My Intern and I Were Hired to Lecture a Middle School in China on Air Pollution. Classic #WhiteFaceGig

I was hired for my first whiteface gig, a right of passage for foreigners in China. It was an absurd experience. I was asked to give a presentation for a mask company in order to teach students about the dangers of air pollution. The company gave me no information to go off of. All they sent me was a simple powerpoint presentation. I was talking completely out of my ass, throwing out buzzwords left and right, fighting to sound competent. I’m sure if anyone knew anything about air pollution they would have seen right through me, thankfully most of these students were under the age of 13 and just happy to be out of class for twenty minutes. The most ridiculous part of my presentation came when I reached a slide that read “Does anybody speak Polish?”  

I had no idea how this related to air pollution whatsoever, but I’d ask the question and if any of the kids raised their hands I would say “oh good for you asshole” and move on. I think this is the most I’ve ever had to bullshit in my life but I am happy I had the opportunity to do it. Now I can say I posed as a specialist and successfully (more or less) gave six lectures on a topic I knew nothing about. Not to mention I got paid $150 to do it. Not bad, not bad at all.

Stay Houndin’

Chef Donny

Instagram @chef.donnyy

Below are Donnie’s previous two experiences with white face gigs:

I helped produce a segment for VICE on HBO about this phenomena. It starts in the below video at minute 14.