Man, the price of Whiteness is skyrocketing through the roof these days! According to CNN, companies in China are seeking to boost their appeal by hiring White actors to masquerade as executives.
Zatkin was paid 2,000 yuan (about $300) to fly, along with a couple of Russian models, to a small city in the central province of Henan where he delivered a speech for the grand opening ceremony of a jewelry store there.
“I was up on stage with the mayor of the town, and I made a speech about how wonderful it was to work with the company for 10 years and how we were so proud of all of the work they had done for us in China,” Zatkin said. “They put up a big bandstand and the whole town was there and some other local muckety-mucks.”
The requirements for these jobs are simple. 1. Be white. 2. Do not speak any Chinese, or really speak at all, unless asked. 3. Pretend like you just got off of an airplane yesterday.
It reminds me of the Korean English schools that wouldn’t hire Korean American teachers because they weren’t White enough. Or the Asian Pick Up Artist teachers who photoshopped White women into their ads to fake their prowess in picking up White women. Or the Indian American director who took an Asian anime and made all the main characters White. Is White really all that?
(Thanks for the link, W!)
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I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
While this is kinda funny, there are a ton of white guys in Asian countries, most of them don’t get paid to make speeches because of whiteness. We should not read too much in to this story. If white guys think they can go to China and get paid for being white they will wake up to a harsh reality (some might get English jobs in part for being white, but they are still working)
True that. I think maybe the question is this–do people in any country get paid for being Asian or black just to make a company look better?
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