Put a white guy in there.

An amusing read in the Atlantic via this ExpatKorea thread about Chinese companies who hire white guys for meetings to make the company look international and well-connected.

I became a fake businessman in China, an often lucrative gig for underworked expatriates here. One friend, an American who works in film, was paid to represent a Canadian company and give a speech espousing a low-carbon future. Another was flown to Shanghai to act as a seasonal-gifts buyer. Recruiting fake businessmen is one way to create the image—particularly, the image of connection—that Chinese companies crave. My Chinese-language tutor, at first aghast about how much we were getting paid, put it this way: “Having foreigners in nice suits gives the company face.”

I'm sure people in Asia can think of tons of other examples. Recently while looking up information on weddings in Japan I found some articles and posts about using white people as fauxfficiants. From the BBC in 2006:

Mark Kelly is originally from Lancashire in England. He has been living in Japan for six years and, at the weekend, he is a fake priest.

"I was living in Sapporo, studying Japanese, and I needed the money. It's far better paid than teaching in a language school," he said.

"Being a fake priest is big business in Japan - I've done a TV commercial for one company," he added. "In Sapporo, there are five agencies employing about 20 fake priests. In a city like Tokyo, there must be hundreds."

The fake Western priests are employed at Western-style weddings to give a performance and add to the atmosphere. These are not legal ceremonies - the couples also have to make a trip to the local registrar.

And from the Taipei Times in 2005:

Only 1.4 percent of Japan's 127 million people are Christians, but Christian-style ceremonies now account for three-quarters of Japanese weddings. To meet market demand, bridal companies in recent years have largely dispensed with the niceties of providing a pastor with a seminary education, keeping the requirements simple: a man from an English-speaking country who will show up on time, remember his lines, not mix up names and perform the ceremony in 20 minutes.

From a small beginning a few years ago, the Western wedding "priest" has suddenly become an established part of modern Japan's cultural tableau. The lure of easy money has prompted hundreds of foreign men to respond to newspaper advertisements here, like the one that read: "North Americans, Europeans wanted to conduct wedding ceremonies."

In my twitter feed, and sometimes on this blog, I follow examples of white people used to sell stuff.


From Yonhap, and this post.

Foreigners used in promotional material for local festivals aren't fake tourists, but they're highlighted to a sometimes unrealistic extent make the event seem more cosmpolitan and international, and sometimes to make locals feel proud---here's a recent example---of their attractions and assets. Whether the end result seems inclusive or insulting, the objectification of white people is something that deserves more attention, and a more sophisticated, scholarly treatment that looks beyond just their supposed power and status. After all, white people don't hold the same positions in Asia as they do in their home countries.


A pair of English teachers from Suncheon on the Jindo Moses Miracle festival website.