A Chinese millionaire is on a mission this week to hand out $100 bills and take hundreds of impoverished New York City residents out to lunch.
The Associated Press estimates that 250 homeless New Yorkers attended a gourmet lunch Wednesday hosted by eccentric Chinese recycling tycoon Chen Guangbiao.
Chen will host other lunches throughout the week and could provide meals to as many as 1,000 down-on-their-luck New Yorkers, according to the New York Post.
The Associated Press estimates that 250 homeless New Yorkers attended a gourmet lunch Wednesday hosted by eccentric Chinese recycling tycoon Chen Guangbiao.
Chen will host other lunches throughout the week and could provide meals to as many as 1,000 down-on-their-luck New Yorkers, according to the New York Post.
He also provided entertainment for his guests Wednesday, singing a rendition of “We Are the World.”
The Post reports that Chen was seen distributing $100 bills in New York City Tuesday.
“I was not born into a rich family or a family of government officials. When I was 4 years old my brother and sister died of hunger, so I achieved my success through my confidence and self-motivation and my hard work,” Chen said through a translator during an interview with “CBS This Morning.”
Now he says he wants to share that success with those in need. NBC reports that a crowd of homeless people started lining up around midnight Tuesday outside The Loeb Boathouse restaurant. The New York City Rescue Mission helped organize the attendees.
“Our thought was if someone wants to treat them to an amazing event, something they would never experience on their own, maybe even a kernel of hope that life could be different again, we’re in for that reason,” said Craig Mayes, executive director of the mission, according to NBC and the AP.
[READ: Chinese Tycoon Provides Fancy Lunch to Hundreds of Homeless New Yorkers]
The AP reports that the words “Serve the People” were printed on the green uniforms of nearly three dozen volunteer waiters at the lunch. The outfits reportedly resembled the uniforms once worn by China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Guests initially were promised a menu of sesame seed-encrusted tuna, beef filet, berries with crème fraîche and $300.
Though Chen delivered on the food, NBC reports that Chen was instead convinced to donate the money to the New York City Rescue Mission.
“When I see that there is a disaster in China, I see a lot of U.S. companies or the U.S. government going to help China,” Chen said in an interview with CBS. “When there is a disaster in the U.S., I do not see any Chinese people donating money to the U.S.”
But many attendees said they believed they would walk away with $300. One lunch guest compared the last-minute change to “somebody spitting in our face and telling us it’s raining,” according to NBC.
[ALSO: Beijing's Catch-22]
Chen promised $300 to guests in the full-page advertisements he took out in the Times and The Wall Street Journal earlier this week, according to Quartz.
A full-page ad in The New York Times could have cost Chen as much as $175,000, according to the New York Post.
“Value kindness, collaborate with government, help the people,” the advertisement read, according to the Guangming Daily. “Let the world be filled with love.”
Chen, who made his fortune in the recycling industry, has had an estimated net worth of $740 million, according to Forbes. He is best known for his atypical donations and flamboyant support of environmental causes.
Chen smashed his own Mercedes in 2011 to promote bike use and spread carbon emissions awareness in China, according to New Tang Dynasty TV.
When an earthquake struck a county in China’s Sichuan province last year, Chen arrived with thousands of dollars that he distributed to those affected by the tremors, according to the South China Morning Post. He also arrived with a reported 50 torches, 1,000 quilts, a metric ton of bread and 20 tons of bottled water.
Chen also sold more than 8 million cans of fresh air in smog-heavy China, according to the Huffington Post and Want China Times. In 2013, after poor air quality grounded airplanes and led to the government temporarily ordering cars off the road, Chen marched through Beijing handing out his canned air free of charge, according to CNN.
The cans themselves showed a picture of Chen with slogans like “Chen Guangbiao, good man.”
[MORE: Paramount Smooths Dispute With Chinese Company Over 'Transformer' Sponsorship Deal]
But Chen set his sights on helping America this week, even after his reported plan to purchase The New York Times failed.
Chen said in December 2013 that he was interested in the paper because it would allow him to “bring more positive images and influence to contribute to world peace and make the world a better place,” according to the Times.
He said that if the Times deal fell through, he would “keep searching for another credible and influential media company in the U.S. to achieve my goal.”
“I am not afraid of what people say about me. I have not done anything that harms anyone,” Chen said, according to CNN. “I will keep on giving positive energy through my creative solutions for problems.”
[SOURCE: http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2014/06/25/chinese-millionaire-chen-guangbiao-gives-meal-and-show-to-homeless-new-yorkers]
The Post reports that Chen was seen distributing $100 bills in New York City Tuesday.
“I was not born into a rich family or a family of government officials. When I was 4 years old my brother and sister died of hunger, so I achieved my success through my confidence and self-motivation and my hard work,” Chen said through a translator during an interview with “CBS This Morning.”
Now he says he wants to share that success with those in need. NBC reports that a crowd of homeless people started lining up around midnight Tuesday outside The Loeb Boathouse restaurant. The New York City Rescue Mission helped organize the attendees.
“Our thought was if someone wants to treat them to an amazing event, something they would never experience on their own, maybe even a kernel of hope that life could be different again, we’re in for that reason,” said Craig Mayes, executive director of the mission, according to NBC and the AP.
[READ: Chinese Tycoon Provides Fancy Lunch to Hundreds of Homeless New Yorkers]
The AP reports that the words “Serve the People” were printed on the green uniforms of nearly three dozen volunteer waiters at the lunch. The outfits reportedly resembled the uniforms once worn by China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Guests initially were promised a menu of sesame seed-encrusted tuna, beef filet, berries with crème fraîche and $300.
Though Chen delivered on the food, NBC reports that Chen was instead convinced to donate the money to the New York City Rescue Mission.
“When I see that there is a disaster in China, I see a lot of U.S. companies or the U.S. government going to help China,” Chen said in an interview with CBS. “When there is a disaster in the U.S., I do not see any Chinese people donating money to the U.S.”
But many attendees said they believed they would walk away with $300. One lunch guest compared the last-minute change to “somebody spitting in our face and telling us it’s raining,” according to NBC.
[ALSO: Beijing's Catch-22]
Chen promised $300 to guests in the full-page advertisements he took out in the Times and The Wall Street Journal earlier this week, according to Quartz.
A full-page ad in The New York Times could have cost Chen as much as $175,000, according to the New York Post.
“Value kindness, collaborate with government, help the people,” the advertisement read, according to the Guangming Daily. “Let the world be filled with love.”
Chen, who made his fortune in the recycling industry, has had an estimated net worth of $740 million, according to Forbes. He is best known for his atypical donations and flamboyant support of environmental causes.
Chen smashed his own Mercedes in 2011 to promote bike use and spread carbon emissions awareness in China, according to New Tang Dynasty TV.
When an earthquake struck a county in China’s Sichuan province last year, Chen arrived with thousands of dollars that he distributed to those affected by the tremors, according to the South China Morning Post. He also arrived with a reported 50 torches, 1,000 quilts, a metric ton of bread and 20 tons of bottled water.
Chen also sold more than 8 million cans of fresh air in smog-heavy China, according to the Huffington Post and Want China Times. In 2013, after poor air quality grounded airplanes and led to the government temporarily ordering cars off the road, Chen marched through Beijing handing out his canned air free of charge, according to CNN.
The cans themselves showed a picture of Chen with slogans like “Chen Guangbiao, good man.”
[MORE: Paramount Smooths Dispute With Chinese Company Over 'Transformer' Sponsorship Deal]
But Chen set his sights on helping America this week, even after his reported plan to purchase The New York Times failed.
Chen said in December 2013 that he was interested in the paper because it would allow him to “bring more positive images and influence to contribute to world peace and make the world a better place,” according to the Times.
He said that if the Times deal fell through, he would “keep searching for another credible and influential media company in the U.S. to achieve my goal.”
“I am not afraid of what people say about me. I have not done anything that harms anyone,” Chen said, according to CNN. “I will keep on giving positive energy through my creative solutions for problems.”
[SOURCE: http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2014/06/25/chinese-millionaire-chen-guangbiao-gives-meal-and-show-to-homeless-new-yorkers]