Stardom just isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially in China.

I’m here studying for the semester in Beijing, and I was all excited about getting my big break when some TV producers hit up our program, IES Beijing, for some people with acting talent. By acting talent, I mean they wanted Caucasians. Since I qualify on that score, I quickly got selected to play the role of a deliveryman.

Another one of my buddies was selected to play a policeman. A pretty girl in our class was chosen to play someone selling something; what exactly she was selling wasn’t clear. I started to think maybe I’d been cast in a porno.

Turns out I was going to star in a Chinese TV miniseries set to be dubbed in English and aired next Christmas in Canada.

Supposedly, the show is "Gift of the Magi." As of the time of my writing this, my deliveryman role, which includes a few lines, is still a couple of weeks in the future. However, I did get called on early to play a role, without lines, as a shipyard worker. I had to miss class, get up at 6 a.m., and take an hour-long ride in a bus that was sent by the film crew to pick us up.

We drove into a run-down area outside of Beijing. By run-down, I mean it looked like a condemned industrial complex where people were now living, with dogs running around, some random Chinese guy burning a pile of I-don’t-want-to-know-what and people squatting over a common trough to relieve themselves. You get used to that kind of thing in China.

What I didn’t expect was all the waiting around. The set, which was supposed to be a shipyard and included a big wooden boat hull, was located in an old warehouse of some sort, and I spent most of the nine hours I was there that day sitting in a room with the other extras, waiting for our part. The Chinese actors chain-smoked all day and watched my friends play endless games of Chinese chess.

Halfway through the day, we got our costumes: blue zippered jumpsuits, with yellow helmets. The porno vibe was replaced by the next-best (or perhaps worst) thing: the feeling that I was about to be a dancer in a Britney Spears music video (side note: we heard something out here in Beijing about her shaving her head; is that true?).

Finally, the waiting was over, and it was time to shine. I was ready to deliver an emotionally charged performance, perfectly capturing the plight of a Canadian shipyard worker, just in case any Hollywood talent scouts were there. Instead, I had to endure an hour of being screamed at in Chinese by the director, who didn’t seem to understand that I don’t speak a word of Chinese.

He seemed to believe that the language barrier could be overcome by volume. He’d shout at me and I’d stare blankly, so he’d yell louder and louder. Finally, he’d come over and grab me and drag me across the stage and position me in some new spot. He did that multiple times, making me wonder why he was having trouble making up his mind. After all, sexy stars like me in blue zippered jumpsuits and yellow helmets look good no matter where we’re placed on stage.