Trust China to turn white privilege on its head and make a business of it. A decade or two ago, one way expats at loose ends could make a living there, albeit somewhat precariously and less-than-entirely-honestly, was to be “hired by a Chinese company to pose as a professional at events where a Western face lends the company extra credibility in its own market.” These are known as doing “face jobs”.
Now, it never pays to lie, especially when one lie leads to another until it’s no longer easy to keep the stories straight. And when those lies are all part of a career, it can get messy. At least it does in Eric Flanagan and Sam Voutas’s new graphic novel, White Faced Lies, illustrated by Timothy McEvenue. The story is mostly humorous with a little melancholy and the absurd splashed in, taking a different look at the way foreigners get by in China compared to the typical expat-in-China story.

Stan Becker is a middle-aged American who suffered the loss of his only child, a thirteen year-old daughter, when she died in a fall back in the US a decade earlier. Just before the accident, Stan was in the process of building a ranch. After Meadow’s death, he moved to China to earn a living and decided to build a ranch there in her memory. He found steady work doing face jobs. In the 2000s, Stan poses as different executives and officials when the need presents itself. His booking agent, Abraham Li, runs East West Company Representation Services and includes a sheet of guidelines for people taking face jobs, including these, among others:
- Always arrive for work at least ten minutes early so you can prepare. Always wait until everyone else is gone before leaving.
- Don’t speak unless spoken to.
- Don’t ask questions relating to the industry you are in.
- If you have to say anything, say it in English. Never speak in Chinese unless it is within closed doors and to your coordinator.
- If anyone asks, know the city you have flown in from. Good cities are: New York, Washington, DC and London.
- If a problem occurs while a job is underway, just say you’re feeling sick. This will help you get out quickly.
And the list goes on. But Stan just can’t get a break and as the book opens, it’s 2010 and he’s supposed to be a French restaurant award reviewer, so the guideline about speaking English seems a little pointless for this job. Stan instead answers “oui” to every question he’s asked before signing a certificate that grants a restaurant five “Michellon” stars. Just as he’s leaving the event, a truck drives by with an ad featuring an Eskimo whose face is none other than Stan himself from a previous job. It’s not true that people in China think all foreigners look alike because Stan is immediately recognized as a fraud and is not paid for the “Michellon” job.
If that were not bad enough, one day a young American man shows up at his door, claiming he’s Stan’s long lost son. This comes about because Stan had posed in the past as a man named Edgar Trubman for an exhibition in Xian. Now someone named Jared Trubman shows up in Beijing to find his long lost father after spotting him in an online photo from that Xian event. As much as Stan denies it, Jared still believes Stan is his father.
Jared’s appearance coincides with Stan learning that he’s about to lose his ranch in China if he can’t come up with 98,000 yuan in the next month. Stan runs to his booking agent, Abraham Li, who says he can earn double the money if he finds another white person to work with him for free. Suddenly Stan finds a use for Jared.
The two men embark on a nine-city tour to cities like Shijiazhuang in Hebei, Xuchang in Henan, and Moganshan in Zhejiang, where Stan won’t be recognized for previous work. Their jobs are outrageous, posing as PGA officials to rank golf players as young as eleven, mining administrators, and even doctors. The story spirals into further chaos as Stan and Jared head toward Shanghai on their face job tour.
The illustrations capture Stan in all his disarray while Jared is a naïve yet optimistic twenty-something who hopes to find family far from home. China is depicted not as picture-perfect postcards, but a vast country with a variety of terrain and living conditions. Most of all, the book provides an entrée into this bizarre industry.
Susan Blumberg-Kason is the author of Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China, Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong and When Friends Come From Afar: The Remarkable Story of Bernie Wong and Chicago’s Chinese American Service League.
You must be logged in to post a comment.