VICE (2013) s03e08 Episode Script

Shane Smith: This week on Vice, looting ancient artifacts in the Middle East.
It is straight down.
Jesus Christ.
Smith: Then the business of being white in China.
I'm a businessman! Man: Why does a real estate company want to have a Western butler? It is almost as successful here in China as sex.
Sex sells, right? Sex and white people.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm at Dahshur, which is one of the sights that's been completely overrun by looters.
I'm a Scottish cymbal player in China, a job I got because I'm white.
ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria have been destroying, and in some cases selling off, some of humanity's most priceless artifacts that chronicle the beginning of civilization.
Sadly, those aren't the only countries facing an antiquities crisis.
Since the Arab Spring and the turbulence that followed, Egypt has lost a devastating amount of it's own artifacts to looting.
Since 2011, billions of dollars worth of relics have been stolen from both museums and archaeological sites.
So we sent Gianna Toboni to Egypt to find out exactly why we are pawning off our global heritage.
Toboni: For being one of the seven wonders of the world, it's pretty vacant.
There are no tourists here, it's so empty.
How has business been? (laughs) Toboni: Do you see many tourists around here? Toboni: In fact, Egypt's annual tourism revenue is five billion dollars lower than it was the year before the revolution.
The reason is pretty simple: many foreigners see it as too dangerous to visit.
When the Arab Spring erupted in the Middle East four years ago, massive protests, public killings, and widespread violence destabilized the entire region, and ended the 30-year rule of Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak.
The Muslim Brotherhood took power with a promise of democracy from their leader, President Mohamed Morsi.
But after consistent protests over his controversial rule, the military took over, and they continue to rule the country today.
Economist Samer Atallah says the political turmoil has done significant damage to the economy.
If you're a young person and you lose your job, say, in tourism, where do you turn? Toboni: And one of the most widespread of these illegal activities: looting.
Is there a connection between economic decline and looting of antiquities? Toboni: During the chaos and aftermath of the revolution, looters ransacked some of Egypt's most priceless museum collections.
In the security vacuum that followed the revolution, looters went from stealing treasures in museums to raiding tombs that had been undisturbed for thousands of years.
Illegal digging at many of Egypt's cultural heritage sites skyrocketed.
I'm at Dahshur, which is one of sites that's been completely overrun by looters since the revolution.
And I'm here to meet Zahi Hawass.
He's the former Minister of Antiquities and he's going to take me inside that pyramid.
Dr.
Hawass is Egypt's premier archaeologist and was actually the head of the Ministry of Antiquities when the Arab Spring hit Egypt.
(both laugh) Toboni: How much more did looting increase after the revolution, here in Dahshur? Toboni: Popular areas for looting are previously protected historical sites.
Looters hope they contain more valuable antiquities, so they dig deep holes in search of undiscovered tombs.
Toboni: Oh, wow.
There are holes every few steps here at this site.
And if you look at the satellite images before the revolution, it's completely flat, there are hardly any holes.
Then you see the image after the revolution, and the holes are everywhere.
(man singing in Arabic) Toboni: Archaeologist Monica Hanna is one of the most vocal advocates for better protection at Egypt's heritage sites.
Toboni: Pretty amazing.
What kinds of things are the diggers finding here? Toboni: How advanced are the methods of the looters that come here? Oh, yeah, wow.
This is insane, there are bones everywhere.
Toboni: When did most of these raids happen here? Toboni: Every 20 feet you walk here there's a new skull.
It just shows, like, how much looting has happened here.
I'm right outside Cairo and we were able to track down a couple looters here, who at night go to the Saqqara site, which is just a few hundred meters from here.
Why do you loot antiquities? Do you feel at all guilty for what you do? Toboni: To understand more about how and why these guys run this underground trade, we got in touch with another group of looters outside Luxor, who agreed to take us to one of their dig sites.
Toboni: Do you think, uh, before the revolution, there would have been police blocking this off? Toboni: How long have you been digging at this site? Toboni: This is insane.
It's not even like there's a grade, it is straight down.
Just-- you're holding it? That's it? There's no anchor? Just back up.
All right.
(sighs) Okay.
Okay (Toboni coughing) Toboni: It's not just the drop that makes this dangerous for these guys, it's so difficult to breathe that you can only stay down there for 30 minutes.
Toboni: This guy is just pounding this rock.
He's trying to cut right through to a tomb, but he doesn't really know where the tomb is, so this guy's been here for over a year doing this.
Toboni: While they didn't find anything that day, they've discovered numerous artifacts at this site and agreed to let us meet their boss, who sells them on the black market.
Hello.
How are you? Toboni: Mr.
Mayor agreed to show us one of the gang's recent findings.
This was, uh, created probably over a thousand years before Jesus was born.
How much do you think you'll make for this? Toboni: Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities tries to track down items that have been smuggled overseas and bring them back to Egypt.
It's an uphill battle, to say the least.
So it's really just, like, three or four guys here, who are in charge of repatriating three billion dollars worth of antiquities.
It's just them in this small office, checking eBay and auction house websites.
So what are these items here? Do you this was stolen post-Arab Spring? Toboni: Oh, my God.
Just all- that's one man? Wow.
Toboni: Because much of the demand for these items comes from the United States, we met with a Special Agent from Homeland Security Investigations in New York to see some recently seized items.
This one had fake provenance attached to it and fake paperwork, and I think it was still going for upwards of a quarter of a million dollars.
They will falsely declare the countries of origin, falsely declare the values, they'll falsely declare the descriptions.
Almost anything that you can imagine to put down wrong to try and sneak by us.
We were able to see pieces coming directly out of multiple countries, not just Egypt, but out of Libya, out of Syria, out of Iraq.
And so when you have that many countries involved in a transnational criminal organization, you realize that this is a very big problem.
Toboni: Though these criminal organizations span the Middle East, Syria has been one of the hardest hit.
We spoke to Amr Al-Azm, a Syrian archaeologist who maintains a growing network of committed volunteers who investigate the destruction and protect what's left.
How big of an issue is looting in Syria as compared to Egypt? The scale of destruction and looting that is occurring at the moment in Syria is unprecedented.
The biggest exploiters of antiquities for profit are actually ISIS.
They have experts, they have their own archaeologists, they have their own teams, and we are consistently hearing reports of objects showing up in sales in London, in Paris, in the US.
This cultural heritage is not just part of Syria's history, it's also part of our world history.
We refer to these countries as Syria or Iraq or Egypt as cradles of civilization.
It's part of, essentially, what defines who we are and how we got to where we are today.
Toboni: As long as global demand continues to rise, ISIS and other criminal organizations will continue to operate by selling off our collective history.
China's economy is growing at an incredible rate.
In fact, per capita GDP is up more than 3,500% since 1980.
It's now the world's second largest economy and is projected by the World Bank to take over as number one before 2030.
But despite this rapid ascension to power, China and their new elites still prize Western culture.
Specifically, white Western culture.
So, we sent Thomas Morton to get a firsthand look at the societal oddity that's taking place in modern-day China.
Hi, it's Thomas.
I'm a, uh, Scottish cymbal player in China, a job I got 'cause I am white.
(bagpipes playing) (cymbals crash) While Americans, and white people more generally, have kind of worn out our welcome in most of the world, there's one place left where it's desirable and even considered exotic to have a white face.
And that is here, the People's Republic of China.
White faces are such a hot commodity, there are entire Chinese modeling agencies dedicated to the foreign look, which in China, means white.
Because the demand for white so drastically outweighs the supply, they'll take anybody.
At least for an interview.
Yeah, what kind of work would be good for me? No.
Why is runway a no? Well, why, yeah? Is it because I'm too short? So if runway is out, what are my other options? That's a good place to start.
What type of the people do they usually ask for? Morton: Despite me not being runway material, Ellie was still able to find me an impressive number of jobs in a day's notice.
Over the course of 24 hours, I was a subway stop sales Martian.
Look how much fun it is to blink.
I hawked body positive ladies' underwear at the Shanghai Fashion Expo.
Expo attendees will have a chance of winning a prize pair of panties worth between 80 and 100 kuai.
I emceed a runway show.
Welcome to the international brands catwalk.
And ended my night drinking and playing dice with some rich Chinese kids at a fancy night club that hires white foreigners to make them look cool and worldly.
After work, I met up with some of my fellow whites to bitch about our jobs.
What kind of jobs can you get as a foreigner? You can be a fake white anything, basically.
That's the thing, really.
It's just great.
There's all sorts of masquerading as something you're not.
You know, and it's not really a harmful thing.
Really, it'-- I look at it as marketing.
China is trying to open up to the world and they're trying to show people Exactly.
that we're global players, you know? Is it like an obsession with Western culture on that level? Because I understand it from a business-- They don't really know much about the, the culture.
They just like the idea of, like, white culture.
Yeah.
Exactly.
They are kind of like visually racist, so to speak.
So they like-- they like, um, you know, white, "white features.
" Morton: China's predilection for Caucasian features may be a boon to local expats, but not everyone is jazzed on the Aryan aesthetic.
Huang Xiangyang is a reporter who did a big piece for the China Daily about where his countrymen's fixation with white face originally came from.
Morton: While the majority of expat foreigners live in what China calls its first tier cities, like Beijing and Shanghai, it's in the second and third tier cities that the superiority of white culture carries the most weight.
Which makes sense when you consider that most people there's sole exposure to Western culture is through TV shows like Downton Abbey.
So the prestige attached to westerners kind of extends far beyond the business world into more general Western culture.
And one of the things that has caught the eye of wealthy Chinese is the old craft of butlering, or butling.
Thomas, who's driving me, runs a branch of The International Butler Academy.
He has agreed to let me train at the academy and take part in an event tonight.
Now you see, it's not in the center.
Here is your tea, sir.
Still.
We are getting there.
Hm? Morton: Despite the rigorous training, the market for white butlers is dominated not by nouveau riche Chinese with palatial, aristocratic looking estates, but rather by real estate developers shilling pricey condos.
So what exactly do you guys do at the sales office? Uh, basically, they want us to stand here and look pretty and greet the guests.
So pretty much all day long they invite prospective tenants to come in.
Morton: At this point, I wasn't quite sure I was being used to suggest that these apartments come with their own white butler, or more as sort of a general visual prop to connote fanciness.
Why does a real estate company want to have a Western butler? It's show business.
Right.
They have a huge interest to sell these apartments for a very high price.
A Western butler here in China is still a major selling.
It is almost equally as successful here in China as sex.
Right.
Sex sells.
Right? Sex and white people.
Sex and butlers sell.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Morton: While most of the white jobs I've done so far have been pretty up front and on the level, there's a gray market for whites in China where having a white face isn't just a marketing ploy, but a substitute for actual professional credentials.
So I'm learning we are in Yiwu, which is a manufacturing hub in China.
Um, there's a business fair here and we've been hired as white people and foreigners generally to go there as interested investors.
The truth is, we're all mostly just like people who've been paid a bunch of money and handed business cards with a fake company on them.
Oh, here I am.
Morton, Thomas Wilson, director of Thomas, Thomastrade.
com.
Morton: All right.
Time to be businessmen.
Morton: With new business identities in hand, we all herded into the trade hall to get businessing.
Thank you.
So I've got to get these stamped? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just stamped.
Okay.
That's how I get paid? I get it.
Okay.
And these are the price labels for the price machine? Okay.
I could be very interested in that for my trading company.
I could use this to cut my documents.
I could use these to, um, secure my cargo.
I could use this to count my pills.
My business pills.
I'm a businessman.
Business.
Stamps.
Awesome.
I've got your card.
I'll be in touch.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you very much.
I can't help but feel a little bit bad taking free stuff from these people under the promise that I'm gonna land them some big like international trade deal.
Wow.
Everybody from all over.
So you guys are making really good contacts here.
Market is mostly Europe.
Okay, cool.
It's sort of shitty for the vendors who come here expecting to meet a bunch of white people, and then, uh, collecting business cards.
You flip through them and you can very plainly tell some of them are fake.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Let's talk.
You have my number.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Thanks.
Morton: Pretending to be a businessman was easy enough.
But there are other professions, though, that are much more difficult to fake, that have, you know, extensive specialized training and which the government regulates the training thereof so that people don't fake it.
Professions such as doctors.
(applause) Thank you.
Um, uh, good afternoon.
My name is Dr.
Thomas Morton, I'm from New York City.
I'd like to welcome to the stage my colleague, Dr.
David Garner.
(applause) Morton: David Garner is not a doctor.
In fact, he's maybe the farthest thing from a doctor on earth.
An expat living in Beijing, David basically does whiteface jobs for a living.
From innocuous gigs like catalog modeling and appearing in instructional phone apps, all the way to the big leagues: pretending to be a world-renowned medical physician for cash.
In this case, a hospital in Zunyi has hired a broker to find them a real Western doctor to help unveil a new wing of their clinic.
The broker, in turn, has hired David.
(knock on door) Morning.
David? Wow, you got the good suite.
Hey! How are you doing? I'm okay.
Good.
I'm sorry, you're pants-less.
What's wrong with that? Uh I've got my, uh, I've got my chummies on.
Oh, okay, we're cool then.
I'm Thomas.
Thomas.
Great to meet you finally.
Good afternoon, sir.
Oh.
(laughs) That's nice.
I slept with my flowers last night.
Aw I deflowered them.
You have an extra tie? I do.
Anybody know how to tie these things? Um, I do.
Really? Yeah.
Do you not? Okay.
Oh! There's your first assistant job.
Okay.
Is this your first time, um, doctoring? No.
Oh, no? No.
You know, amazingly enough, last year I did one on the exact same topic.
Oh, yeah? What's your, um, presentation on? Uh, it is on the treatment and diagnosis of acute proctatits Oh.
Okay.
Prostatitis! Prostatitis.
So I should know that.
Should that be inside? Yeah.
Probably.
Yeah.
That looks good.
How much research do you usually do on this kind of stuff beforehand? Oh, like, none.
Has anybody ever tried to, like, call, like test you on medical knowledge or anything? No.
Just doesn't happen.
So you've never been called out? - No.
- So you could easily make a living off this, just this.
This isn't just like supplementary.
Yeah, quite a few people that I know do that.
Yeah, it's all they do.
I mean, I literally get two or three job offers a day.
Wow.
Really? Yes.
Do you ever feel bad on these jobs? Bad, uh, like why? Ethically? Pretending to be a doctor basically? Oh.
No.
No.
It's an acting job.
Today I'm a doctor.
Great.
Thank you.
Morton: All right.
What are we doing? Uh, look important.
All right.
Morton: David's extremely fictionalized medical resume was plastered on signs all around the hospital.
Morton: Where are all these pictures going? Good facility you got.
Good work with the erections.
Hey, how are you? Good.
Lot of fanfare over us white folks.
I'm starting to get the feeling they just want us here for the pictures.
Morton: After one last photo op with the Mr.
Wizard Ball, the conference began.
(applause) Uh, chronic prostatitis is the most common disease in urology.
Um, the the symptoms seem to, uh, are difficult to nail down.
So what we, what we're doing is we're experimenting with different methods at diagnosis.
What's crazy, or even crazier than the fact that David, a regular dude from Beijing, is currently giving a lecture on prostatitis taken from a prostatitis Wikipedia page, is the fact that all day there have been real doctors in here giving presentations and the room has been kind of half empty and mostly asleep.
Everybody came here to see the white doctor.
Okay, thank you very much.
(applause) Morton: It's a testament to the staying power of Western culture that we're still a marketable commodity, even in the biggest country on earth.
But it's only a matter of time before the Chinese catch up with the rest of the world, and realize that white people aren't the role models we've been sold as.
Until then, though, white people here can basically get away with murder.
Or at least malpractice.