BBC newsreader Susan Osman will do well in China as a token 'big-nose'

I was interested to hear that Susan Osman, a newsreader with the BBC, has got fed up with Britain’s incorrigible ageism and is now planning to seek a new career in China. As a chap of a certain age who is also “between careers”, I wish her well. But I wonder whether her hopes may not be misplaced. She may indeed do well here; it’s quite a land of opportunity these days. But if so, she is quite likely to owe part of her success to the tokenism so heartily disapproved of in the West. Not as a token oldie, of course; the Politburo are on telly all the time and they make Gordon Brown look like a carefree teenager. Nor as a token woman; I think it could be maintained that, politics apart, China leads the world on equal opportunities in the workplace. No – she’ll always be in demand as a token big-nose. (I wish to make it clear that I have never knowingly seen Ms Osman and intend no comment on her personal appearance – that’s just what the Chinese call us in their less polite moods.)

She may indeed find China less ageist than Britain, though I’m not sure. Aside from the Party, civil society is very youthful. The over-fifties grew up entirely under the great Chairman, and few of them have found themselves able to adjust to the incredibly swift changes which followed his demise. The old receive respect and an outward show of deference, but they’re not running the show any more. Most of my friends in their thirties and forties are running their parents’ lives as well as their own.

And, ageist or not, they’re certainly lookist. Remember the little girl who sang at the Olympic opening ceremony? Her voice was beautiful, but it was decided that her teeth were a mess (hardly surprising at age seven), so she had to sing off-stage while a more conventionally pretty girl lip-synched. This elicited outrage in the West, which my wife failed to understand; in China, she said, this was perfectly normal behaviour. Maybe this won’t be a problem for Ms Osman. In any case Chinese are notoriously incapable of guessing the ages of Westerners. For genetic reasons my hair went white in my early thirties; but even I was not prepared for an old josser in the far north-east estimating my age at 75 when in fact it was just under half that. And in any case tokenism will come to Ms Osman’s rescue; foreigners are known to be a law unto themselves, and nothing we do surprises the Chinese.

I wish Ms Osman every success, but she mustn’t complain if she finds herself rather short of colleagues of her own age. In China, as in Britain, public employees (which most of the media are) retire five years earlier than everyone else. The normal retirement age is 60 for men and 55 for women. Therefore, in the public sector, women usually retire at 50 (Ms Osman is 51). As one who retired with great glee at 46, I think this is splendid. Others may find it a touch, well, ageist.

So if Ms Osman finds herself treated with great deference, her every word treasured as a gem of immemorial wisdom, but is always politely circumvented when executive decisions are being made, I hope she won’t be offended.