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.

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.

By the 1990s when the economic benefits of being a celebrity was tangible, it was too late for them to resume their careers in China. Many had landed themselves in "the immigration jail", a Chinese nickname for the minimum stay required in the country of naturalization in order to keep their status. Others came back briefly and failed miserably to regain their former glory, as in the case of Gong Xue, a big movie star who left Shanghai to marry her fianc in the US.

Some mainland celebrities who carry foreign passports or assume Hong Kong residency status include (from left to right) Zhang Tielin, Liu Yifei, Tang Wei, Jet Li, Joan Chen, Wei Wei and Chen Kaige. File photos

The only success stories I can recall are Lang Ping, the women's volleyball coach and Joan Chen, who is entering her "second spring", so to speak, for all the great roles she has been doing in China recently. Chen was China's first bona-fide star in the reform era. But she was also a college student. So it was natural for her to pursue study overseas. Yet many felt betrayed. Some innocuous remarks she said during a TV appearance provoked a deluge of "sharp criticisms", including one from a very official newspaper. This essentially turned her into persona non grata by her home country.

Thank God things like that wouldn't happen now even though the public is more vociferous. If the old tradition had continued, people would be mocking at Joan Chen. Her Hollywood career did not really take off, and the rejuvenation is happening back home. People would have said: You should have stayed all along. Your motherland made you who you are and you should repay the debt.

As a matter of fact, one can never foretell where one will make it big. It could be your hometown, or a new province or even another country. There are a lot of variables, many of which are beyond human control. The attitude towards emigrants is the result of a subconscious comparison with one's own fate, colored by a modicum of schadenfreude. It's the ambivalence of the less adventurous. On the other hand, those who left and came back to flaunt their wealth, like the Fujian stowaways, contribute the other half of the equation to the stereotype of the boorish but damn lucky black sheep who did not have faith in his own tribe.

With globalization come bigger platforms for more people. The world is the young generation's oyster. If you set your eyes on fashion, maybe you want to conquer Paris. If you want to be the biggest film star in the world, Hollywood is the place. And if you want a piece of action in more areas I can name, China offers an abundance of opportunities.

Maybe when China loosens up its residency and citizenship rules and allows foreigners to get green cards (only a few now) and passports will people realize that it is more a decision of career than a stand on patriotism.