(Image Source: The Atlantic Magazine) 

BY RICO BUSH

If you’re white and unemployed in America, there might be a new career opportunity for you in China. China is helping white Americans get jobs in a strange and creative way.  White people can be rented for a day, a month or even a year or two.

Chinese companies are paying high prices to have Western foreigners pose as fake business partners or employees. In an interview with CNN, one man shares his experience as a fake businessman in Beijing.

“I was representing, pretended to be the Vice President of the Italian Company and I would come over to congratulate him on this occasion. So I stood in front the store on a podium with all of the towns people there and the mayor and I made a speech on congratulating him on 10 years of wonderful cooperation. They gave me a speech I had to memorize. The reason why he created this Italian partner was to make his jewelry seem more authentic in the eyes of the Chinese.”

In the eyes of the Chinese, trophy foreigners are seen as people who have wealth, power and crucial international connections. The better-looking the face, the more prestige, credibility and money a company has.  Think like Chinese author Zhang Haihua tells why a Western face is a huge promotional tool in China.

“Face, we say in China, is more important than life itself.  Given that Western countries are less mature, people think they are richer, so people think that if a company can hire foreigners they must have a lot of money and have very important connections abroad. So when they really want to impress someone, they may roll out a foreigner. ”

And a writer for the Daily Mail says no experience required.

“The job is simple – look as if you’ve just flown in from London, Rome or New York and say as little as possible. Definitely don’t speak a word of Chinese. It’s perfect work for English teachers, actors, models or expats with a bit of front.”

On NPR, American Mitch Moxley bared all about this new Chinese fad.  He and some friends were paid $1,000 dollars to attend banquets and tour a factory as representatives for a company.

“The whole thing was a little bit surreal. We were down there and were being paraded around a half-built factory and we had to sit in temporary offices the rest of the day, not really doing anything. You know half the time, we were sleeping at our desks or reading magazines. But you know we did, we certainly got the red-carpet treatment during the opening ceremony for the factory that we were there for.”

But despite rather lighthearted coverage of the story, a blogger on the website MutantFrog says using fake actors to play experienced businessmen is not right.

“When does getting ‘face’ cross the line into fraud? Sending a fake company representative might sound like a funny sitcom premise, but misrepresenting your company’s operations can have some serious negative consequences.”

So what do you think, is this fraud or just good business?