Since I am self taught Mandarin, I thought it was novel when he did too, and I saw his humility when he tried to speak it. Now he is painful to read for me. First, he lost my trust. Second, it's esoteric, nothing very concrete. Perhaps our ability to be anywhere through augmented reality sounds interesting, but not all that novel.
I really don’t think he did, just that is what the Chinese wanted to think for face reasons. He seemed very much like the average foreigner leaning it because he thought it was cool, because he had some family connection, and so on. Even him jogging in smoky Beijing is something a fresh off the plane foreigner would want to do (like I did when I was newly arrived to Beijing).
