DANIEL WONG, a Chinese-American who served 14 years on the Cerritos City Council and two terms as mayor of Cerritos in California, the United States, was at the South China University of Science and Technology to promote English learning Monday.

His talk, which is a part of China's buildup to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, attracted more than 1,000 students who packed the university stadium to capacity.

This was the first leg of the English Learning Talkshow for Chinese. In the coming months, Wong will tour other mainland universities to promote English learning.

"I am here for voluntary work, not for money," Wong said, "America raised me, but China is my biological mother."

Born in Hong Kong in 1943, Wong went to America in 1961, at the age of 18. He received his doctorate in medicine there. In 1972, he started a clinic and helped deliver more than 1,000 infants over six years. In 1978, Wong, then 35, made a decision to run for the council of Cerritos City, and in 1984, he was elected the country's first Chinese-American mayor.

While Wong was becoming popular in America, he started to gain fame in China after a song "Offsprings of the Dragon" he sang at the 1985 Spring Festival gala was broadcast by CCTV nationwide.

Deng Yingchao, then chairwoman of the CPPCC Central Committee, met Daniel Wong and encouraged him to come back to China because "China didn't have political movement anymore."

Wong has made exchanges between China and the United States his priority over the past 20 years.

He was the first American official to work on the scene during the floods in China in 1998. He went to the flood-hit areas twice, and after returning to the United States, launched a donation drive, asking American people to help China. He raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and presented the money to the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles.

Editor: Yan