When American Matt Stopera's iPhone went missing, he thought, "Well, bad luck. These things happen." One year later, Matt's misfortune has turned to good fortune as he found a new friend and became an Internet celebrity in China.
You may already be familiar with this story since it spread on Weibo for weeks during the Spring Festival, but it started when Matt began seeing photos of a Chinese man in front of an orange tree on his photo stream（照片流）. He wrote about it and some Chinese readers decided to see if they could find the mysterious man. They did. It turns out that "Brother Orange," as he became known, owned a restaurant in Guangdong and the iPhone he was using, a gift from a nephew, was Matt's old phone.
Matt and Brother Orange began messaging each other and a friendship blossomed with Matt invited to China to feast at Brother Orange's restaurant on his delicious Hakkacuisine（客家菜）. Matt was also overwhelmed by the warmth of the millions of Chinese who were following the story. When he opened a Weibo account he had 22 million followers almost overnight, many of them inviting him to their hometowns and offering to be his tour guide.
Matt's story is another example of how powerful the Internet and social networking has become in bringing people together. But there is a darker side to this story and that involves how Matt's missing iPhone turned up in China. Over three million smart-phones were stolen in America last year. Because of identification numbers, these phones can't be used in America, so they are sent to other countries and many of them end up in China, where they can be re-activated. This is why Matt and Brother Orange could share the same iCloud account.
You should keep this in mind when buying a second-hand phone and check the serial number to see that it has not been stolen. Finding a friend through social networking is wonderful, but using a stolen phone isn't really the best way to make the connection.
