home Credit Modeling agencies in China for guys. A detailed overview of modeling work for foreigners in China

Modeling agencies in China for guys. A detailed overview of modeling work for foreigners in China

From meningitis. Recently, she complained to her mother about her health, but did not see a doctor - she did not have health insurance. The girl continued to work 13 hours a day.

Models from Russia are in great demand in China - designers, clothing manufacturers and online stores need European faces. How dangerous is this work? Model Svetlana Khokhlova, who, like Vlada Dzyuba, began her Chinese career in Shanghai, told The Secret about her experience.

About the death of Vlada Dzyuba

I don’t understand how a 14-year-old child who had just received a passport ended up in Shanghai doing modeling work. Of course, it was difficult for a 14-year-old girl to tell managers: “I’m sick, so I won’t go to work.”

Unfortunately, in Russia girls become models too early. Even 12-year-olds are accepted into modeling schools. I myself started working at 16 - and even that is early.

Now sometimes I say to myself: “Sveta, probably not everything was right in your head.” I recently went to an international competition and found myself the youngest participant. I'm 22, the rest are 26-27. I've been in the modeling business for six years now and some are just starting out.

How models from Russia get to China

I first came to China in 2012. I studied at the “Youth Fashion” studio in Kostroma, and through him I reached out to Moscow agencies that conclude international contracts. One of them approved my application and found me a contract in Shanghai for three months.

Typically, agencies offer to conclude a standard contract. The dates of arrival and return flight, parameters, what you will do (shows, fashion weeks, opening or closing of boutiques, filming for catalogs or TV stores, etc.), and how it will be paid for are recorded.

The contract states how much your reservation costs for three, six or nine hours. It is separately specified how much overtime will cost - work over nine hours. The amount depends on the complexity of the work. They pay more for shooting for a catalogue, less for shooting for glossy magazines.

Models arrive in China at a disadvantage. You need to work out the cost of living, pocket money, transportation costs: air travel and taxis around the city.

Jobs are already looked for on the spot - you have to go to castings. Whether you find something or not depends on how much your face is in demand in a particular region. For example, I am in great demand in Asia. I can get work for the next week during the first casting week.

Medical insurance

I myself never became seriously ill in China. I didn't have insurance. At international competitions it is always there, but in China it is not. I would probably ask this question now, because medical care in Asia is incredibly expensive.

When I first came to Shanghai, I called my mother every day in the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening. If I got sick, I’m sure my mother would say: “Stay at home, get treatment, don’t go to work.” As I said, I didn’t have insurance, but I did have a huge first aid kit.

You can always refuse work. In the worst case, you will have to pay a penalty.

I don’t recommend trying to get over the pain on your feet. You usually arrive at the show at eight in the morning and leave at eight in the evening. At the same time, you are not paid for 12 hours, but only for the time that you spend on the podium. Overtime also happens on catalog shoots. Depends on how fast you work and how much they want to shoot on you. Usually the organizers try to keep it to 12 hours, but it doesn’t always work out.

How much do models earn?

In three months—that’s how long a contract usually lasts—in China you can earn 10,000 rubles or a whole million.

A million rubles is a very realistic amount. When I was an aspiring 16-year-old model with acne on my face and no portfolio, my nine-hour day cost $1,000. 50% - to the agency, 50% - to me.

I made good money in China, but in the end I quit because the work did not leave me any chance of getting an education. At best, it's a mess. But what kind of education can be obtained through correspondence?

And in general, contracts come one after another: I flew home, rested, flew back. As a result, you completely fall out of life. No family, no relationships. Even friends and girlfriends run away while you're away.

Domestic issues

I haven’t heard of any models in China not being paid. China is a harsh country. You can go to the police station or the embassy and say that you haven't been paid - and people will have serious problems.

Living conditions are specified in the contract. The apartments in which the models are accommodated have several bedrooms, a kitchen, and several bathrooms. I always lived either alone in a room or with another girl. You don't need to clean it yourself - the cleaners do it.

There is, of course, a risk of running into a bad agency. I know two girls-models who were settled in the Shanghai slums. There were cockroaches about five centimeters running around their room.

For girls from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the main problem is the language barrier. They sometimes cannot even understand how much, when and for what they will be paid. I once worked with a girl from Lvov, but she didn’t know either English or Russian. I tried to help, but it didn't work out well.

However, if any misunderstanding arises (especially in terms of money), the Chinese immediately “forget” English. To work in China, it is important to be beautiful, but you also need to be able to count well and find a common language with different people.

Harassment

In Russia there is not the best understanding of models, modeling work and our entire industry. They say it’s shame and disgrace, and they also rape and kill us. But no one has ever pestered me personally.

Let's be honest: many men in the modeling business are not interested in women. They may hit on boy models, but they definitely don't hit on girls.

If something bad happens, you can blacklist the agency - there are special sites. You can also complain to the embassy so that girls are not sent to work with a specific agency and are not given work visas.

Career and prospects

Models have a saying: in Europe there is a career, in Asia there is money. You can't make a career in the modeling business by working 13-hour shoots for incomprehensible catalogues. The maximum is that your photos will be posted on AliExpress.

To become a top model, you need to be in the right place at the right time or have rich famous parents and fans who can promote you.

With the participation of Daria Kushnir

Cover photo: Mark Nolan/Getty Images

(Guangzhou/Shenzhen).

Don't panic, is everything resolved?

The bookers who promised to meet me ended up not meeting me.
You shouldn’t ooh and ahh, every second model can tell you about this situation. Don’t panic, we get Wi-Fi at the airport, we write, we agree to send a driver. This happens a lot in China, so be prepared.

Don't be afraid to tell your motherboard about your problems. After I was not greeted, the news followed that I would live in an apartment with the guys for a week, but in a single room. I didn’t see this as a problem... until I saw the room.

Square 2*2 with a “Do it yourself” bed - iron, wood and mattress. And dirty bed linen to boot. By evening it got even colder (15 degrees), and it turned out that the window in my room had never been closed, and there was no heater or warm air conditioner.
Which means it was never closed - it just dried out: D.

My Greek neighbor immediately helped me with the linen, who, when he saw it, gasped, and within a minute he got me a new and sealed one from somewhere. In the evening he helped me close the window at least a little. Just thank you.

That day I was very puzzled by the question: is it my living conditions that are so bad, or is this how all models live, and I’m just not ready for modeling life?

When the mother agency wrote to ask how things were going, I thought for a long time whether to write about all this or not to write. After all, I came to work, not to relax, and I’m not allowed any hotels here. I was there, I wasn’t, I wrote, posted a photo of the bed and went to bed.

In the morning I woke up with my first cold on my lip in my entire life (I slept in leggings, socks, two sweaters, under two blankets), but from a message in Wechat: “honey, we just remembered that in our girls’ apartments the single room is empty, and tomorrow the girl from the double is leaving. You can move there."

Then I immediately realized that my agency quickly resolved this issue while I was sleeping. I finally moved into a proper bed, into a nice room with a closed window and my own heater. Thank you!

The Chinese often trick and deceive, even in good agencies, be prepared to communicate with the motherboard.

Mark a Booker with good English in advance. Are you friends with him?

In China, not all Bookers have good English. When my mobile Internet ran out, I wanted to go up to the first person I came across and ask to sort everything out, to which another girl - a model - asked me: “Do you really want to ask her to do this?” I understood the meaning of these words later, when this Booker could not explain in a basic way model, why she does her job, when and how much she gets paid.
Notice the English-speaking Booker immediately, for all problems - only to him.

If you're squeamish, don't bother?

All good agencies have apartments in both Guangzhou and Shenzhen. At least once a week, girls from Shzh come to Gzh, and girls from Gzh come to Shzh. If a girl gets a job in another city, she comes to spend the night in an apartment in that same city.
Be prepared to sleep on linen that someone else has been sleeping on for a couple of months, and if you are traveling for several days, then also move from bed to bed, depending on which girl is “not at home” today.
Be prepared for the fact that when you leave, a girl comes to your bed. This happens all the time.
In most cases, the bed linen you arrive for has not been washed for several months, because in these cities, due to the high humidity, everything takes a very, very long time to dry, and the linen will generally take about one and a half to two weeks to dry.

Be prepared to spend a day shooting, and only get paid in a couple of hours. In China they like to work on a timer. At my job, I was paid for makeup and filming, everything.
The fact that the photographer spent about an hour setting up the light (also on me) is not paid. Toilet, drink, eat - the timer always stops.
We even had a girl who spent three days in a neighboring city, but from each day she was paid for only 3-5 hours.

Can't you go to China without English?

Although everyone says the opposite, they say, you will learn on the spot, but no. You need to know a little more basic information for sure.
In China, many jobs and castings take place in neighboring cities, you travel by train yourself, get to the train and from the train to the place of work.
Without knowing English, you simply won’t understand which way you need to get there.

Don't forget to install a VPN, but guess what?

The best VPN client is Betternet. I have no complaints about him.
It is better to turn on VPN only in apartments and in places with free wi-fi, because it eats up a lot of traffic, and mobile Internet in China is very, very expensive (45 yuan for 500 MB - I pay that kind of money in Russia for unlimited calls / SMS and 4 GB of internet per month.

They work without VPN: Whatsapp, VKontakte. Contact also eats up the Internet a lot, so during castings and work it is better to limit yourself to only WhatsApp and Chinese Wechat, and even with this use, be prepared to pay 45 yuan per week for the Internet.

Learn the basic Chinese words you need. For example, until I learned “Buyao ro”, I just took rice with meat, separating the pieces. And I still suffered from stomach problems afterwards. No “no mit, no chicken” - they simply won’t understand you.
You can ask Booker to send you the hieroglyphs “no meat” into your Wechat and show them to everyone. I did this the first time. It rolled.

Immediately ask the agency to give you a piece of paper with all the addresses (apartments, agency, train station, airport.

Taxis are everywhere and inexpensive. But without an address in hieroglyphs, it won’t take you anywhere if you suddenly get lost or something else. You should always have the piece of paper with you; no one even knows the basic words “Airpot” and “railway station”.

Medicines. Take any medications you are not used to too. For the nose, for the eyes, for the lips, antibiotics.
It so happened that the boy who flew with me on one day caught an eye infection the very next.

As for me, I encountered the first cold on my lips in my life and jams (not the ones just from pineapples, but the ones that are bacterial. Even though we talked for a long time with the girl at the pharmacy through Google translator, she still gave me that , which did not help. In the end, I was cured only in Russia, with tetracycline ointment.

You can probably find something for the stomach, for fever and pain in China, but be prepared for the fact that there are very few imported medicines there, everything is Chinese and it is not a fact that it will suit you; you will have to spend your own pocket money on it.

I also advise you to take sedatives, they won’t hurt.

Clubs. All models are aware of this topic. For those who don’t know, I’ll write: there is nothing in clubs that many people think about. No sex or debauchery.
This is just a PR move. The girls are paid to stay in the club for a certain time, the Chinese see European faces, in particular models, and the club is elevated in their eyes =.

Shocked by the news of the death of 14-year-old Russian model Vlada Dzyuba, who worked as a model in China, we decided to conduct our own investigation and ask Ukrainian women who built their careers in this country. Perhaps this is what will help find the cause of the girl’s death and prevent possible victims of dangerous and grueling modeling in China?

During the shooting of evening dresses, Natasha was not allowed to eat or drink water. Her weight was 43 kg. With a height of 175 cm!

I had a good time in Hong Kong. The agency was wonderful, one of the best. I had a professional and at the same time warm relationship with all the models. No problem. Yes, it was hard to find your way to castings, but at the same time this is a plus - you are not locked for 10 hours in a car with a noisy crowd of models (like in China), and you belong only to yourself. Freedom.

China is the complete opposite. Hell can be waiting for you right at the airport, from where no one will pick you up, and you, after a 20-hour flight, not knowing Chinese (English will absolutely not help you there), must look for a way to get to your apartment.

From now on, you must understand that in three months your life can change dramatically. Honestly speaking, looking ahead, EVERYONE who survived a contract in China should be provided with both psychological and physical rehabilitation.

The Chinese treat models like robots, they will never call you by name, they address you as “Hey you!”, “Girl!” , “Model!” This says a lot about their level of development, doesn't it? They believe that if we are “under contract”, we are superhumans and capable of anything! For example, a lot of times I was asked to look with my eyes wide open at the SUN, and then they complained to the agency that I was a bad model because I couldn’t do it. It's strange why I can't, right?

They threatened Natasha: if she didn’t lose weight, they would cut off her pocket money. When I lost weight, they said that they would still cut back if I continued to lose weight.

Working 10-15 hours or more is the norm. I had a case when, while shooting a lookbook for evening dresses, I was not allowed to eat or drink water! My weight at that time was about 43 kg with a height of 175 cm. The client was afraid that my tummy would stick out. And I, in turn, was afraid that I would lose consciousness.

There was a case when, when measuring my parameters, my hips were a centimeter larger than a week earlier, and I was warned that my pocket money would be cut next time. As a result, in fear of gaining excess weight, I lost 4 centimeters in my hips, but continued to hear the same threats about cutting my pocket money if I lost even more weight. Completely illogical.

There was a story when, on the way to work, early in the morning, I had an accident: my taxi driver simply fell asleep. I was with the manager. Our windshield broke, and I hit my head; the taxi driver was not injured. When he woke up, he apologized profusely and tried to find out if it hurt me. But my manager said that we were in a hurry to get to work, and we just changed to another taxi. That day I was working with bruises on my face that were constantly being touched up, and no one was interested in my well-being.

Naturally, my mother agency was always in touch with me, which ALWAYS solved some problems and ALWAYS helped me. But due to the time difference, there is no way to solve the problem online. Usually, you have to deal with the consequences...

During the shooting of winter images, in the summer, the model may faint, but she will be forced to continue working

In China, for the most part, models are busy shooting lookbooks, which can last forever and in completely different conditions. Taking off fur coats and down jackets in unbearable heat and light dresses in winter is absolutely normal. I also had a case when, while filming in furs in a field, I lost consciousness, they brought me to my senses and asked me not to do that again (interesting!). There was also a case when I got sick from the cold, and an infection was discovered in my lungs. Then I needed bed rest and, naturally, I didn’t work for three days, for which I was later punished. The treatment is covered by you or your insurance.

The main problem in the modeling business in China is that there are a huge number of 14-17 year old children working there who are completely unprepared for such stress. Neither physical nor moral. This is very hard work that a conscientious person must do.

For those who dream of seeing the world and making good money.

Jobs for models in China

The TopModelGroup modeling agency offers girls and boys from Russia, Ukraine and the CIS highly paid work in China.

Salary from $1000 to $5000 per month (from 80,000 rubles)

Work in modeling agencies (with a height of 173) and in entertainment clubs (girls of any height are required).

Available vacancies:

Models (height from 173, photography for catalogues, fashion shows, work only in the best agencies)
Dancers (height from 165, high pay, indicate in correspondence that you dance)
Partygirls (height from 169, hang out in clubs, laugh, have fun, create an atmosphere of relaxation, get paid for it)

Model guys are also often needed.

It is advisable to have a foreign passport or a desire to obtain a foreign passport within a couple of weeks. The easier you are to climb, the more likely you are to take on a “hot” (urgent) offer with a good salary.

Those models who work in China without any problems - after returning, we employ them in agencies in Europe and the USA.

Safety guaranteed. Our representative meets you at the airport, provides accommodation, shows and tells you everything, and immediately gives you a personal SIM card so that you always have contact with both our representatives and your family and friends.

Do you want to work?

Write to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. To view it, you need JavaScript enabled with the subject "work in China", or write in a personal on VKontakte Zhanna Orlova(our Director of International Model Placement), she will tell you more about how to become a model in China or other countries.

Immediately indicate your height and parameters. The process will go faster if you also indicate whether you have a foreign passport and what month you are ready to go (if your studies, current work or family matters are interfering with you, let us know, we will plan taking into account the circumstances). Contracts are concluded for 90 days (3 months), so be prepared for this.

Note for those who are 173 cm tall and have measurements of 90-60-90 or less (i.e. you are applying specifically for modeling work):

For the first contract, we provide models with a guarantee that you will earn at least $1,500 per month (120 thousand rubles). If you work out this contract in China successfully, then we immediately begin to look for offers for you from European and American modeling agencies.

For those who get weak in the knees when they hear the word China, here are some facts:

China is the fastest growing economy in the world, and its modeling, fashion and club business is growing at a breakneck pace. Salaries are also rising, so hurry up and grab it while you can. It is quite possible for a student to earn enough money to buy a car and even more during the holidays. If you want to take up this profession seriously and for a long time, then everything is even better.
Prostitution is illegal in China. We are a modeling agency with a good reputation and we employ you only in respectable places, no one will persuade you to do anything bad!
For those working in clubs - security, protection from any attacks from visitors.
In China, girls of European appearance are generally treated with a rather reverent attitude. You will always be the center of attention.
For those who have worked in China for at least 3 months without any complaints, we also offer vacancies in Europe and the USA.

It is advisable to have model snaps (what are snaps) and tests (photos), if you don’t have them, we’ll look at you first, if the type is good, we can help with snaps and tests. A separate big plus is that you have a video - for models this is a video of your performance, for dancers - how you dance.

type of employment:

Full employment, full day