The Bruce Report

Was it just the other day when to be an average white male of a certain age was to engender scorn and mistrust in the world’s emerging economies? After all, we of the masculine persuasion and pasty hue have been responsible for most of the world’s enduring miseries: colonialism, imperialism, war, environmental degradation.

Well, you can forget all that. The “iceman” is back, and with a vengeance if we are to believe one Mitch Moxley, a Canadian journalist who chronicles his recent adventures in the Middle Kingdom for the July issue of The Atlantic. “Not long ago, I was offered work as a quality-control expert with an American company in China I’d never heard of,” he writes. “No experience necessary – which was good, because I had none. The only requirements were a fair complexion and a suit.”

In hilarious detail, Moxley goes on to describe his adventures as a Caucasian for hire: “I became a fake businessman in China, an often lucrative gig for underworked expatriates here. I’d be paid $1,000 for a week, put up in a fancy hotel, and wined and dined in Dongying, an industrial city in Chandong province.

“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 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.’”

To be precise, a white face.

Indeed, there is something exquisitely ironic and weirdly poignant about the whole phenomenon. Having scooped up enough bonds and treasury bills to keep the once-mighty U.S. economy on life support, the Chinese now find skin colour the last great reservoir of value in the western juggernaut. It’s no longer our entrepreneurial attitude they’re after; it’s our congenital “white-itude”. Though our economies continue to falter, our vanilla and strawberry visages continue to inspire, though God knows why.

My exhaustive research on the subject of being alabaster definitively shows we’re disadvantaged in many important respects, compared with our darker brethren. We’re prone to burn in full sun (some of us even crisp up in a light fog). And we look simply awful in purple. Moreover, “whiteness” traditionally carries with it a certain amount of decidedly unhelpful cultural baggage, notably a reticence to empathize with those parts of the world where we don’t comprise a majority of the population.

Still, maybe this is changing. Certainly, many of Moxley’s online readers think so.

“I need a gig like that,” mjvota wrote. “Will someone pay it forward?”

Todd Jolley agreed: “How do I get a gig like that?”

Affirmed Nikiu, “Well, I’m jobless, and I’m in for a trip to China.”

Added Nevey, “I’m wondering if they would take women as well, geez. I’d volunteer in a heartbeat only if it meant I didn’t have to sleep with anyone.”

And here’s some advice from dadanada: “How to get acting jobs in China. . .Be attractive. . .For men: pack a suit & tie. . .Live in Beijing, cheap apt. in Haidian district is best. . .Hang out at Beijing Language & Culture University. That’s where I was ‘discovered’. . .I was working 3-5 days a month, making $100/day doing advertisements and the occasional scam gig.”

Speaking for all white men with decent suits, I might find this emerging practice tantamount to corporate prostitution. I might bitterly complain about being judged not for the content of my character and quality of my intellect, but only for my pleasing demeanour and crisp wardrobe. I might decry the arm candy into which mainstream China has made me.

I might, but you’ll have to excuse me now.

I’m late for my facial.

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