Channel 4 documentary following Anglo-Chinese businesswoman Carrie Waley, who runs a school for Chinese students eager to learn British culture and etiquette and make it big in the UK, as she returns to her roots in China.
Body language, eye contact, social kissing – all are a minefield for Chinese wannabe Westerners. And that is where Carrie Waley steps in. At 48, she doesn’t have the qualifications or stellar CVs that many of her protégés possess. But as someone who was born in Beijing and lived much of her adult life in the UK as the wife of an Eton- and Cambridge-educated barrister, she has found herself uniquely placed to bridge the East/West social and cultural divide.
Carrie Waley is a Mandarin consultant. For fees of £500 upwards, she offers coaching to job-hungry candidates from China and, conversely, teaches British executives how to ingratiate themselves with leading players in the Chinese economy. ‘We all prefer our own customs, but we know that learning each other’s will help us to get ahead,’ she says. Well-spoken and immaculately groomed, Carrie is everything you would expect of a woman running an image-conscious business. Her company has grown rapidly since she set it up single-handedly five years ago – she now employs ten staff as well as ten consultants.
Carrie Waley is a Mandarin consultant. For fees of £500 upwards, she offers coaching to job-hungry candidates from China and, conversely, teaches British executives how to ingratiate themselves with leading players in the Chinese economy. ‘We all prefer our own customs, but we know that learning each other’s will help us to get ahead,’ she says. Well-spoken and immaculately groomed, Carrie is everything you would expect of a woman running an image-conscious business. Her company has grown rapidly since she set it up single-handedly five years ago – she now employs ten staff as well as ten consultants.
Carrie arrives in Beijing and listens to her mother recount the family's plight during the Cultural Revolution, and questions whether the country can reconcile with its past and embrace the future. Part of the First Cut strand. Read More Daily Mail
More4 (Plus 1) 11:05pm Mon 17 Sept
More4 1:55am Tue 18 Sept
More4 (Plus 1) 2:55am Tue 18 Sept
Channel 4 2:05am Fri 21 Sept
Channel 4 (Plus 1) 3:05am Fri 21 Sept
This is a must watch programme. Quite a deliberate choice of Chinese Commentator too, she has the strongest 'herro' accent I've heard for a long long time.
ReplyDeleteIts Nancy Lam doing the commentary, deliberately chosen for the documentary because of her piss take accent for authentic foreigner.
DeleteI just watched it, why did she leave a FREE city like HK?
ReplyDeleteDreadful accent, doesn't pronounce her plurals or the tailend "s"s either she doesn't know the precise spoken english grammar or its the classic FOB incomplete english verbal schooling or thinking chinese grammar but speaking eng-gar-tulishhha.
Why the hell is she qualified to give lessons about England/english??!!!?! Where she is not coming across as an expert or an awareness of these details that MAKE all the difference or is it a clever business con? IMO shes one of those women who rebuild her life from her saviour husband, takeaway the white knight and you have the makings of a casino addict. She's another one of those chinese who become "outsiders" who don't like or mixing with "real" chinese people. About the traumatic childhood, BLAME the parents, if her parents weren't greedy capitialists who made illegal cash from the land and actually obeyed the laws of the land during cultural revolution, then none of this family split would of happened, sure it was tough time with land reforms but others like poor farmers with nothing persevered and survived respecting the communist laws and ideals which were not all flawed because it gave some dignity to those who were at the bottom of the heap, wrong as it was, it made sense at the time because of the increasing class divisions that existed and unequal distribution of wealth that was causing collective unrest and fear from invaders 20 years earlier. She repeats a Jung Chung wild swans narrative, totally ignoring the lower classes which are the chinese majority, who don't own land and have even less chance in life that she had. As for nancy Lam i not going there about her marriage. I used to think she was putting it on with that accent, but here is more restrained, but when its cookery showtime the vulgar eyelining and stereotypes will unleash itself.
Great review. You should write article some time. GOk Wans dating show is on this Friday, you want to write a article review on it?
DeleteHaha @ 'take away the white knight and you have the makings of a casino addict.' So true. I wanted to see her her Eton Cambridge educated Barrister white husband,but he didnt appear. Maybe he was busy defending this White pervert Declan Crosbie in court....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/sep/17/olympics-voyeur-spared-jail-term?newsfeed=true
I agree, shes that type of Chinese woman that doesnt like socialising with chinese people and deliberately marries a non-chinese so shes no longer part of the Chinese community but part of the white community, she rasies her children to be a westerner too, did she see her daughter? Extremely English posh boarding school accent. we've all met these types of women before.
DeleteIts a shame the repeats of this programme are in the early hours of morning.
It is one of the most worrying things facing our race, and mostly affects our women.... turning on our parents, the ones that provided, taught and built us for the life ahead. You hear of such horrible stories in the white press of white parents feeding their babies drugs, leaving them in their own shit, feeding them only crisps, teaching them violence is everything etc...and then you see women like this whose parents, whilst poor, did everything they could IN THAT GIVEN SITUATION to make life the best it could be for this vile woman. And look at their reward. Being turned on and labelled as primitive, backwards, uneducated. She - and many ungrateful Chinese girls like her - would be nothing without the foresight of their parents.
DeleteYet as soon as they turn white, the white stereotypes of Chinese come into play, as if a switch has been flicked. The level of brainwashing is incredible, if you were a white man you couldn't ask for anything better - it plays right into your hands.
If such Chinese women actually reflected on themselves, their identity, their family, and TOOK PRIDE in their accomplishments - triumph through adversity etc - I don't think we would have this problem of chinese women so eager to become white. You look at other races... muslim, indian, blacks.... even those who are poor and will stop at nothing to become affluent later on, they marry men of their own race and culture... they consider family, identity to be pivotal in what makes them who they are. This is in stark contrast with east asian women, who will stop at nothing to get away from their past, they want a complete, blank - white - slate. They fail to realise until much later on in life that what they, and their parents have gone through, is what makes them who they are.
'About the traumatic childhood, BLAME the parents, if her parents weren't greedy capitilists who made illegal cash from the land and actually obeyed the laws of the land during cultural revolution, then none of this family split would of happened,'
DeleteThing is, this will never Change in China. The only difference between communism then and now is that modern FOBs get rich off making deals with communist connections,back then communists confiscated it all.
Also what im beginning to realise for Chinese women, especially those who crave the materialist success in the UK, what better way to do it than marrying a white man?
As a mandarin consultant and also teaching english manners to Chinese affluent, she charges 500 quid an hour 'Her company has grown rapidly since she set it up single-handedly five years ago – she now employs ten staff as well as ten consultants. '
Would she be able to set up that kind of business in the UK if she married a Chinese FOB male ? Thats two lots of business coming - one from the whites , and one from the FOBS and im sure her white lawyer husband was a major helping hand getting her clients both ways and promoting it.
From the ambitious female FOB perspective you need that kind of 'marrying white' prestige in order to get to teach english because if her accents that bad ( i havent seen the programme) how can anyone with that bad an accent teach english?
The only other person i can think of is Richard Eng
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8660KuGP49Q
Difference is Eng is teaching english using a rock star approach to appeal to kids, and she is using the white male husband approach.
Re the IR stuff, nothing new there and the kind of obvious stuff sinophobic British media or the DM would love to promote to more female FOBS who want to make a success in Britain. dilute the race, show white saviour based Chinese success in the UK in a downturned UK economy kills three birds with one stone.
Again its the void of promoted success stories of full ethnic Chinese business couples that allows us to focus on stuff like this.
The white media assault on ethnic Chinese continues. It was only yesterday in the previous article about the Chinese man beaten up that SF mentioned that the white media and society has a very narrow, set view on coverage of the Chinese - i.e. communism morphing into excess, greed, selfishness etc... and now we have yet another doc on white worship - and how could it possibly be inflammatory when it's fronted by a Chinese woman, doing the white man's work?
ReplyDeleteAs for the description, how laughable
"But as someone who was born in Beijing and lived much of her adult life in the UK as the wife of an Eton- and Cambridge-educated barrister, she has found herself uniquely placed to bridge the East/West social and cultural divide. "
So, a born and bred Chinese wanting to be white (there are plenty of those), taking that opportunity and now living in an elite white social circle...tell me how that's well placed to bridge the social and cultural divide? She knows nothing about western working class, the rich in China, ethnic Chinese communities in white countries... let's face it, she's one of those types whose main ambition is to be assimilated by a white man, and then integrate herself as much as possible in a white community, essentially seeing herself as white - damn those mirrors. I doubt she knows of - or cares - about the views of any ethnic Chinese, here or abroad.
Alas, the gradual drip drip crushing of our races' image to the world is continuing to take place, courtesy of the white man and fronted by chinese women.
Just seeing her face makes me want to throw up.
ReplyDeleteFrom the DM article:
ReplyDeleteShe and Eric had two daughters, Amanda, now 21, and Laura, 19,
Carrie and Eric (who are now amicably divorced)
===========
This fits in perfectly to what I was saying about white men wanting their cake and eating it.... having more than their fair share - white men who have relationships with east asian women rarely do so for life with one woman - they are either the "easy submissive oriental" to settle down with, after the fuss of his previous (white) partners i.e. after he has had "pure" white children to continue the race... or the first one, to be broken up so he can settle with a white woman and someone who knows his culture a lot better.
Notice in both cases, the chinese woman does not remarry and start another family - they rarely do - they are usually young (regardless of the white man's age) when they marry and have children - and so spend their life raising such mixed children.
Essentially this means that
a) a Chinese man who would have had children with her is denied his own family;
b) the Chinese woman is left to dedicate her energy and resources (and quite likely that of her Chinese parents) to children who look nothing like them and do not identify with them;
c) the white man not only gets to have white children but also mixed children - two+families - at the expense of the chinese man (who will have none) and chinese woman (who has to dedicate her life to raising up his children).
It's a win-win scenario for the white man. Even white women in mixed relationships that have gone wrong tend to have a 2nd family i.e. kids with a different father, something you do not see with Chinese women.... a case of they've had their white descendants, their life objective is complete?
And has anyone read the "Carrie’s dos – and taboos – for bridging the East/West divide" section? So many lulz, it's like she's never met white and chinese people in everyday situations and just read from the Book of Stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteComments about her parents who have nurtured her through hard times only for her to essentially throw it back in their faces might be a bit mis-guided.
ReplyDeleteYou must remember, the problem is far more deep-rooted than one family. A huge portion of Chinese people idolise the west and today, even more so, but with an air of arrogance because of the new wealth. The generation before tend to crave what is missing, and very often spoil the generation you are now criticising. They are trying to over-compensate for the past struggles. Whether that is shortsightedness or ignorant, the end result tends to produce people like Carrie.
Personally, I recognise a Carrie in every corner of China and Britain. These women are looked up to. Ruthless and playing the control-freak status around Chinese circles to gain respect and then flitting back to play the dutiful and picture-perfect wife to her husband in a western setting.
Simply because of their white connections, she is able to attrack the attention of the media. What does that say? White is good, white is great and white buys you fastrack success. Others quite rightly point out, she will gain no headline nor attention if she had set up with a Chinese husband. The key is the borrowed fame of her husband. In a cynical way (to the Chinese), she married well. And how many people here have heard that in Chinese?? SF.
If she married a chinese bloke from the same village she probably be spending all her time at the casino, than conning gullible students for 500 quid, but the white knight fairy tale gave her an opportunity to exploit cynically, she not the only one like that hugh Grant mistress, using a polite word here.
DeleteSo the expensive-looking watch she's wearing in the photo was bought with casino membership card points?
Deletequite right, shes divorced and still uses her husbands English surname
ReplyDeleteoh man, ruthless business woman, guess she reckons it won't have cred if she used a chinese name. Actually i would respect her a tiny bit more if she was proud of her chinese identity instead, her fashion style is too overtly "Harrods" western, bit of jade or gold nope, too eager to be gwai por eating gwei lo rice. Noticed there was no wok in the kitchen, prefers pasta to noodles, tsk.
DeleteThis ties in with Chinese increasingly buying British and other white brands. They idolise them, the name... because they consider that creates respect. Thus being called a white name is better than a chinese one - because that is a brand in itself, and it's "better" to have a white name, much like it's better to buy a white brand than a Chinese one.
DeleteAnonymous 21/09/12: 05:10 you have to understand, she's practically white to the Chinese. That's how she sells herself, or else, why will these Chinese people pay her. As for the western customers, she can dress as 'Harrods' as she likes, she's still ethnically Chinese. No amount of double-barrel can remove that. That's the difference.
DeleteEnglish will always see her as Chinese first. The Chinese will see her as English despite her selling her Chinese side. They often over-look the culture and customs, taking it for granted and failing to preserve it, because if they cherished it, they could all be Carrie Waley instead of being paying customers. SF.
thoughts...as i see it, i think there are different ways of dealing with chinese identity, carrie appears to deal with it by dismissing anything as chinese and anglo-lizing her life.
Deletei know many chinese people who want nothing to do with their chinese background or culture, they are embarrassed by their TA roots, brash table manners, casino rituals etc. Then there are those who embrace it all and say yes to beach flip flops and public toothpicking lol.
I ve shared accommodation with native china people, whilst some are clued up, urbanised, others aren't, the dress sense and group meals gives away alot. But the thing i am impressed is their patriotism and love and respect of their country and of chinese people, which carrie doesn't have. Probably, from the clues of the prog, because of the side effects of cultural revolution, hence her rebelling anti-chinese lifestyle and her attempts to be well spoken, but you can't never rid of all that village accent haha.
I can always spot the sell outs or fakes or BBCs who made that identity "journey" becoming and unbecoming chinese, and eventually come to some midpoint, it may or may not be resolved it depends on the individual in the end, i think you BBCs know where i am coming from.
HBC said somewhere that BBC identity hasn't been invented yet,i would say that unresolved midpoint where it doesn't have any fixed closure because of "our" unique complex cultural upbringing and geographical dislocation, IS that identity.
ramblings of a bbc insomniac
haha at the flip flops and toothpicking . Nice insight about the unresolved midpoint, without fixed closure, you could be right about that as a form of identity.
DeleteQuestion is, if thats the case, how are we going to bring that unresolved identity to completion or is it going to drag on forever due to those same 'geographical elements'?
We've got enough opinions, thoughts, talent, etc to do something but probably just need to learn to trust each other and accept each other for who we are and take pride in seeing our real identity being open to experimentation on the online screen than expect it all to be processed and perfect before its even happened.
One argument i guess is we are too 'scared/facesaving/lazy to want to resolve unresolved issues onscreen, 'oh that person doesnt represent me', 'thats not what a BBC is like', and having all these high ideas of what we ought to be based on white media 'perfectionism' rather than actually taking the initiative based on British Born Chinese 'passion' or 'rawness'with concerted effort as a collective.
Then theres something SF mentioned 'how do we integrate our Chinese and Britishness' without flipflopping ( excuse the pun) between the two. Well maybe its not meant to be integrated, maybe we just take elements from both in order to establish our social and racial Chinese identity - different aspects of family, outlook, hobbies, what makes us laugh, cry etc. As an example, modern independent Chinese or classic HK film ive noticed does this, takes best of elements and 'assumes' without 'becoming' if that makes any sense. BBCs can do the same but on a smaller scale - enjoy the journey and not the achievement.
And if our identity makeup as you say is unconventional, shouldnt our media, its content, be respected the same way?
BBC regional diversity should celebrate itself, not be a division to each other. As long theres common agreement ie goal of ethnic Chinese social and racial identity, cant see why we cant accept each others regional differences. A Londoner BBC eating bangers and mash can have opposing outlook to a Northerner BBC eating a chip butty but at least makes good entertainment, but we still eat ramen with meat and veg, just maybe prepared slightly differently.
Not sure why im rambling so early either, been given a scheduled article to edit...
Came across this and thought you guys might like it. Check out this scumbag - http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/thread-792434-1-1.html - You can tell he has "yellow fever" and only wants a chinese wife.
ReplyDeleteThat girl he's giving out food with, in the 2nd photo - thats his girlfriend? Volunteering is one way of the 'yellow fever' guy charming a chinese wife, but you would have thought there be less charitable more obvious ways?
Deletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/24/gangnam-style-south-korean-pop
ReplyDeleteInteresting article relating to the latest craze and how it ties in with how whites only accept us if we fit into a certain stereotype
Anonymous 24/09/12: 18:24, I have heard about this craze too. But in all fairness, isn't it just another craze for the younger generation? I personally think it's good to have that. We're always talking about stereotypes, but if there are more and more stereotypes, then eventually there will be no stereotype.
ReplyDeleteAbout being accepted, I think this is slightly different. It's a craze or maybe lifting off something and turning it into something else, that can be healthy and inventive. Music and dance change over time, and if this style is a hit, then it can change the direction of music. We live in an age of media and entertainment. It's likely to come from things like this to have East Asians being noticed. SF.
What I mean by "accepting us only if we fit into a stereotype" is that media success for an east asian is limited to only those. A bit of context - the kpop industry have been trying to breaking into white countries for ages, same with other east asian nations. But their pop, their rock etc. simply is met by a brick wall, either by the white media producers or mainstream white society. Compare this with the general acceptance of white media, music, films etc. in the Far East.
DeleteSure, I get what you mean. A fad is a fad, it has a limited timeframe and runs its course before disappearing and making way for the next fad. This is one, and no doubt many koreans and east asians are happy for the coverage in white media - but surely that's a sign of how desperate and onesided things are? That white origin acts have no problem making it big in the East, but vice versa is a different story.
Daily Mail Watch:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208507/Chinese-protester-opposing-government-takeover-village-land-crushed-death-state-controlled-road-flattening-truck.html
Local Chinese government officials driving over a Chinese protestor and flattening him, pretty disgusting. But the comments as always show the true colours of others - i.e. they don't care about human rights in general, just a reason to pour hatred on our people.... notice that in the comments, most of the "jokes" about being flattened (which should say something about the humanity of THOSE people) are red arrowed...
then there's this
Damn these Chinese.
- Highlander, Kathmandu, Nepal, 26/9/2012 8:16
====================
which is green arrowed. So there are 25+ folk out there reading the DM article alone who simply despise our race (bar the women, hurhur) for no reason other than pure racial prejudice.
Also
========
But they eat dogs dont they?
- Lauren, Australia, 26/9/2012 8:18
==========
wtf? Imagine the line "But whites rape kids don't they?"......
I tell you, it's an uphill struggle for our people with folk like this around.
More media watch - this time on the Guardian (there is no left-right bias when it comes to China - all levels of the white political spectrum are sinophobic)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/25/china-tibet-protests-himalayas-casualties
That's right. A published article in white mainstream media openly blaming the Chinese because more and more climbers are risking climbing the Himalayas, despite overcrowding in the region. So they blame the Chinese for not opening up their side of the mountains to climbers.
Amaze.
Anonymous, the ignorance and the need to be funny very often gets the better of Daily Mail readers. There is no interest in China or what Chinese does on a daily basis. It's just a headline to generate hatred. That's what Daily Mail does best. They bait the simple and the basic, and sadly there are plenty that follow.
ReplyDeleteThe west wants China to be like them. Democratic by name, and agree with UK and US on all matters at the UN. China is not playing ball. The media and politics are intrinsically linked hence the amount of former media moguls ending up in politics. SF.
Ironically, whilst the state does not want to emulate or ally with western norms, the Chinese people certainly do...
Deletehttp://www.styleite.com/media/zadig-voltaire-hotel-racist/
ReplyDeletehttp://www.styleite.com/media/zadig-voltaire-hotel-racist/
http://www.styleite.com/media/zadig-voltaire-hotel-racist/
Hello BBC Zeitgeist,
I know this particular issue does not pertain to the BRITISH BORN
Chinese community, but it is an issue that hits home. Being that you
get a large monthly following on your website I would like to ask that
you post this most recent racist incident from the owner of fashion
label Zadig&Voltaire who say "No Chinese" will be allowed in his hotel
that is being built in France.
The reason why we continue to see so many racist incidents day after
day, night after night, is because we don't stand up or say anything
about it. This needs to stop NOW.