white.people/)

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peteretep
I live in Asia, and I need to get in to this business clearly

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seanmcdirmid
Whoever this girl is, she has a good future as a writer.

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Cogito
It makes me want to know more about the writing process for pieces like this.

Does she write it alone, and send it off to various publications who might
edit it slightly but otherwise run it as written (or not at all)?

Is she paired with a ghost writer who complements her amazing story with
similarly amazing writing?

It seems unlikely (in general) that the people with the best stories also
happen to be the best writers, so I would assume there is a lot of ghost
writing and editing going on, but it would be great to know more about how
this particular sausage is actually made.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
She is a college grad, so I'd giver her the benefit of the doubt. Sure there
is an editor involved to provide feedback, but she could have been studying to
be a writer anyways. E.g. Journalism is a tough field to find a job in, but
plenty of kids have a talent for it, so go off and get crazy life experiences
to write about.

~~~
Cogito
That is where I think I come down on it too.

There are (probably, I don't really know) so many people out there who are
either good writers or have good stories, it would not be so surprising if
there are a significant number of people who are both.

Doing a quick google turns up [1] and [2], which describe her as

"Meredith Hattam is a web designer and writer based in New York, and an
advisory-board member for the Model Alliance, a nonprofit labor group for
models working in the American fashion industry."

Her homepage [2] also points to [3], and the writing there seems to live up to
a similar standard. I can't tell if she writes everything on there or has
simply submitted a story, but the tone of the few pieces I looked at sound
very much like her.

Her blog is also quite interesting [4]

[1] [http://www.theatlantic.com/meredith-
hattam/](http://www.theatlantic.com/meredith-hattam/)

[2] [http://meredithhattam.com/](http://meredithhattam.com/)

[3] [http://waitingroomny.com/](http://waitingroomny.com/)

[4] [http://meredithhattam.com/blog/](http://meredithhattam.com/blog/)

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PakG1
It's right there at the end of the article:

 _MEREDITH HATTAM is a web designer and writer based in New York, and an
advisory-board member for the Model Alliance, a nonprofit labor group for
models working in the American fashion industry._

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cs702
Wow, there's a cottage industry for booking young models as fake national
beauty contest winners to participate in fake international beauty contests.
The quotes are surreal:

"My first stint as Miss America for hire had been that September, in the
desert oasis of Dunhuang, for the city’s International Grape Festival. It was
a surreal experience in which 40 models, including me, were paid to walk down
a catwalk for about 2,000 locals. Later, we rode camels across the dunes of
the Gobi Desert, crisscrossing the sand in single file. The photos of all 40
of us on camelback—some only in bras, to dodge tanlines—are wonderfully
absurd."

"For the second pageant, in October, I was hired to cruise around Dalian in a
fake gold Mercedes golf cart with five other girls for three days, in an
effort to lure potential buyers into investing in a miniature replica of
Versailles. A printed guide to the event offered fictitious backstories in
Chinese about each contestant, and her purpose there."

"Of the nine 'fashion shows' I booked while in Beijing, only two were on a
runway. The rest were fake pageants, car shows, and trade shows—but I was not
informed of their nature until I was en route to the events. Models flagged as
having low earning potential will do fake pageants frequently, as they’re easy
to book. I once met a Russian teenager who was stuck traveling on a bus for 10
days across rural China as 'Miss Argentina.'"

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seanmcdirmid
Chalk it up to new money and not knowing how to spend it. I'm sure China will
develop better taste eventually (goes for ad agencies, their clients, and the
customers being vied for).

Until then, we'll have things like this:
[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-11/09/content_188894...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-11/09/content_18889439.htm)

~~~
srtjstjsj
Yes, one day, the Chinese will develop better taste in advertising, like
[http://www.rsvlts.com/2014/01/02/hottest-go-daddy-
girls/#1](http://www.rsvlts.com/2014/01/02/hottest-go-daddy-girls/#1)

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Animats
That's the modeling business. Talk to anyone who's done it. Below the top 100
or so supermodels in the world, models make less than a mid-range programmer.
Most modeling jobs aren't glamorous. There's trade show work, being a "booth
bimbo". There's catalog modeling ("OK, next is item 25631, the blue sweater,
and hurry it up, we have twenty more to shoot before lunch"). Mostly there's
doing something else while waiting for the next gig. Ask any
actress/model/waitress in LA. It's a really short career, too; at 25, you're
over the hill.

~~~
peteretep

        > It's a really short career, too; at 25, you're over the
        > hill.
    

Meh, maybe. My Mom makes some pretty good pocket money ($600 a day-ish) as a
photogenic grandmother and general old lady doing catalogue and advert work
for cruises, insurance, retirement homes, that kind of thing.

~~~
srtjstjsj
How many days per year?

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comrade1
The voice in this article is very familiar. Is this the same author of the
woman that wrote about high-worth dating in New York? Living in a hotel room
with multiple women while going on dates with rich guys... I can't remember
the details and I've done some initial google searches but haven't found the
original.

The voice, the situations, etc in this article feel similar to what I remember
of this other article.

~~~
prawn
Is this the article you're talking about?

My Summer As a Professional Pretty Girl in the Hamptons
[http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/07/my-summer-as-a-
professional-...](http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/07/my-summer-as-a-professional-
hamptons-party-girl.html)

~~~
comrade1
Yeah! That's it. Thank you.

I would bet that the sounds and smells of riding a camel across the desert in
China are similar to riding a rich old fat guy in a hotel room in New York...

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socceroos
Haha! Have an up-vote for your distasteful but hilarious comment.

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Jedd
Agreed - beautifully surreal quotes, lovely writing style, fascinating
subject.

She wrote a piece back in January[1] that gives a lot more insight into the
logistical and management aspects of the arrangement, as well as the risks
(financial and physical).

[1] [http://fashionista.com/2014/01/model-in-
china](http://fashionista.com/2014/01/model-in-china)

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pm90
I just don't understand this fascination of Asian, and more so East Asian
peoples, with the West. Replica of Eiffel tower? Why would you want that when
you have the forbidden city, the great wall and maybe countless oriental
palaces??

Especially after how badly China was treated by most western countries (and
Japan) during the Qing dynasty.

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cubancigar11
It is a quite complicated subject. It is partly a result of colonialism,
partly of nationalism, partly of globalization and partly of the way world
unfolded after WW2.

Basically, beginning of the century, when Asian countries got 'freedom', all
the political leaders who got power were educated in western philosophy. They
read western books, spoke western languages as a sign of education and adopted
competing western ideologies as the model of society. The old, native one was
discarded because it was a memorial of defeat. And people accepted it. You can
see that everywhere - Gandhi was a barrister who wore coat before he become a
monk (and all his lieutenants, from Nehru to Ambedkar, wore suits), Mao wore
western clothes. Korean, Japan - they are the best examples of it. Rich people
had become rich by following foreigners, and when foreigners left them alone,
these same rich westernized people became rulers. Since then there is a
fascination with everything west. There are some poor people who are still
clinging to the old system, if they can. But the middle class has almost no
option if they want to get rich.

As I said, it is a very complicated topic in sociology and there is no way I
can explain it, as much as I understood it, here. I am eventually planning to
write a book, starting from a dedicated blog. Will update here when I do.

~~~
pm90
I would really love to read such a book! I have been researching a lot on this
topic myself, to be honest. Specifically about why India and China (the
"East") are so far behind the west. And in the case of India at least, the
fault lies a lot with the way history is taught. It is assumed that India was
a mostly agrarian economy and the people had no way of defending themselves
from superior European guns. While that is partly true, it also had a huge
industry in both firearms and metal working before the British conquest, apart
from Textiles.

So for India I could understand that colonialism created a West-oriented
culture, but couldn't see why so in China, which was never under a foreign
power. Your point about the rulers and intelligentsia being westernized makes
sense in this context.

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cubancigar11
I would recommend Pankaj Mishra if you are interested in this topic.
Specifically for China, here is an article:
[http://www.outlookindia.com/article/A-Poet-
Unwelcome/281819](http://www.outlookindia.com/article/A-Poet-Unwelcome/281819)

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userbinator
The whole culture behind this is also an interesting phenomenon:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai#Shanzhai_culture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai#Shanzhai_culture)

