David Bowie,

made a song called China Girl, 

but it had nothing to do with the real life China Girls, the China Girl was a model photographed by a filmmaker to help the lab technician calibrate their equipment while processing the film, a reference plate to help the technician get the colours right, the term China Girl is a reference to the mannequins made of porcelain (china) filmmakers used in this function, and eventually came to refer to the live models who posed for these test shots as well,

and even though the live models weren't always thrilled to pose as China Girls for a filmmaker, they must have liked knowing their photo was seen by audiences before the main feature! 

this diagram is of a typical film head leader. “China Girls” usually appear somewhere between the “10” and the “3” shown in the countdown below (though they appear elsewhere as well), 

in 2011 the Chicago Film Society began collecting China Girl portraits and sharing them online in their Leader Ladies Project, many of which can be seen in this short by Julie Buck and Karin Segal, the music soundtrack is so good, but the talking to give the movie effect I guess is a little intrusive, but it is still neat to watch and in case you have not heard it, 

here is David Bowie's China Girl.