There are so many interesting jobs open to foreigners in China such as acting, modelling and being a fake business executive for a company. Recently I have done another typical foreigner job – the voice-over artist. Firstly I had to send the studio a voice sample. For this, I went into a soundproof room in my shared office and read something I found online about Isaac Newton. I had to do it 5 or 6 times before I got one which I thought sounded ok.
I was pleasantly surprised when I got a very positive reponse from the studio. Apparently I have an excellent voice for such work! Who would have thought. They probably didn’t appreciate how hard I found it to rid myself of most of my region accent in favour of a ‘normal English accent’ which is what Chinese learners and studios want.
In the first job, I was with an American man who had a lovely voice and we spent several hours voicing a listening test. It was harder than I imagined because there was no time to pre-read the passages – I had to get it right first time.
No coughing, no stomach rumbling, no sniffing or shifting noisily on the chair – just clear vocals. One of the most difficult things is to read bad English; some of the sentences were very badly constructed but I had to read them exactly as they were – no correcting the English. This is harder than it seems because when you’re reading good English you can pretty much guess what word comes next. So it’s a shock when the words don’t fit well together.
Anyway, at the end of the session I got a pocketful of cash and went on my way and since that time, I have been asked to go back to do more. They really weren’t just being polite – it seems they honestly think I have a good speaking voice. So now I am an actor – well a radio actor anyway.