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Public concern, private matters

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-26 10:31

Few would admit it but most people change their citizenship for private, non-political reasons - unless there's a big crisis. Specifically, the countries where they want to be naturalized offer something their countries of origin lack. And it is mostly career-related, and with career, a certain lifestyle and standard of living. It is a choice people make based on their own expectations. And it is not an agonizing choice. Unless there's a war between these two countries the loyalty issue is not going to come up as in a monogamous relationship.

Fans have the illusion they "own" their favorite movie stars. They may not realize that a star's citizenship is not their business. Much less so than that of a sporting star, in which case he or she may compete for another country and beat the Chinese peers in world games.

Movie superstars are among the most multinational of all professions. A big-budget film crew can be made up of members of all nationalities. Do you care that a Roman gladiator was played by an Australian and directed by an Englishman? The Italians didn't protest.

For all the controversy swirling around their change of nationality, Chinese celebrities enjoy much more freedom now than ever before. In the 1980s, you could not have your cake and eat it too. If one decided to go for the American Dream, he or she basically had to give up their career in China. Many high-flying entertainment careers were cut short this way. The only comfort was, being a star in China at that time did not entail a lucrative income. So, one might live a better life as an ordinary citizen in the US than as a celebrity in China.

Gong Li was reported to have changed her Chinese passport for a Singaporean one last year. Nan Hua

Others emigrated for the sake of evading China's accursed residency permit (hukou) system. A pair of stars both lived in Beijing in the early 1980s, as it was reported, but they could not obtain Beijing hukou, which meant they could not legally get employed or registered as a married couple. To live legally together, their only choice at the time was to downgrade their hukou to the village where they came from or move to another country, which would sound like an absurdist play to the modern ear.

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