【大西洋月刊0308】中国人如今讨论什么话题：美国国籍还那么吸引人吗？

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What China's Talking About Today: Is American Citizenship Still Desirable?                                                        By Massoud Hayoun
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/what-chinas-talking-about-today-is-american-citizenship-still-desirable/254070/
                               
                                                        Mar 7 2012, 4:03 PM ET                                                14                                                                                                                Chinese web users debate whether joining the U.S. is so great anymore.

A woman reads a pamphlet prior to being naturalized as a U.S. citizen / Reuters

Shortly after I left China to return to the U.S., a friend from Beijing wrote to urge my return. "Come back to China," she said, "The U.S. is no place tolook for work. It's like a third world country now, we hear."

This view is a relatively new and unusual one in China. Some immigrants to the U.S. have gone so far as to claim thatthey practiced Falun Gong, whose members are officially branded as cultists in China and sometimes tortured, in order to claimpolitical asylum in the U.S.. American citizenship, in other words, has typically been considered to be a big deal.

Now, withthe U.S. stalled and unemployment high, while the Chinese economy flourishes, maybe that perception is changing. Spanning nearly 1.5million micro-blogs on Sina Weibo, Chinese users yesterday discussed the hash-tag:  #Is Americancitizenship no longer desirable?#

The associated SinaNews article argued that, in San Diego, according to the immigrant advocacygroup Naturalization Collaborative, some 150,000immigrants eligible for citizenship had not applied for U.S. nationality.Around a third of the million Chinese residents in the United States are notU.S. citizens, according to U.S. Federal Census Bureau statistics published inthe article.

The article offers two possible explanations for the Chineseresidents' decision not to become Americans. First, that some don't speak good enoughEnglish to take the citizenship test, and second, that many Chinese prefer to remainChinese.

Sina offers the example of a "Ms. Liu," a Chinese-American living in China who allegedly said that her American citizenship became less advantageous in thepast few years, with so much business going to China.

Whether or not Chinese people do still want to come toAmerica, the ones who do are not too well received. One famous CCTV journalist,Yang Lan, was rumored on the thread to have obtained American nationality, which earned her a lot of scathing comments.

For Chinese people, there is often a major stigma for people who doobtain American citizenship.

User suses summed up some of the popular views of émigrés: "Ifyou say China isn't good, you are a Western slave. If you say America is good,then you are an American bitch. If you say you don't want to be a Chinese, you area wretch and a traitor... If you get a green card and stand on the corner ofAmerican streets shouting, 'I love you, China,' you are a 'patriot.'"

Another user, 湾区求职站, took the opportunity toadvertise what seemed to be a job in California.

"San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf clothing store, full-timeemployment;  cashier,  salesperson; Must speak fluent English..."

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