BEIJING- Terry Crossman has spent 20 years in the city of Beijing he now calls home. Wearing his bright red armband and speaking fluent Chinese, from a distance 62-year-old Gao Tianrui could be taken for any regular Chinese man. But on closer inspection, things are not quite what they seem: Gao's real name is Terry and he is from the United States. Having lived in Beijing for more than 20 years， Terry Crossman has finally realized his Chinese dream: becoming a public security volunteer. Life as a"Xicheng Dama"has even made him an online celebrity.
Xicheng Dama are volunteers, usually women in late middle-age, who wander around the streets of downtown Beijing's Xicheng district. And now Crossman has joined their club. In the video footage(片段) that recently went viral(疯传)，Crossman said that at first he saw the group as busybodies, but his opinion changed once he was on the inside. "Gradually I saw that it is a good thing for retired seniors to come out and help others,"he said. In the footage, he is seen giving tourists directions， getting water for a baby and even helping a neighbor sell yogurt. "I like helping others," he said. "I live in the hutong and my neighbors and I usually help each other. . . This is where I live, where my friends are and where I call home. "
Crossman became interested in Chinese culture as a teenager when he read the Tao Te Ching by Laozi. At 18, he took a ship to Taiwan to learn Chinese. On the ship the captain suggested that he should have a Chinese name. "He named me Gao Tianrui，based on the pronunciation of my English name," he said. After Taiwan he worked in several places ，including New York, Singapore and a 12-year period in Hong Kong.
Crossman first came to the Chinese mainland in 1981， when he went to Shanghai and Suzhou in Jiangsu province. "Wherever I went, I had at least 30 people following me, asking about Hong Kong，how much I earned, what my hobbies were and how I felt about the victory of the Chinese women' s volleyball team,"he said. His first visit to Beijing was six years later on business. " There were few cars and lots of bicycles on the roads. "
Crossman and his family moved to Beijing in 1997，when the traffic was heavier and the city busier. "There were only two subway lines, with no air conditioning,"he said. Since then he has lived and worked in Beijing.
a. He read the Tao Te Ching by Laozi.
b. He worked in New York and Singapore.
c. He moved to Beijing in 1997 with his family.
d. He became a member of the club of Xicheng Dama.
e. He went to Shanghai and Suzhou in Jiangsu province.
