via Hecaitou and Lian Yue, Backtoourmotherland.com.
The website calls for Chinese Canadians to renounce their citizenship and provides links on how to do so. It also argues that the Canadian citizenship pledge is unpatriotic for Chinese since one swears allegiance to the Queen of England, who is the chief representative of Western colonialism, since England took part in the Opium War and humiliated the nation. The website doesn’t appear to give any information as to who has actually done this, or a forum for discussion.
This seems like a really bad idea, considering Yang Hengjun’s brilliant call for media reform in China and increased efforts to reach the true masters of Western media, the audience themselves. Curling into a ball and retreating to China doesn’t seem like it would help with that sort of engagement.
This is just adding gasoline to the fire. I mean, now the CCP is a the guardian of all people of Chinese descent?
Honestly, is there some sort of ulterior motive to these efforts to basically sow mistrust among Westerners of their own neighbors of Chinese/Asian descent?
I’m just starting to think these hardliners are in a way trying to reinforce the narrative of Chinese as a Borg Collective.
Sorry! You just know nothing about China.
Hecaitou and Lian Yue are both liberals or something. They are good at mocking anything that nationalists do.
Take it easy. But it’s really a dirty way, I think. Unfair.
Why delete my comment?
I just gave the truth. Hecaitou and Lian Yue is just joking and mocking.
Believe it or not.
Yang Hengjun is the coolest China man!
@Jack: we don’t know who made the website, what their intent was, or how its being received. I think it’s a little too early to jump to conclusions about who’s throwing what on what.
@ZP111111: Dude, settle down. Your comments were in the queue, I had to come home and approve them. And yes, Hecaitou and Lian Yue don’t appear to be taking them seriously. Hecaitou, as a general rule, doesn’t take anything seriously. I didn’t say either of them did. I just said “via”, meaning that’s where I read about it first. That’s all I meant.
@liushu: Damn straight he is. I could kiss that man.
I wonder what is going to happen to those who followed the instruction. They would have given up their citizenship while still on Canadian soil. They would become stateless unless they have obtained citizenship of another country before that. And, since they have given up the Canadian citizenship, and do not have a visa to visit Canada, will they be deported immediately ? And to where ? Haiti or Sudan ? Where do stateless people get deported to ?
I wonder how many citizens of the PRC are presently working as interns for the western media? Do you think CNN has some chinese citizen overseas colleges student working for them as an intern? Be sure not to out em!
CNN should create the Jack Cafferty intern program for promising young chinese communications students.
I know this is not directly related to todays subject. But that was the first thought that came to my mind. The second was the more traditional response “if they don’t like it here and want to go home then it is okay with me”. it is a free country.
I suspect this must be a joke, because the reality is all those huaren liuxuesheng will eventually start working really hard to get a visa so they don’t have to go back to the motherland.
Del3: “CNN should create the Jack Cafferty intern program for promising young chinese communications students.”
That is the best idea I’ve heard in ages. Awesome. Somebody make some posters.
Hot idea. Who’s making the posters?
It is a good idea isn’t it. I’m calling Ted Turner now.
Don’t tell Lou Dobbs though he will accuse us of sending another job overseas that could have been given to an american.
There’s a 3 missing at the end of the link to Hecaitou’s post.
Whoops. Thx cat! BTW, nice post. I was wondering about that Hubble thing…
The contact e-mail on the site is:
oneworldonedream@backtoourmotherland.com.
What a contradiction on the two sides of the “@” ! I can’t imagine what leap of logic must have been going on to find that acceptable.
I don’t think that Chinese Canadians feel bound by their oath of citizenship. They’re Chinese – changing your citizenship just changes your passport. You just mouth the words about renouncing allegiances, nothing really changes. China is a race and a culture…how can you renounce something like that? I don’t think anyone will let his hard-won foreign passport lapse just because of some political flare-up.
@Fat Tony
Nobody has called for renouncing being Chinese. But one can be Chinese without having to “mouth the words” of the Chinese state. In addition, nothing really changes when becoming a Chinese citizen either.
It is Beijing that seems to imply that the Chinese nation-state and Chinese ethnicity are one in the same. And if they mean that, they can go pound sand.
Has anyone actually read the form to renounce the citizenship? First of all it costs $100, crazy to think that they would charge you to renounce something.
Second, @Bill, they won’t approve the application unless they have proof that you are or will become a citizen of another country. Otherwise, you are shit out of luck.
Third, do the site organizers actually believe that the people living in a free society like Canada, would give up their right to be a part of that country and return to repressive non-representative government?
This is the most absurd thing I have heard in a long time. First of all, many many Chinese on the mainland will give an arm and a leg if they are offered the chance to become Canadians. Just look at the number of Chinese people who try to enter Canada illegally. Second as a Chinese-Canadian myself I know that our foremost loyalty is to our country (Canada). After that we actually have a greater sense of identification with other countries which share our liberal Canadian values than with the Chinese government.
For those of us who can`t read Chinese, could someone provide a translation of a few of the responses on the site? I`m curious how the Chinese bloggers themselves are reacting to it.
Inst,
Whoever came up with this idea is a gadfly. Most Chinese-Canadains do not want to touch the Chinese government with a ten foot pole.
Asian-Americans will have a hard time getting the expat treatment. Here’s what happened to me.
Back when, Anderson Consulting came to my school looking for MBA grads with US tech industry experience to go to China. I applied and here’s the offer I got:
– fly yourself back to China
– stay with your family
– we’ll pay you local salary
I ain’t from mainland China. Even if I am WTF?
Charles Liu,
Did you grow up here or over there? I am intrigued by your story. I have been contacted for China jobs a number of times but I am NOT interested. There are plenty of opportunities for me in North America. And frankly I do not want to deal with Chinese hooligans (look at what they did in Seoul two days ago).
I’m surprised no one is lol-ing at the response of Chinese Canadians. It’s really hysterical, that the usual response towards indignant minorities is “GO HOME!” and for once, the response BY the indignant minority IS “GO HOME!”