The American with a dream of becoming a Chinese citizen

Had to wait 25 months before his 10yr residency permit was approved. If he ever gets the passport, I would love to see the reactions at various airports around the world.

“Although he speaks little Mandarin…”

Um, right. Way to know what you’re getting into there guy.

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Eh. There’s a lot of Americans who can’t speak a lick of English.

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Not really the same is it? He wants citizenship of an ethnocentric country and he can’t speak the one official language?

I think I’ve seen him in Hualien

Lots of countries are becoming increasingly ethnocentric. The USA under Trump. The UK as it slowly exits the EU. Admittedly, China’s got a few thousand years head start.

Language is a highly effective deterrent to entry, but I would blackball him on account of his bushy beard. You don’t see many of those round these parts.

What I would give to live in a country again where I could just shut out the noise of other people talking.

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Can’t help but be reminded of a recent Paul Rudd movie.

Weird fact . I have been a Chinese citizen and now I am not. I’ve even got the passport to prove it. :astonished:

Worst part of learning any language (but Chinese in particular)…you can suddenly understand what the buggers are talking about and you wish you couldn’t…

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Look at the expression on the girl’s face.
I wonder what she was thinking.
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don’t know, but even if done under the guise of tax write-off, a good cause was chosen (that girl maybe was one who benefitted; maybe 1st time seeing/being next to a foreigner):

He and his wife both are board members with MilliCharity, one of Dongguan’s oldest charity groups. The couple donate around 40,000 yuan (US$6,159) each year to the cause and have sponsored 11 students from poor regions across the country.

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This is true, a lot of immigrants get US Citizenship and just speak Spanish or Mandarin, French, Armenian, Russian, Arabic, etc. It drives me nuts but then again. Being an immigrant nation the United States has no official language many would be surprised to learn…yea English is not the official language.

This guy seems more than a little clueless. If you want to spend the rest of your life in China, fine, but at the very least don’t choose a shithole like Dongguan. Unless you’re making major bank running a sweatshop, there’s absolutely no reason to live there.

Hes a nobody from Florida, he feels more important in China, his money goes a lot further in Dongguan and he gets more attention. He gets to help out children a lot…I hope hes not a Pedo

While I agree with many posters that he seems to be a bit of a special character (he also replied to many comments on the SCMP article) I would like to suggest that we try and keep the discussion civilized.

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The fact that its newsworthy that he wants to be chinese says it all.

For some background on the greatest foreign resident of China have a read about my compatriot Rewi Alley, the guy who coined the phrase Gung-ho!

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The original inhabitants didn’t speak English either.

Also a very large number of the immigrants to the US over the centuries…Same thing.

And yet we’re all talking about him. Strong disagree there :stuck_out_tongue: