High Pay! No Work!

[889]

Tired of a teacher's low salary? Don't feel like hacking it at a real job? Then take a look at an article in the current Atlantic, "Rent a White Guy: Confessions of a fake businessman from Beijing."

And if you want a real acting job, one of the comments tells you just where to hang out in Beijing -- sort of a foreigner equivalent to those sad places where waidiren gather every morning with their tools and little signs.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/rent-a-white-guy/8119

[Zomac]

There has been a job like this since 80s.

But US$1000 for a week? Seems too good to be true. Go to any hostels in big cities and it's pretty easy to get one for $1000 per month.

[natra]

This sort of epitomizes how I feel about white Americans who are attracted to the idea of an easy, non-demanding lifestyle and so decide to go to China long-term. (Disgust.)

[roddy]

Ah, a chance to link to this classic.

I wholly relate and sympathize with the inclination to earn chunks of cash for very little work, it's the deception part I can't get past. Otherwise I'd be off in Dabian or some other hellhole knocking back baijiu with the Mayor and his cronies too. Actually I wouldn't, that's my idea of hell.

$1000 a week isn't that much in the context of some big factory project or something.

[carlo]

Fei Xiaotong wrote about the special role of the "stranger" in village society in the old days. Since people in a village are all related to each other and linked by a complex web of interests, no one can do business with anyone else. So you need foreigners (ie people from other villages) buying and selling in the market place -- with them, some form of trust can be established. In today's China, well, nobody trusts anybody else. So again you need strangers: HK businesspeople, returning overseas Chinese, or visible foreigners from the West, apparently the hardest kind of foreigner to fake, at least until now.

A few more years like this though and white guys in a suit will take the place of 河南人 in popular imagination.

[anonymoose]

This sort of epitomizes how I feel about white Americans who are attracted to the idea of an easy, non-demanding lifestyle and so decide to go to China long-term. (Disgust.)

Natra, why do you feel so disgusted? It's human nature. Everyone wants to earn as much as they can for as easy work as possible. If the opportunity is there, people will take it.

[gato]

It's probably human nature to be dsgusted by human nature.

[GreenArrow45]

while i certainly love the easy money, I also want some sort of satisfaction from my job that isn't monetary. However, if such an opportunity were available here, I'd probably consider doing that and volunteering somewhere when I'm not posing for pictures and what not with the big guys.

Unfortunately, the people I know who are disgusted with someone's ability to earn money with very little effort are simply jealous that they are not capable of doing what that individual is to earn money.

[crazy-meiguoren]

This sort of epitomizes how I feel about white Americans who are attracted to the idea of an easy, non-demanding lifestyle and so decide to go to China long-term. (Disgust.)

In this case, it takes two to tango. The market is there, created by Chinese businesses that want to have the prestige of having a 洋人 in a business suit, even if it's just window dressing.

I get paid better here at home for doing real work... and I don't even have to wear a tie, and live in a much prettier setting.

If someone can get $1k a week for doing almost nothing but look good, then I'd like to get paid proportionately for my skills and experience. Alas, that kind of compensation is reserved for the executive suite.

[guanfei]

i'm disgusted by an economic condition that causes married couples both to work 40+ hours a week in america just to get by, i'll take my easy money and run with it.

B)

[skylee]

What is wrong with working 40+ hours a week? Why is it disgusting? Do you think that Americans should not work that much? I believe there are lots of people out there working 6 days x 10 hours a week just to get by.

[guanfei]

It is a factor standard of living. Two people working 60 hours a week "disgusts" me absolutely and it one of the factors that defines China as a 3rd world country. The thing about America is that it used to be one person in a family could work 40 hours a week and handily provide for a family of 4. This is no longer possible and the generations before me had a better standard of living than my own. As stated previously it's the system that "disgusts" me not the people who are in said situation.

[natra]

Natra, why do you feel so disgusted? It's human nature. Everyone wants to earn as much as they can for as easy work as possible. If the opportunity is there, people will take it.

While living in China, most of my interactions with Chinese people were led by a desire to connect with other westerners or for me to appear with them in public to make them look good. There were instances where I was asked to accompany a friend somewhere like a local museum, only to end up elsewhere in the city being filmed or photographed despite having explicitly said I did not want to take part in those activities. Especially after this happened with people I thought I could trust, I became very disillusioned with life in China as a westerner. It felt degrading that most people I met were only interested in using me that way.

The reason I said I feel disgusted is that the only prerequisite to be treated like this is, as another member put it, your VIP skin card. That is why caucasian people can get paid to attend a black tie event despite being somewhat of a loser at home, or can be blatantly unqualified to teach and yet easily find work as an ESL instructor. They are capitalizing on Chinese xenophobia that assumes an inherent class difference based on race, which only serves to reinforce stereotypes of caucasian people who are living there.

[anonymoose]

I don't disagree with anything you said, but neither do I feel it's a cause for disgust. After all, such phenomena are pervasive throughout society, in western countries at least.

What about models who get paid huge sums just for looking good? Isn't that the same?

What about the millions of people who make a living off social benefits? Is doing nothing to get money better than going to China to make easy money?

I've met my fair share of so-called "losers" in China. But as I said before, it's only natural if the opportunity is there for people to take it, "loser" or otherwise.

[gougou]

What about models who get paid huge sums just for looking good? Isn't that the same?

Not unless you call the models quality control experts.

I don't know about the others, but what I am disgusted by is people willingly and knowingly partaking in what essentially are scams. The fact that they are writing about it on the Atlantic seems to indicate that they don't even feel bad about it, which I find quite sad.

[roddy]

I'm pretty sure the actual writer did it once for the story, rather than regularly as a living.

[yonglin]

The thing about America is that it used to be one person in a family could work 40 hours a week and handily provide for a family of 4.

It used to be the case that women could no longer work after they had had kids as well. And your point is...?

Back to the topic, I think that demand for this sort of guys will diminish quite rapidly in the future. So if this is the only type of work you're able to do, you'll have a hard time soon (just like unqualified English teachers are starting to have a hard time right now).