My name is Natsun. My friend's name is Lee [Ed's note: name has been changed to protect his identity]. Anthony Tao recently published a blog post about our chance meeting at El Nido, a Beijing bar (with an absolutely impressive beer selection -- you should check it out). I liked Tao's article, but was very disappointed to read some of the reactions to it in the comments section. It’s not my habit to respond to rabble-rousers, but I think I'd be doing the Internet a disservice to turn down Tao's very reasonable offer to respond to the visceral nature of many of the comments posted about my friend.
We were playing liar's dice at El Nido when a pair of loud, demonstrably buzzed expats plopped down next to us on the wooden outdoor table. We made fast acquaintances. "Whoa, your English is really good," said the man pictured above, to me. "You sound American."
And we were off. We learned that the man -- who introduced himself to us with his Chinese name, though we'll just call him Lee [Ed's note: we've changed his name and his son's by request; see update, below] -- was, despite all appearances, not American. And unlike his friend, Natsun, he was not Canadian, either. He tried to convince us he was Chinese. We expressed our doubts, and that's when he admitted, OK, he wasn't Chinese... yet. He was merely on his way toward Chinese citizenship.
