My Brief Taiwanese Commercial Acting Career

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
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I am traveling to Taiwan tomorrow, feeling nostalgic so I dusted off a story from the archives, hope you enjoy, and please share if you had similar experiences.

https://medium.com/the-haven/that-other-time-e64a40c5d5ed

That one time I had to pretend to be a Mormon to hold down a job … I was sitting in a coffee shop in Taipei one lazy afternoon circa 2002, when a young lad spotted me through the window, he came in and struck up a conversation in broken but intelligible English, tested my Chinese skills and found them adequate for the task at hand, handed me a business card of a local modeling agency …

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Welcome back AC. If you wanna jump right back into this kind of work, you should contact Ponny Chen. She can hook you up with lots of background gigs if you are willing to travel to all ends of the island to hang around in the hot sun. The industry really could use folks with your sunny attitude.

Things may have changed since you last worked here. While working without proper documentation was a risk many were willing to take back in the day, not so much anymore. The industry is rife with snitches who report almost every working set to the authorities. So always make sure your paperwork is in order before stepping on a set. You never know who might be watching.

Also, as a 30+ year veteran of this industry, I have seen a disturbing trend in the contracts agents try to cajole you into signing. Without getting into too many details, signing an exclusive contract without specifying minimum earnings is a really bad idea. Don’t fall for empty promises of agents trying to get you out of the game by shelving you 2 months after you sign.

I’ve even heard of non-compete clauses being written into some contracts. Sign that and PT Barnum was talking about you.

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Awesome story.

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Thanks Toe_Save, my modeling days ended on that sunny day under the banyan tree, but I am in Kaohsiung next 2 weeks so in case I get flagged down this will come in handy.

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Thanks okonomiyaki, there is a link in there to some earlier stories, including ones about Taiwan and China, glad if you get a kick out of them.