Chen Guangbiao, a bespectacled, babyfaced Chinese millionaire, really wants you to know who he is. He wants you to know how influential he is. How charismatic he is. How beloved he is. How prominent he is. But ultimately, Chen Guangbiao really just wants you to know Chen Guangbiao.
“How many Americans know that I am here in New York right now?” Chen asked New York Magazine’s Jessica Pressler earlier this year in an interview at the Essex House in Manhattan. “How many media outlets have written about me? Out of 300 million Americans, what percentage would you say have heard of me?” Then, later, he leaned in. “Tell me,” he said. “Do you think Americans like what I do? Any of this? Will they like me?”
He’s not off to a great start. The man hails himself on his business card as the “Most Influential Person of China,” the “Most Prominent Philanthropist of China,” the “Most Well-known and Beloved Chinese Role Model” and, simply, “China’s Foremost.” But he hasn’t had much luck in the United States. It began with his failed bid to buy the New York Times — “I’m very good at working with Jews,” he said — and now encompasses Wednesday’s debacle at Loeb Boathouse in Central Park.
Last week, Chen took out an ad in the New York Times. He was wearing a thin grin and many gold medals for unknown reasons. He said he plans to host 1,000 “poor and destitute” Americans for lunch, each of whom “will receive 300 dollars.” He vowed to “fill the world with love,” compared himself to Chinese cultural icon Lei Feng, and later assured that he would sing “We are the World” in English at the lunch.
He made good on all his promises — “We are the World” was indeed sung, and sung buoyantly — but he forgot one thing: the money. The $90,000 was instead donated to New York City Rescue Mission. And by meal’s end, the 250 homeless people who showed up for steak and green beans were calling him a “fraud” and a “thief,” according to the New York Daily News.
“The meal was lousy, the cash didn’t come,” Clarence Taylor said to the newspaper. “Prey on someone else. Why are you preying on the homeless?” Chen Guangbiao, a Chinese millionaire who made his fortune off the recycling business, invited homeless New Yorkers to a lunch Wednesday at a Central Park restaurant.
Another man, retired Vietnam war veteran Harry Brooks, told Agence France-Presse he was “highly upset” that he didn’t get the cash, but conceded he enjoyed the food “very much. I could use the $300. Clothing for one thing.”
One man told the Daily News it made “no sense. A lot of us are down on our luck. We really needed that money. That’s why we came. All these people wouldn’t be here if they weren’t getting nothing but some steak and some string beans.”
How did Chen Guangbiao go so wrong so fast? Audacity has always been both kind and merciless to Chen. The quality dragged him out of a poor farming community north of Shanghai, where two of his siblings starved to death and where he began working at age nine, hauling water into the village to sell it cup by cup to support his family. It pushed him through Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine. And it propelled him to found his own recycling business, amass $800 million of unknown provenance, and soar into onto the list of China’s richest 400 people.
It also, however, led him into an unusual quest to purchase the New York Times. Chen is famous in China for sliding cash to victims of China’s 2008 earthquake,posing with stacks of money,wearing green suits and selling“canned fresh air.” But he wanted fame outside China’s borders.
On Jan. 5 of this year, he penned a bold editorial in the Global Times headlined, “I intend to buy The New York Times, please don’t take it as a joke.”
Comparing his purchase of the Gray Lady to a spacecraft taking off for the moon, he said he wanted to “rebuild [the Times's] credibility and influence. … The tradition and style of the New York Times make it very difficult to have objective coverage of China. If we could purchase it, its tone might turn around.”
He confessed he was “bewildered” that some had thought his acquisition funny. “I may be a maverick, but it doesn’t mean I like playing tricks. I want to purchase the New York Times.”
Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. The Times declined the offer, and he immediately queried the Wall Street Journal to see if it was interested in having him as its owner. (It wasn’t.)
“Chen said he was aware that many American papers were Jewish-owned,” the South China Morning Post reported. “He said he was up for the job since he had ‘equally competent IQ and EQ’ compared with Jews. ‘I am very good at working with Jews,’” Chen offered.
When he met with a Journal reporter, he quickly posed for photographs with hired security guards, who declined his request to brandish their guns for the picture — liability concerns, they said.
He then forked over one of his business cards to the Journal reporter. It described his charisma, influence and heroism. “Please remember one thing,” Chen said. “Whatever I say is true.”中国这位戴着眼镜，有点婴儿肥的富翁陈光标，真的很想让你知道他是谁。尽管他也想让你知道他的影响力之大，魅力之大，受人喜爱之深，成就之卓著，但归根结底，陈光标只是想让你知道他这个人。
今年早些时候，陈光标在曼哈顿的埃塞克斯酒店接受了《纽约杂志》杰西卡·普雷斯勒的访问，在访问中，他问到：“有多少美国人知道我现在在纽约？有多少媒体报道过我？你觉得在3亿美国人中，有多少人听说过我？”随后，他又靠近了问到：“告诉我，你认为美国人喜欢我做的事吗？任何一件事？他们会喜欢我吗？”
但是，陈光标出师不利。虽然他在名片上自诩为“中国最具影响力人物”、 “中国最具号召力慈善家”、“最知名最受喜爱的中国模范”等诸多头衔，简而言之，就是“中国之最”。但是他在美国却没这么走运。这始于他未能竞标购买《纽约时报》——虽然他仍说：“我很善于和犹太人打交道。” 现在又多了一件事：6月27日在纽约中央公园洛布船坞餐厅（Loeb Boathouse）失败的慈善午宴。
上周，陈光标在《纽约时报》上刊登了一则广告。广告中的他露齿而笑，还莫名地挂着很多金牌。他称将为1000名美国“穷人及流浪汉”提供免费午餐，还会为每个人发放“300美元援助金。”他将自己与中国文化楷模——雷锋，相提并论，发誓要让“世界充满爱”，随后，他还保证会在午宴上用英文演唱《天下一家》。
据《纽约每日新闻》报道，陈光标兑现了所有诺言——他确实唱了《天下一家》，还唱得深情款款。但是他忘了一件事：援助金。那9万美元的援助金后来捐给了纽约市救援团体。到午宴结束的时候，陈光标被250名流浪汉称作“骗子”和“小偷”，因为他们只吃到了牛排和青豆而已。
克拉伦斯·泰勒（Clarence Taylor）告诉《纽约每日新闻》：“午餐很差劲，现金也没兑现。“要骗就骗别人，为什么要欺骗无家可归的人？”
一位越战退休老兵哈里·布鲁克斯（Harry Brooks）告诉法新社，没拿到钱他“相当失望”，但他是承认自己“非常享用午餐。我本可以用那300美元先买点衣服的。”
有人向《每日新闻》表示，这种出尔反尔的行为“没道理。我们中的很多人都不走运，很需要那笔钱，这就是我们来这儿的原因。如果只是为了吃一些牛排和青豆，大家就不会来这儿了。”
陈光标怎么这么快就出了差错？他大胆的性格一直是他的“双刃剑”。陈光标出生于上海北部的一个农村，因为贫困，家中哥哥姐姐先后饿死。他9岁就开始挣钱，把水挑到村里，一杯一杯售卖来支撑家庭。凭着自己的大无畏精神，陈光标从南京中医药大学毕业，并创立了自己的再生资源利用公司，不知以何种渠道积累了8亿美元的资金，一跃成为中国前400名富豪。
然而，这种“大无畏”的性格也让他做出了要收购《纽约时报》这种不寻常的言论。陈光标在中国扬名，是因其在2008年汶川地震中的大额赠款，与一堆现金合影，身着绿西装，售卖“罐装新鲜空气”等事件。但是，他并不希望仅让名声局限于国内。
今年1月5日，他在《环球时报》撰文，标题为“我收购《纽约时报》，别当笑话听。”
陈光标欲意购买“灰衣女士”的举措，像是“放了一个卫星”。（译注：由于坚持古典严肃，《纽约时报》也被戏称为“灰衣女士），他称希望“重建该报的公信力和影响力……《纽约时报》因其传统和风格，很难对中国做出正确报道。如果我们能买下它，该报对中国的语调也许会有所改变。”
陈光标坦诚，当听到有人觉得他收购的想法很滑稽时，他感到很“困惑”。“也许我是个特立独行的人，但这并不意味着我爱耍花招。收购《纽约时报》是出自真心。”
可惜啊，事与愿违。《纽约时报》拒绝了陈光标的收购，随后他又立马转向《华尔街日报》，看看该报对的他收购是否感兴趣。（显然没兴趣。）
据《南华早报》报道，陈光标称他知道众多美国报刊都是由犹太人掌控的。而自己的智商和情商丝毫不逊于犹太人，完全有能力胜任同样的职位。他说：“我很善于和犹太人打交道。”
当他与《华尔街日报》记者会面时，他很快摆好姿势要跟警卫合影，还让警卫举起枪来。不过考虑到职责在身，警卫拒绝了陈的请求。
随后，他将自己的名片递给日报记者。名片上写的都是他如何有魅力，有影响力，又多么具有英雄主义。陈说：“请记住一件事，我说的一切都是真的。”
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