There are quite few ways for foreigners in China to pick up a little cash – modeling, acting in commercials or movies, teaching, playing ‘the foreigner’ in business meetings, and voice recording.

For voice recording you don’t necessarily have to have white skin and be a native speaker of English either. Although they are fewer and further between, there a plenty of opportunities for speakers of other languages as well – an Estonian friend of mine once recited the entire dictionary in Estonian for a talking dictionary device. It was boring but steady work; one of the advantages of voice recording is once you get far enough into a project it’s quite difficult for them to replace you.

From voice recognition systems for Korean cell phones to Japanese business management videos and, of course, the inevitable English teaching materials, there is a surprising amount of work out there. Some people develop enough contacts that they can live very comfortably off recording gigs.

Although it’s not very difficult, it’s not as easy as it sounds either. It takes practice and patience and the ability to emote with one’s voice. If you tend, like I do, to mumble and affect weird inflections when you speak then you might want try something else.

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