singapore

Gong Li, branded 'traitor' by Chinese
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
By Jane Macartney, Beijing
A decision by one of China’s most famous film stars to take Singaporean nationality has set off an online furore with many ardent nationalists branding her a traitor and a shame to her native country. Gong Li, the 43-year-old star of such Hollywood movies as Memoirs of a Geisha, Miami Vice and Farewell My Concubine took the oath of citizenship at the weekend along with 149 other new citizens. Her husband, the Singaporean tobacco tycoon Ooi Hoe Soeng, accompanied her.

Beijing does not allow its people to hold double nationality and the star will be obliged to give up her Chinese citizenship. This means she will no longer be eligible for membership of an advisory body to the Chinese parliament – a largely honorary position that the government confers on many celebrities, successful businessmen and famed academics and scientists.

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(On a lighter not, I'm relieved to confirm that Singapore is a country. I was ridiculed in a game of Scattergories last summer for listing it as a country, but it seems the joke is on them.)