Chinese man rises to fame via lost American iPhone

Matt Stopera (L) and "Brother Orange"

A Chinese man, dubbed "Brother Orange", became a celebrity in China lately after his selfies made their way to the mobile phone of an American more than 13,000 kilometers away.

The American man, Matt Stopera, was browsing through the photo stream on his iPhone, when he found lots of photos he didn't take, according to a report by the Beijing Youth Daily on Monday.

He saw menus with Chinese characters, girls with black hair, and a bald man posing by an orange tree, whom he referred to jokingly on Twitter as Bro Orange.

Stopera lost an iPhone early last year. Someone guessed that the phone might be brought to China and sold in the second-hand market. These photos were taken and reached him through iCloud. He had signed into iCloud with the old iPhone before it was missing.

After the odd news was reported in the United States, a web user Hereinuk posted it on microblog Sina Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter, on Thursday. "Should Brother Orange see this, I will send him a new iPhone, and put him in touch with the American," he said.

Chinese netizens soon succeeded in locating Brother Orange in Meizhou of south China's Guangdong province on Friday.

On Saturday, Brother Orange opened an account on Weibo. "I don't sell oranges," he said. "A relative gave me the phone."

He then invited Stopera to China in both English and Chinese. "Matt, welcome to our country," he said. "I am looking forward to seeing you and inviting you to taste our Meizhou cuisine."

Brother Orange got more than 35,000 followers within three days. His nephew told Beijing Youth Daily that some people even visited him for group photos.

"When I posted the story, I thought we might have 50 percent of chances of finding Brother Orange," Hereinuk was quoted in the same report. He also said on his microblog that he had ordered a new iPhone and delivered it to Brother Orange.

Stopera started using Weibo as well. "Hello everyone!" he said. "Thank you so much for helping me find my phone and Bro Orange! This has been such a great journey and only possible because of all of you! It's a dream of mine to visit China and hopefully I will get to meet Bro Orange and see your country!"

Chinese web users were thrilled at the happy ending. "This is true love," many hailed. "Amazing," said Quan Zhilin. "The life of an iPhone," said another.