英语四级六级阅读(16)

For a day, a weekend, a week, up to even a month or two, Chinese companies are willing to pay high prices for fair-faced foreigners to join them as fake employees or business partners.
有些中国公司会愿意高价请一些面相好的白人来冒充他们公司的雇员或者生意伙伴，根据需要“租期”可以是一天、一周甚至一两个月。

Some call it a "Face Job."
这种情况就叫做“面子工程。”

And it is, essentially, all about the age-old Chinese concept of face. To have a few foreigners hanging around means a company has prestige, money and the increasingly crucial connections -- real or not -- to businesses abroad.
这是中国人一种由来已久的观念观，一个公司里要是有外国人就意味着整个公司有威望、财力雄厚并且“或真或假”的有着外国商贸业务。

"Face, we say in China, is more important than life itself," said Zhang Haihua, author of "Think Like Chinese." "Because Western countries are so developed, people think they are more well off, so people think that if a company can hire foreigners, it must have a lot of money and have very important connections overseas. So when they really want to impress someone, they may roll out a foreigner. Or rent one."
“在中国，面子比生活本生更重要，”《像中国人一样思考》的作者Zhang Haihua说：“因为西方国家经济发达，人们认为西方人更富裕，他们觉得如果一个公司请得起外国雇员的话，那这个公司肯定很有钱并且与海外有着重要联系。所以如果想给人家留下深刻的印象，他们就可能会请出外国人。没有就干脆租一个。”

Last year, Jonathan Zatkin, an American actor who lives in Beijing, posed as the vice president of an Italian jewelry company that had, allegedly, been in a partnership with a Chinese jewelry chain for a decade.
去年，住在北京的美国演员Jonathan Zatkin曾经就假扮过一家与中国某珠宝连锁店有十几年往来的生意伙伴某意大利珠宝公司的副总。

Zatkin was paid 2,000 yuan (about $300) to fly, along with a couple of Russian models, to a small city in the central province of Henan where he delivered a speech for the grand opening ceremony of a jewelry store there.
Zatkin陪一对俄国模特乘飞机到了河南省的一个小城市，并为那里的珠宝店开幕仪式做了讲话。这次工作让Zatkin赚到了2000人民币（约300美元）。

"I was up on stage with the mayor of the town, and I made a speech about how wonderful it was to work with the company for 10 years and how we were so proud of all of the work they had done for us in China," Zatkin said. ."
“我还和市长站在同一个台上讲过话，大谈和这于这间共事了10年的公司合作有多棒，并为他们在中国为我们所做的一切感到自豪。”Zatkin说。

The requirements for these jobs are simple. 1. Be white. 2. Do not speak any Chinese. 3. Pretend like you just got off of an airplane yesterday.
而这种工作的要求也相当简单。第一，是白人。第二，不说中文。第三，假装自己昨天才下飞机。

Those who go for such gigs tend to be unemployed actors or models, part-time English teachers or other expats looking to earn a few extra bucks. Often they are jobs at a second- or third-tier city, where the presence of pale-faced foreigners is needed to impress local officials.
而通常会干这活的外国人通常是没工作的演员或模特、兼职英语老师或者是其他想赚点外快的外国人。他们的工作范围通常集中在二线或者三线城市，在这种城市中一个外表堂堂的外国人会给当地官员留下比较好的印象。

Companies want a foreign face to go to meetings and conferences or to go to dinners and lunches and smile at the clients and shake people's hands.
这些公司“租用”这些外国人来参加各种会议、餐会、与客户微笑、握手等。