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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. | 
