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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.