Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The New York Times' website recently published part of a documentary made by Copenhagen-based film director David Borenstein about the easy job market for foreigners living in China. The film, named Chinese Dreamland, will be released in the late summer. But the segment offers a good peek at the story.

The film shows scenes of foreigners recruited and hired by Chinese companies to play the roles of "famous model," "famous singer" or simply businessman or diplomat at business-related events. Prices are all based on supply and demand: White people are more expensive than black people. And Indians? Not in stock because demand is low. Real estate companies are the keenest to use these services because foreigners can make their properties, many in remote areas, look "international" and more appealing to potential buyers.

The foreigners couldn't believe their luck. "In China you can be anything without any knowledge and education, if you are from the West … Yes, everything is fake," a white man said in the movie. 

This is not the first time the free ride for foreigners to earn money in China has made international headlines. In 2010, the Atlantic monthly published a story written by Mitch Moxley in which he described a similar underground job market for role playing by foreign expatriates in China based on his own experience of being hired as a "quality control" expert. He was supposed to be working for a fictional Canadian company that was building a facility in a small town in Shandong Province. To explain, Moxley quoted his Chinese language tutor: "Having foreigners in nice suits gives the company face."

I was not surprised. When I was in college, I shared the same dorm with two American students in a language exchange program. One of my roommates, a tall blond girl, was spotted by an advertising agent on the street and invited to go to Wuxi for a day to promote a newly built hotel. It was 1996 and her payment of 1,000 yuan ($120) simply for soaking herself in the hotel's jacuzzi was quite a shock to her and certainly the rest of us.

In the years I have worked as a journalist covering the Chinese community in the US, I have often witnessed Chinese immigrants desperate to get a picture taken with internationally known politicians. Sometimes a picture like that may mean a $1,000 donation to the politician's campaign. But those who stand in the queue at fundraising parties with check books in hand don't even blink. They know the picture can help promote whatever businesses they have in China and ultimately be worth much more than the donation.

Perhaps these kind of schemes work in China  for the same reason that makes China such a big market for luxury goods. When I was in middle school in the late 1980s, a neighbor of my family started to take advantage of economic reforms by trading hardware. I remembered he wore a gold chain that cost him his lifetime savings. He said it was worth it because the chain showed people his business was going well and helped attract more customers. It worked. He became one of the early millionaires in my neighborhood.

The gold chain played the same role as brand name bags, belts and suits do today in a culture that tends to make judgments based on looks. And the foreigners hired for role playing today, to some extent, work in the same way as the shiny outfits and accessories - to enchant the viewers and paralyze their ability to look under the surface and make more conscious judgments.

But the tactic of enlisting "human decorations" is even worse. It doesn't only reflect the shallowness of certain elements of the culture, but also indicates that people still believe in and even admire a screwed-up hierarchy based on race and nationality.

The Chinese agent who hires and rents out foreigners featured in Borenstein's documentary noted: "For the time being, the image has become the reality." Well, it is. And it is a truly depressing reality that has existed in China for too long and seems to be hard to crack even after decades of formidable economic development.

The author is a New York-based journalist. rong_xiaoqing@hotmail.com