Do you prefer to do business with white people?
| 11:30 UK time, Thursday, 1 July 2010
If you're white, you're hired. If you live in China, that is. Chinese companies are recruiting foreigners, regardless of experience, to pretend to be senior employees... and the only qualification they need is to be Caucasian.
Here's an interview on the BBC's World Update with a man called Mitch Moxley who's done this job.
According to Wency Leung writing in the Globe and Mail:
'The practice of hiring a trophy foreigner allows companies to create the illusion of prosperity and prestige, and gives the impression that they have important business relations with international companies.'
Hailey Eber says a company called Rent A Laowai (Laowai is "foreigner" in Chinese), has an online advert which reads,
"Occasionally companies want a foreign face to go to meetings and conferences or to go to dinners and lunches and smile at the clients and shake people's hand...There are job opportunities for girls who are pretty and for men who can look good in a suit."
It has various names from "White Guy in a Tie," to "The Token White Guy Gig," to a "Face Job".
This white Irish blogger points out that 'nothing lends authority (more) than having a white face around' and has high hopes for their unemployed compatriots 'we Irish are so pale we scare ghosts, and this would be far from the worst work we ever did.'
Schicco says on a Zimbabwean Forum...
It's not only China. The whole of Asia is crazy about "whitey". This is because of the dominant dream... In South America people who 'pass' for 'white' because of their looks still call themselves 'white' even though they know very well they are not. As for China they are now taking it to another level, hiring a whitey for a "better" image.
And 'I don't know' claims that they got this response from one job application in Dubai:
"Candidates must be natives of English language e.g. (America, British, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand)"
Commenting on Perez Hilton's blog, Kendall thinks:
China will always have an inferiority complex in regards to most of the Western world.
And Desiree873 admits:
In America we do it too...it's called corporate board members.
Do you prefer to do business with white people? Last week WHYS did a radio programme from South Africa, and these people revealed they would rather work for white families.
Is being white an advantage in business? If so, why?
