It's a role I've played here and quite frankly it's one all foreigners take on at some point whether we know it or not. We're used (in many cases so subtly it's not of any great consequence or even really offensive) to help portray the image of an open and increasingly international society. Pretty much along the lines of, "Hey look! We have white people!"
So this white peep has had two brushes with China fame. Oh, don't get me wrong here, it's not anything like real fame and there's no way I'm counting it in my Andy Warhol 15 minutes I'm owed.
Brush number one happened when I happened to wander into a rather cool clothing store – you know, the ones where there's stuff to see but nothing to buy. And on the way out of my non-purchasing visit – as didn't want the hot pink crotch down to my ankles pants for some reason – I was stopped by a young guy.
I say 'stopped' but it was more of a timid gesturing to a camera a second guy had slung around his neck and was holding up to me as proof. Whether that was proof of his ability to take photos or that he had a neck, I wasn't sure. Either way, I would have much preferred proof of a cheque of a sizeable sum in his hand but whatever.
So as a result, I appeared in a street magazine – unfortunately not in the 'Super best people ever to grace the city' section but rather 'random people on the street. And on reading the text under the image I realised that after all this time I had my name and age all wrong. So hi everyone, my name's Jackie and I'm 26. And for added measure, the picture itself wasn't all that.
It was for a Taiwanese television commercial for some sort of children's product (obviously not entirely particular about contract details as that's all I can tell you about it. That and I think they own my internal organs and my first-born child). My role was one of the token white designers of said memorable products. I ended up being centred, flanked on either side by other foreigners.
It was the end sequence of the ad and all we needed to do was stand proudly with arms crossed and facing camera. Even I couldn't stuff that one up but I never did see the end product so I'll never really know for sure.
These were adventures of a particular type but not quite like the fake businessman gig. Again, it's about the perception of the connection a company has as white faces are generally seen as good for business. There have been stories of expats being asked to play parts of managers. They simply dress the part and propped up in front of a computer, spend the day watching films on its screen. They even receive their own business card as proof – and we all know how accurate these are in China.
However there are limits in how token foreigners are allowed to be seen. While it's all very well to have your showpiece ___________ (insert nationality here) for face value, uncle China always likes to maintain that the tokenism in the role stays token. The control freak corporation running the show have always had a bad time of the barbarians at the gate so they'd like to keep that distance to interact but not be part of mainstream culture. As always, our proper place is behind the gate.
Not so long ago an American guy achieved some success on a dating show but found that at the time of airing, his segment was censored out. You see, the problem was that he was just too successful and ended up charming his way to a date with one of the money focused, vain beauties on the show. But nobody told him that that was not the way you play the game. Well, not here anyway.
The proper result would have been to bow out – like a number of other white dudes before him. A kind of, 'thanks but you're just not good enough' type of deal. To the officials, that's entertainment.
Somehow I don't think I, or my alias Jackie, have anything to worry about in terms of being anything but token. Unless of course you're involved in some sort of children's product business in Taiwan, then I'm a big deal. I'll show you my business card.
