Wed, 20 May 2026 00:34:21 -0700
whiteguyinchina from private IP, post #11555278

React 
 Like 
 Love 
 Haha 
 Wow 
 Sad 
 Angry  
 😮 
/all
Fake lawyers, scientists, chefs and punters: meet the ‘white monkeys’ paid to make Chinese businesses look global

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/may/16/fake-lawyers-scientists-chefs-punters-white-monkeys-chinese-businesses-global


Fake lawyers, scientists, chefs and punters: meet the ‘white monkeys’ paid to make Chinese businesses look global
A foreign face is often thought to add prestige to a product or business – what’s behind this unregulated economy?

Elaine Chong
Elaine Chong
Sat 16 May 2026 07.00 EDT
Share
Prefer the Guardian on Google
Piers had been in China for all of two days in 2009 when he was used as a “white monkey” for the first time. He had travelled to a village in Suzhou,
Jiangsu province, to attend a friend’s wedding and had stopped in the village to try a special crab dish at a small restaurant. Weeks later, a Chinese guest
who had been at the wedding told him the restaurant had had an uptick in business because the locals had heard that a laowai, a foreigner, had been seen dining
there, so people had assumed this restaurant must be good. Piers realised the boss had deliberately seated him in a way to attract attention: “I knew we were
sitting outside in a premium spot, but I didn’t pick up on what was going on.”


When foreigners in China are used this way, they are called a baihouzi, a white monkey. They’re hired to help Chinese businesses appear more desirable, the
foreigner association conveying prestige and a sense that your product is universally regarded. The industry is unregulated in China, operating in a legal grey
area. White monkey positions are advertised on job boards and can fall into different categories, from acting and modelling for Chinese films and products to
pretending to be the foreign CEO of a Chinese company to lend it credibility. They might be seat warmers or go-go dancers in Chinese nightclubs to draw in
customers, or English teachers in language centres to make Chinese parents feel their children are being taught by legitimate native English speakers (even if a
Chinese person is actually a better qualified teacher). These businesses believe that having the “foreign look” will give them an edge over other Chinese
companies offering the same service. The phenomenon of recruiting foreigners for this performative purpose can be traced to the concept of mianzi, having
“face” in Chinese society, which denotes bestowing and receiving respect for each other.

Even though the term white monkey might suggest only Caucasian foreigners, it would be more accurate to say recruiters are simply looking for people who appear
“non-Chinese”. There are groups on the Chinese texting app WeChat with job postings that specify “We need two black women to shoot an ad in Guangzhou”
or “Hangzhou business needs a Hispanic model”. The race requirements fluctuate depending on the product, ranging from “White American for a blood pressure
monitor advert” to “Turkish speakers for a TikTok video”. This language would never pass muster in a formal job ad, due to China’s strict equality
legislation, but these word of mouth-style requests are harder to police.

At a manufacturing expo, we just had to pour water back and forth between containers for a few hundred yuan
Piers has done a number of paid jobs like this. In 2010, when he was a university student in Shanghai, television executives from Shanghai Media Group were
looking for foreign students to take part in a talent show. Shanghai was preparing to host the World Expo and the city was full of importers and Chinese eager
to do business with each other. Ten to 15 students were driven to the studios, then sorted in a back office by country of origin to represent “an
international judging panel”. Piers was designated the judge for Great Britain among others from France, South Korea, the US and Indonesia.

The job would last a few hours; he would watch Chinese singers and dancers perform, then hand out toy rabbits to the acts he liked the most. Piers says, “We
were being paid 100-200 yuan (£10-£20) which was not bad money for an unemployed student at that time, and there was the chance to be on TV.”

Hu Anyan on a bicycle
The Beijing courier who went viral: how Hu Anyan wrote about delivering parcels – and became a bestseller
Read more
Next, Piers took a job pretending to be a scientist at a manufacturing expo in Shanghai, to promote a chemical product that coated pavements. The company hired
foreigners to wear lab coats in the background, on a makeshift set that resembled a laboratory. “It wasn’t the whole day, and we just had to pour water back
and forth between containers for a few hundred Chinese yuan.” As they were behind a transparent screen, the foreigners weren’t expected to speak to the
Chinese customers or answer technical questions about what they were doing. “Back then, my Chinese was basic and I wasn’t sure what the manufacturers were
saying on the stage,” Piers says. He had talked to one of the other “scientists” and no one had any qualms about the pretence – it was easy money.


Sometimes, though, there isn’t any money involved: a few years after the expo, Piers was proofreading a document for his neighbour who worked for a law firm
that helped foreign companies raise disputes in China. “One day she asked me to come along to this meeting with a client in Shanghai’s hi-tech park in
Pudong, to present ourselves as an international law firm.” Piers was assured he didn’t have to do anything but sit in the room and say hello. At first he
was uncomfortable with the idea, but then he thought, “Who am I really harming?” He sat beside his neighbour in the meeting room and pretended to take
notes, acting as her junior in the law firm. He recalls, “She just wanted to present herself as an international lawyer, which in fairness, she was already as
she spoke French and English.”

I sign up to a job ads messageboard on WeChat. Postings pop up every day from recruiters advertising for “foreign models and actors”. First an art gallery
is looking for 10 foreigners in Shenzhen to visit an art exhibition in the fancy Futian district from 8.50pm to midnight. Another is looking to find American
models to shoot an ad in the city of Fuzhou in Fujian province, all expenses paid. They want a man and a woman aged 35-45 with an “affluent American
aesthetic”, who are “sun-kissed, athletic and look like they enjoy the outdoors”. The job posting goes on to say bluntly: “Please note, we are not
looking for individuals with red hair, freckles, extremely pale skin, or a thin, sullen look.” It isn’t clear what product they will be selling.


Why does being adjacent to “foreign-ness” have such value in China? During the early 2000s, the country suffered several scandals from faulty products and
services, such as the devastating 2008 tainted milk scandal, when infant formula from companies including Sanlu was adulterated with melamine, a toxic
industrial chemical, to fake higher protein content, causing illness in hundreds of thousands of infants, and six deaths. This was a fast-moving wild west
period where Chinese consumer rights were not protected, and it fostered mistrust. Branding products as “foreign” became desirable to add a veneer of
quality. Piers now works between London and Shanghai in marketing, and sees from the other side that this was “an opportune moment when branding something as
foreign could meet an emotional and functional need for Chinese customers”.

In the past few years, the landscape has changed further, with an influx of immigrants from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus due to the ongoing conflicts in their
countries. Enzo is from Russia and is based in Shenzhen, working as a videographer. When he first arrived, the language barrier meant he was shut out from
skilled positions, and he opted for white monkey jobs as temporary gigs to get by. One was to pretend to be an Italian chef at a pots and pans expo in
Guangzhou. The recruiters assumed most Chinese would not be able to tell the difference between Caucasian foreigners, and hired Enzo. He donned chef whites,
which he sourced from a local factory, and thankfully had a little cooking experience from working in a Mexican restaurant in the past. He wasn’t required to
speak to anyone, just look the part – but Enzo recalls, “The Chinese clients wanted to tell me about their holidays in Italy and what they thought of
Italian culture. I think they just wanted to talk to a foreigner and be listened to.” Enzo simply nodded along – he had a noticeable Russian accent at the
time, but doubted they would pick up on it. He was paid 2,000 yuan (£200) for the job.

Another recurring job involved pretending to be a foreign CEO of an automobile company, travelling around China. Over months, for a day at a time, Enzo had to
put on a suit and keep quiet as Chinese people shook hands and took pictures with the “CEO”. He stayed in nice hotels and was paid very well. In another
instance, he accompanied his Russian girlfriend to a suitcase shop; she had been cast as a model to “test” the product outside. His job was to help with the
language barrier, but he ended up being drawn in, too, and they spent the afternoon wheeling suitcases in small circles outside the shop to attract the
attention of Chinese customers.

Oversupply of eastern Europeans in the market, and Chinese bias towards foreigners from western Europe and North America, have meant the wages of white monkeys
have taken an overall dip. Piers has seen first-hand how foreigners are priced differently in China, even for these gimmicky jobs: “Russians, Ukrainians and
Belarusians are seen as groups of people that can be paid less money, equal to Chinese workers, while Germans are quite expensive and prestigious. Even in lower
tier Chinese cities, people will know that a Russian foreigner and German foreigner will be priced differently, sometimes two to three times as much.”

Maria Kanaeva is from Kamchatka, Russia and had been studying at Xi’an Jiaotong University when, in November 2022, an opportunity came up in the international
students’ WeChat group to attend a manufacturing expo in Xi’an. A classmate said the organisers were looking for foreign students to go along for white
monkey jobs. They were being offered 100 yuan (£10) to speak to Chinese businessmen for 30-40 minutes. The invitation read: “A Chinese businessman from a
company will show his products to you, you will be presented as a potential buyer/importer. You just see his products and ask some questions if you want.”

White monkey jobs are tempting for foreign students wanting to earn easy money on the side in China. But working outside the scope of your visa is considered
illegal employment under the country’s exit and entry administration law. Kanaeva says, “Everybody knows working part-time is illegal, but they want to make
money, to travel, to live and not rely on parents all the time.” Violations, including working without a permit, switching employers or freelancing, can
result in fines of 5,000–20,000 yuan (£500-£2,000), detention for 5–15 days, and potential deportation or a re-entry ban.

Getting caught with a student visa that doesn’t match the occasion isn’t worth the risk
A woman in graduation gown and mortar board, holding a bunch of flowers, looking over her shoulder at the camera
View image in fullscreen
Maria Kanaeva was a student in China when she was asked to go to a manufacturing expo and pretend to be a potential buyer. Photograph: courtesy of Maria
Kanaeva
Kanaeva asked her friends if they were going to take part in the Xi’an expo, but they, too, had reservations. The authorities had been cracking down by
showing up at similar events to check the visas of foreigners. “The worst-case scenario would be that there are police on site and if you are caught with a
student visa that doesn’t match the occasion … it’s not worth the risk.”

Kanaeva declined the opportunity. She had heard about a friend of a friend, a student from Uganda, who had moonlighted as an English teacher and got caught in
the language training centre with a student visa. Kanaeva was told “he paid a fine to get to stay, and that was $15,000 yuan” (£1,500). There have been
cases where students could not pay the fine and served a jail sentence of seven to 14 days before being deported. Some of the English language schools who hire
these students might pay the fines on their behalf, but it is technically illegal employment – and most end up being deported to their home countries.
Eventually the Ugandan student was sent home for visa discrepancies.

Kanaeva now works in Shanghai, advocating for foreign students to learn about their rights to work in China. The rules are complicated but there are ways around
them, with Chinese companies sponsoring students through internships and with the permission of universities.

The white monkey phenomenon is still adapting, with the popularity of online content creators. Paul Mike Ashton, known as BaoBaoXiong, was the creator of a
viral meme about the way young metropolitan Chinese mix English and Chinese words together to sound more sophisticated. He is probably one of the best known
American vloggers on Chinese social media. When he first started studying in China, he did an internship in 2013 at a media group in a building with studios
where people could make video explainers and documentaries. One day they were giving a tour to some visiting CEOs, and asked Ashton if he would pretend to be
the host of one of these videos to help their company look “more international”. At the time, his Chinese was not good enough to speak at length, but he was
only required to sit in one of the transparent booths and pretend he was recording himself making content. He realised early on how much of an impact a foreign
face could have in Chinese workplaces. Yet he notes, “With so many internationally prominent and dominant Chinese brands now, it feels like the need for this
has expired.”

It is true that white monkey culture is changing, and becoming less lucrative. At the language schools, there are Chinese parents who might have studied in
English-speaking countries and can identify which people can genuinely speak the language at a high level. Ashton thinks the novelty factor of foreigners is
also wearing off, especially in first tier cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen where it is more common to see a foreign face: “Younger Chinese
generations have a better perspective on what is going on globally through social media.”

With so many internationally dominant Chinese brands now, it feels like the need for this has expired
A man wearing an American football shirt and cap, hands in pockets, winking
View image in fullscreen
Paul Mike Ashton, an American vlogger in China, once interned at a media company who wanted him to pose as a video host. Photograph: courtesy of Paul Mike
Ashton
Ashton is often asked to make automobile content at car shows, on massive budgets. He says of the car companies, “They want the Chinese to see this
Chinese-made car is on a par with other cars you see around the world.” Ashton’s visa is attached to a company that hosts these kinds of media production
events.

Prof Xiaobing Wang, research director of the Manchester China Institute and senior lecturer in economics at the University of Manchester, recalls that when, in
2025, David Beckham posted a picture of himself with a Labubu doll, the elf-like monster from Chinese toy maker Pop Mart, “the post went completely viral on
Chinese social media. Chinese netizens were so excited that Beckham had been gifted a Labubu toy from his daughter.” Wang says that if Yao Ming, the 7ft 2in
former basketball star who is one of China’s most recognisable sportsmen, likes Labubu, “then a Chinese star likes a Chinese product, but when Beckham likes
Labubu, then he is giving this Chinese toy legitimacy”.

Wang says this appreciation of the west is a key part of the national identity. “Chinese people had an underdog mentality in the 1980s and 1990s, maybe
feeling bullied by countries in the west, and now China has risen fast. So the admiration and regard from those countries that previously looked down on China
means you are now in an equally high position.”

But scepticism is rising, and Chinese consumers are getting fed up with inauthentic, paid-for praise. Recently, a whistleblower reported to the Beijing News
that Xiangyi, a popular livestreaming e-commerce influencer with millions of followers, was allegedly using fake experts and staged storylines to promote the
products she sold. On 20 December 2025, Xiangyi uploaded a promotional video for vitamins. A woman named “Linda”, posing as a “professor at the University
of Sydney”, appears with Xiangyi, touring its library, classrooms and other facilities, and chatting in English. Xiangyi asks Linda, “Do you think DHA is
really useful?” The “professor” replies that the university has conducted extensive clinical research proving DHA “can indeed nourish the brain and
improve cognitive function”. Xiangyi then translated for viewers in the video.

A reporter at Beijing News found a personal social media account matching “Linda” to an actor recruitment website, where she was listed as a model in film
and advertising. Her public résumé does not mention any teaching experience at the University of Sydney, and the university verified that “Linda” is not a
current professor or faculty member.

Linda confirmed to the reporter that she had taken on an acting role and was provided with a simplified script a few days before filming, shooting five hours of
footage in exchange for $750. Xiangyi has admitted Linda had been misled by the brand and is cooperating with the regulatory authorities in an investigation.

On the WeChat job messageboard, opportunities continue to pop up. Under the job posting “flower girls”, the recruiters are looking for go-go dancers to work
in nightclubs in Yiwu from 11pm to 7am; accommodation and work visas are provided, and “basic spoken English is required”. Recruiters are looking for 10
foreign women aged 20-30, above 165cm in height, with light-haired girls a “priority”. There is also a job in Chongqing to teach Chinese customers to play
billiards; the pay is $1,800-$2,000 a month and flights, accommodation, meals and a work visa are provided. “You are not required to drink with clients.
However, those who are willing to drink can receive a slightly higher salary.”

The industry continues to be unregulated, but as long as the demand for Chinese people to feel part of a global world is there, the white monkeys are here to
stay.

Some names have been changed.

Explore more on these topics
Life and style
China
Chinese economy
Work & careers
features
Share
Reuse this content
Most viewed
MoneyPropertyPensionsSavingsBorrowingCareers
News
Opinion
Sport
Culture
Lifestyle
Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning
Sign up for our email
About us
Help
Complaints & corrections
Contact us
Tip us off
SecureDrop
Privacy policy
Cookie policy
Tax strategy
Terms & conditions
All topics
All writers
Newsletters
Digital newspaper archive
Bluesky
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
Threads
TikTok
YouTube
Advertise with us
Guardian Labs
Search jobs
Work with us
Accessibility settings
 
Back to top
© 2026 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (dcr)




Wed, 20 May 2026 00:35:30 -0700
whiteguyinchina from private IP
Reply #11538499

React 
 Like 
 Love 
 Haha 
 Wow 
 Sad 
 Angry  
I think western media is so idiotic. I swear they have stories they just recycle every couple of years. Next it will be china ghost cities.

Sadly the white monkey thing is a lot less common than it used to be.


Wed, 20 May 2026 05:23:24 -0700
Wily from private IP
Reply #15493466

React 
 Like 
 Love 
 Haha 
 Wow 
 Sad 
 Angry  
Yea this is pretty 2010s and would be pretty cringe in China today. Back then one of my teachers did get paid 1000 yuan to swim in someone's backyard pool for
an afternoon as "my American friend James" though, haha.

Also my wife tells me when American Eagle and Abercrombie first hit Shanghai, they got thousands lining up because they hired like a dozen white dudes to stand
in front of the store with jeans and unbuttoned shirts.  That must've been mid-2000s.  Peak Hu Jintao China, pre-anti-corruption drive.  

Today it's like not white monkeys for show, but you can just get a Russian girl at most nightclubs or KTVs to "hang out" with you.  There's still plenty of
Russian and Ukrainian men and women here with great physiques.  


Wed, 20 May 2026 05:42:52 -0700
Andy from private IP
Reply #13322032

React 
 Like 
 Love 
 Haha 
 Wow 
 Sad 
 Angry  
My wife and I had this great idea to team-teach an English course to Chinese elites.  It never panned out.  It would be so great, though.  The gap between elite
English and normal English is wider than the gap between Tom Brady and JaMarcus Russell.


Wed, 20 May 2026 18:24:46 -0700
zerosugar from private IP
Reply #12796922

React 
 Like 
 Love 
 Haha 
 Wow 
 Sad 
 Angry  
@whiteguyinchinaTest What will you do if China and India go to war?
Maybe not a direct war, but sort of a cold war scenario. 

I was interested in eastern cultures in my teens and very early 20s. Then I started a slow pivot to an interest in western cultures. It's amazing how
educational interests can lead you to one place and then you come out of the opposite door. 


Wed, 20 May 2026 20:50:46 -0700
whiteguyinchina from private IP
Reply #10870883

React 
 Like 
 Love 
 Haha 
 Wow 
 Sad 
 Angry  
Why do you think India will have a conflict with China? It will be Pakistan first, which China would support in such a conflict.

A war with China and India is something I never think about. I think its just too remote chance of a conflict to worry about it.


Thu, 21 May 2026 08:50:07 -0700
zerosugar from private IP
Reply #15550818

React 
 Like 
 Love 
 Haha 
 Wow 
 Sad 
 Angry  
@whiteguyinchinaTest I mean over manufacturing. I can see it happening
eventually. 


Thu, 21 May 2026 10:39:39 -0700
whiteguyinchina from private IP
Reply #14416359

React 
 Like 
 Love 
 Haha 
 Wow 
 Sad 
 Angry  
Oh I see. That's an even easier answer. China is now light years ahead of India. Most low end manufacturing has already left China for SE asia etc. I mean
textiles, shoes, even basic electronics. China is basically mid to high end manufacturing. Put together with the labor force, the integration of robotshit and
AI, and the vast infrastructure that China has built out, India may catch up by lile 2050. If ever.


 @11555278 Andy 😮

Telemetry: page generated in 87.9 milliseconds for user at 216.73.216.246 on 2026-05-30 08:42:38