Not long ago I was offered work as a quality-control expert with an American company in China I’d never heard of. No experience necessary—which was good, because I had none. 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 Shandong province I’d also never heard of. The only requirements were a fair complexion and a suit.
“I call these things ‘White Guy in a Tie’ events,” a Canadian friend of a friend named Jake told me during the recruitment pitch he gave me in Beijing, where I live. “Basically, you put on a suit, shake some hands, and make some money. We’ll be in ‘quality control,’ but nobody’s gonna be doing any quality control. You in?”
I was.
And so 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.”
Six of us met at the Beijing airport, where Jake briefed us on the details. We were supposedly representing a California-based company that was building a facility in Dongying. Our responsibilities would include making daily trips to the construction site, attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and hobnobbing. During the ceremony, one of us would have to give a speech as the company’s director. That duty fell to my friend Ernie, who, in his late 30s, was the oldest of our group. His business cards had already been made.
Dongying was home to Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War, and that’s just about all it has going for it. The landscape is dry and bleak, with factories in all directions. We were met at the airport by Ken, a young Canadian of Taiwanese extraction with a brush cut and leather jacket, whose company, we were told, had been subcontracted to manage the project.
The lobby at our hotel was dimly lit and smelled like bad seafood. “At least we have a nice view,” Ernie deadpanned as he opened the drapes in our room to reveal a scrap yard. A truck had been stripped for parts, and old tires were heaped into a pile. A dog yelped.
Ken drove us to the company’s temporary offices: small rooms with cement floors and metal walls arranged around a courtyard. We toured the facility, which built high-tech manufacturing equipment, then returned to the office and sat for hours. Across the courtyard, we could hear Ernie rehearsing his speech.
The next morning was the official ribbon-cutting ceremony. A stage and red carpet had been set up near the construction site. Pretty girls in red dragon-patterned dresses greeted visitors, and Chinese pop blared from loudspeakers. Down the street, police in yellow vests directed traffic. The mayor was there with other local dignitaries, and so were TV cameras and reporters. We stood in the front row wearing suits, safety vests, and hard hats. As we waited for the ceremony to begin, a foreman standing beside me barked at workers still visible on the construction site. They scurried behind the scaffolding.
“Are you the boss?” I asked him.
He looked at me quizzically. “You’re the boss.”
Actually, Ernie was the boss. After a brief introduction, “Director” Ernie delivered his speech before the hundred or so people in attendance. He boasted about the company’s long list of international clients and emphasized how happy we were to be working on such an important project. When the speech was over, confetti blasted over the stage, fireworks popped above the dusty field beside us, and Ernie posed for a photo with the mayor.
For the next few days, we sat in the office swatting flies and reading magazines, purportedly high-level employees of a U.S. company that, I later discovered, didn’t really exist. We were so important, in fact, that two of the guys were hired to stay for eight months (to be fair, they actually then received quality-control training).
“Lots happening,” Ken told me. “We need people for a week every month. It’ll be better next time, too. We’ll have new offices.” He paused before adding: “Bring a computer. You can watch movies all day.”
OMG!!!!!!!! Start taking pictures of yourself now. Make sure it's at places where the date can be confirmed, then get the fake CEO job and record yourself giving an important speech. Then you write a book of generic self-help crap and go on a tour showing your before and after success and sell millions of copies.
(Reuters Life!) - With divorce on the rise in Japan, some couples are choosing to celebrate the end of an unhappy marriage by saying "I do" for a final time at a divorce ceremony before friends and family.
Divorce ceremonies were pioneered about a year ago by a former salesman, Hiroki Terai, who set up a "divorce mansion" in a small undercover space in Tokyo.
Since then about 25 couples have each paid 55,000 yen ($606) to hold a ceremony with all the pomp and grandeur of a wedding that publicly ends their relationship before they officially file for divorce. Terai said he had received more than 900 inquiries.
The latest couple, who called themselves Mr. and Mrs. Fujii, met near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo's traditional Asakusa area on Sunday and rode in separate rickshaws to the "divorce mansion."
"By putting an end to our marriage, we wanted to give ourselves fresh starts and give our lives a sense of renewal," Mr. Fujii, a 33-year-old businessman, told Reuters Television.
He said he felt responsible for the failure of his marriage as he spent too much time away from home and too much money on his various interests including cars - despite numerous warnings from his wife.
Friends and family of the Fujii couple followed closely behind the rickshaws on foot, arriving at the "divorce mansion" for a ceremony where they smashed their wedding ring with a gavel, a gesture signifying the end of their partnership.
The gavel has a frog's head as frogs symbolize change in Japanese culture.
"When we smashed the ring together, I felt like "oh, this is the end of it, really" and my heart and soul felt renewed. Now I feel I can have a new life and start all over again," said Mr. Fujii.
His wife of eight years also expressed her relief.
"The moment I saw the smashed ring, I said to myself, "Yes! That feels so good,"" Mrs. Fujii said.
Terai, who is believed to be Japan's first "divorce ceremony planner," came up with the idea of divorce ceremonies to help couples celebrate their decision to separate after one of his friends was going through a bitter divorce.
Divorce is on the rise in Japan where it was once taboo with about 251,000 divorces taking place in 2008, partly blamed on the poor economy taking its toll on romance.
Next month Terai heads off on his first business venture abroad to Korea to officially divorce a couple in Seoul.
"I started this ceremony in April last year thinking that there should be a positive way to end a marriage and move on by making a vow to restart their lives in front of loved ones," Terai said.
There is a district within the US where they are now handing out condoms to any elementary school kids. I personally think its hilarious and utterly ridiculous at the same time.
Commanders do not allow sexual intercourse on the International Space Station, it has been disclosed.
"We are a group of professionals," said Alan Poindexter, a NASA commander, during a visit to Tokyo, when asked about the consequences if astronauts boldly went where no others have been.
"We treat each other with respect and we have a great working relationship. Personal relationships are not ... an issue," said a serious-faced Mr Poindexter. "We don't have them and we won't."
Mr Poindexter and his six crew members, including the first Japanese mother in space Naoko Yamazaki, were in Tokyo to talk about their two-week resupply mission to the International Space Station.
The April voyage broke new ground by putting four women in orbit for the first time, with three female crew joining one woman already on the station.
Sexual intercourse in space may appear out of bounds, but astronauts have been known to succumb to earthly passions.
In 2007 former NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak allegedly wore adult diapers when driving hundreds of miles across the United States without bathroom breaks to confront a suspected rival in a romance with a fellow astronaut.
Coincidentally this is one of many odd curiosities that has crossed my mind recently. I can't recall why. This is pretty much in line with my suspicions though. Kinda boring really.
I don't believe it though. In the 50 years of space exploration and research, at some point in time someone has to have wondered what happens physiologically in zero G when two people get it on.
I'd volunteer for it. Plenty of people have joined the Mile High Club, but the real exclusivity is in the Low Orbit Club.
I have a picture in my head of an astronaut squeezing juice into the air, the juice forming perfect liquid bubbles, and him encapsulating these bubbles in his mouth to drink them.
Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure - the ones who are driving the action - we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.
And then you have to click the link, it really is a long article.
Looked amusing to me. I still don't know what this tea party thing is other than angry white people who haven't realized that Barack Obama is to USA what Edward Cullen is to teen girls.
The democratic party is big and encompasses a huge number of different political and philosophical viewpoints. Hating it is close enough to racism if you ask me.
I like the point of the article, but not the tone. The point he was making is that if the people in the Tea Party doing these things were mostly black, then our perception of their motivations would be very different. The tone he gave implied that white people knowingly and consciously abuse this double standard.
A man was jailed by a Kemerovo region court on Thursday for assaulting a Gypsy fortune teller who predicted that he would be jailed, the Investigative Committee said.
Gennady Osipovich tried to kill the unidentified female fortune teller, who told him she saw a “state-owned house” — a Russian euphemism for jail — in his future, the committee said in a statement on its web site.
The woman managed to escape, but Osipovich stabbed to death two unidentified witnesses of the assault, which took place in October. He was sentenced to 22 years in a maximum-security prison.
Remove the last paragraph and it's certainly amusing...
Comments
This thing is just starting to hit its stride, it'd be a shame to shave it off now.
Truly the moment I have been waiting for my whole life.
...Although I guess I will have to shave at some point. Decisions, decisions.
Japanese couples say "I do" -- in divorce ceremonies
Plus the ceremony includes breaking stuff. Can't go wrong with that.
Niche? This is Japan. They've carved themselves a trench.
I've probably said this before, but I think we may have nuked them a little too hard.
I'd volunteer for it. Plenty of people have joined the Mile High Club, but the real exclusivity is in the Low Orbit Club.
I have a picture in my head of an astronaut squeezing juice into the air, the juice forming perfect liquid bubbles, and him encapsulating these bubbles in his mouth to drink them.
And then you have to click the link, it really is a long article.
Looked amusing to me. I still don't know what this tea party thing is other than angry white people who haven't realized that Barack Obama is to USA what Edward Cullen is to teen girls.
I See Jail In Your Future...
Remove the last paragraph and it's certainly amusing...
Remind me to never go to Russia.