It was a usual, crisp December morning as I veered my E-bike (electric scooter) onto the road that would take me to my unusual destination that day: the abandoned paper factory. I was unfamiliar with this industrial section of Lishui and felt decidedly out of my element as I rode past active construction zones and yards heaped with plywood and giant metal pipes. I finally spotted the banner “1st Lishui + China International Taekwondo Tournament” and heaved a sigh of relief that Baidu Maps had actually taken me to where I wanted to be for once.

Feeling excited and nervous to be at my first International Taekwondo Tournament, I parked my E-bike and headed into the building, taking off my jacket to unveil my taekwondo uniform underneath. I marched behind a gaggle of parents and kids in similar attire to a gym laid out with mats and tables, its basket ball hoops pushed against the walls. I spied some of my fellow foreign teacher friends and moved to stand with them to watch as group of black belts moved in sync to the “thump thumping” of bouncy electronic dance music in front of a panel of judges. My friends Carol and Dom were equally nervous as we looked around, expecting to find more foreigners. We had no idea what was going to happen and were apprehensive about what we would be asked to perform. None of us felt like we had enough practice with our Taekwondo forms or with sparring to want to do anything in front of the steadily growing audience.

We did not have to wait long as one of the women in Taekwondo gear pulled our group into a separate room and told us to wait. The woman came back with an assistant in tow who handed us each about four long ribbons with medals and certificates.

Confused, we looked at each other and felt a sense of growing apprehension. Yet, it was only when the first of many children started filing in (and we were told to hand out the medals and certificates and pose for pictures) that it truly dawned on us: we weren’t invited here to be a part of the competition…We had been tricked into doing a White Monkey Job!

White? Monkey?

Work in China for any amount of time, and you’re bound to hear the term “White Monkey” thrown around. These are essentially easy, paying gigs that generally have one main requirement: don’t look Chinese. These jobs for “lǎowài (老外),” a derogatory slang term for outsiders, can range anywhere from taking pictures advertising a product for a new startup, pretending to be a friend or significant other, or simply just showing up at a given place and time. White monkey jobs are often spread by word of mouth, “Someone somewhere needs a laowai (preferably white) for _______, and this is how much the pay is ____.”

Like many laowai who have resided in China, I’ve done my fair share of these jobs over the years. Most of the gigs were simple, and I was paid the same amount even though I don’t look fully white since there were not many options for foreigners in Lishui. A few I’ve done include judging Lishui’s city-wide English competitions, doing an English voiceover for a mobile learning app, attending a televised New Year’s Gala, and guest lecturing at a trade school.

The gala thrown by the government of Qingtian in Zhejiang province was one of my favorite experiences. I adored that blue vest with the white ruff (third pic on the right).

Moral Grey Area

As someone with student loans to pay, these jobs were a fun way to supplement my meager NGO income at the time and discover more about the neighboring towns and other foreigners in the area.

Now, if you’re thinking Steph…that this sounds a bit shady…you’re not wrong. There are cases out there where some headhunters seek foreigners to pretend to be important businessmen to fool people into making bad business deals or worse. I remember when I first started working in Lishui, I was warned during our “what not to say/do as an American” training to be very careful as police are becoming stricter in some areas about what foreigners can and cannot do.

One cautionary tale that springs to mind comes from a colleague in Hunan Province who knows a foreign teacher who was invited by a Chinese friend to go to get pizza. Unbeknownst to that teacher, it was actually the opening of a brand new pizza place that belonged to an acquaintance of said Chinese friend. Cops came to the scene and actually arrested the foreign teacher thinking that he was there as a White Monkey to promote the opening of the restaurant. Even if that was the case, though, why would that be a bad thing?

Well, some provinces actually are strict about what foreign teachers can and can’t get paid to do. Foreign teachers have a contractual obligation to not take second jobs in order to maintain their work visa and residency (I refer to teachers working within Chinese public and private school, not to those attached to the dubious afterschool training/tutoring centers).

Thankfully this wasn’t the case for me as Lishui – and Zhejiang Province overall at the time – was pretty chill. Some of the White Monkey jobs being offered in my area came directly from government officials seeking to boost tourism, offering free accommodation, meals, and transportation (like that new year’s celebration I attended). That poor foreign teacher I mentioned above was eventually released after the misunderstanding, but his story goes to show how easy it is to be deceived by so-called friends.

While, thankfully, the story I’m sharing here does not end in jailtime, it is a tale of how a few other foreign teachers and I were used by a Chinese bigwig in town on the basis of our race/nationalities.

Calling all Foreigners! Free Taekwondo Lessons!

One day during late summer, I heard through the grapevine (aka Wechat) that there were free Taekwondo lessons being offered to foreigners, including uniforms! I was pumped. I’d had some Taekwondo classes in undergrad and relished the chance to get back into doing something physical.

The first couple of classes were pretty fun! We met biweekly at one of the Taekwondo Academy spaces in town, a lovely dojang with beautiful hardwood columns and floors. I was able to meet a bunch of exuberant people, mostly women with the exception of a hilarious, peculiar guy named Arrow. Our crew hailed from all over the globe from Africa to South America.

Han Jiaolian, our Sahbunim (Korean for teacher), was intensely charismatic, to say the least. In the beginning, Han was an attentive and enthusiastic teacher, correcting our punching and kicking forms. We learned quickly that he was the taekwondo instructor, a local celebrity who ran a monopoly on Taekwondo in the vicinity. By vicinity, I mean the town and a vast swath of the surrounding prefectures with dojangs even in the capital, Hangzhou. It is no surprise then that many of the school kids we taught were his students, too. 

As the weeks continued, however, there was a noticeable change in Han’s demeanor towards us. He became less attentive, ordering one of his many black belt students hanging around the dojang to train us instead. On some days, if he came at all, Han would only show up to give us a salute and then would go sit in a corner to video tape us, interrupting the lesson from time to time to ask us to spar one another or goof around.  

November came, and Han ordered those who were left of our class (around eight people) to meet with the one he ran at the Lishui University. The first time walking into that classroom with its thirty odd Chinese students was awkward, to put it lightly. These poor students did not know what to make of us. It was obvious from the get-go that they were more knowledgeable and much better trained. We tried to keep up at first, but it quickly devolved into play fighting with Han videotaping, of course. It felt embarrassing, and I am positive the students resented our presence there. A side note: our funny friend, Arrow, was so busy taking pictures of us all that when it came time to spar, sadly no one thought to take pictures of him. He asked later and, to reassure us all that it was okay no one took pictures of him, sent us a bunch of his own selfies.

The “International” Taekwondo Tournament

The only reason it was “international” was because we were there!

So there we were the day of the tournament, being moved hither and thither, shoving medals around children’s necks, and cheesing for the cameras. My friends and I were bewildered. This wasn’t what we signed up for!

We were all basically on the same page that night going, “What was that?!” We all thought we had been invited by Han to see Lishui’s First International Taekwondo Tournament,” but we learned the only reason it was “international” was because we were there! Us, the white belt-wearing nobodies! I can only wonder who the crowd thought we were supposed to be. I remember feeling nervous about parents recognizing me and potentially getting me in trouble, but I learned later that I needn’t have worried. Parents did recognize me, but no one at my school cared since it was the Han Jiaolian.

Han also messaged us late that same night to thank us for our hard work and gave a red packet of about a hundred bucks to each of us. The tournament was set to last another day, however, I caught a terrible head cold and didn’t feel like going. I opted out the morning of. To be honest, I wasn’t remiss about it at all as I was still processing my feelings from the day before and needed the bedrest. The tournament just wasn’t what I had expected and felt some resentment that we weren’t even asked to hand out medals. We were simply told to.

I wasn’t the only one with mixed feelings as I heard most of the others didn’t show up to the second day either. I guess everyone figured The Han Jiaolian could handle handing out medals on his own. He was famous enough. He didn’t need us to work for him.

Our class dissolved after that.  

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