When it comes to Japanese naturalized Chinese athletes, the first thing that comes to mind is the table tennis player Zhang Benzhihe. A few days ago, the Japanese men's basketball team announced the training list of 20 people in the Olympic Games. Among them, in addition to Hachimura and Yuta Watanabe, who play in the NBA, there is another player who attracts the attention of Chinese fans, he is Zhang Bentianjie, who is originally from China and has now been naturalized as a Japanese player. The 12-year-old player, who has settled in Japan, said in an interview that he would be very excited and happy if he could beat the Chinese men's basketball team as a Japanese player. The person who interviewed him was Yuhiko Inoue, the author of the Japanese manga "Slam Dunk Master".
Zhang Bentianjie, formerly known as Zhang Tianjie, was born in 1992 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province. His father, Zhang Jian (Zhang Benjian), was a former Liaoning basketball player whose basketball career ended with a crushing fracture. Her mother, Qiang Shuping (Zhang Ben Shuping), was a former volleyball player who retired from work and went to Japan to study. When Zhang Bentianjie was very young, his parents opened a Chinese restaurant in Japan. When Zhang Bentianjie was in elementary school, every winter and summer vacation, he went to Japan to live for a period of time. Until the age of 12, Zhang Bentianjie went to Japan to settle down. When he was in high school, a family of three acquired Japanese citizenship.
As the son of a basketball player, Zhang Bentianjie has been practicing basketball since he was a child. In 2008, Zhang Bentianjie participated in the Asian Youth Championship as a member of the Japan Youth Men's Basketball Team, becoming the first Chinese men's basketball player in history to join the Japanese nationality. Zhang Bentianjie, who is 1.98 meters tall, mainly plays as a big forward and has a good three-point shooting strength. At the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, Zhang Bentianjie entered the Japanese adult men's basketball national team for the first time. In that tournament, he played in 7 games, averaging 8.1 points and 1.5 rebounds per game.
Due to his special status, Zhang Bentianjie has also attracted much attention in the Japanese basketball industry. Yuhiko Inoue, a famous manga artist who once created "Slam Dunk Master", once interviewed Zhang Bentianjie. In that interview, Zhang Bentianjie said that when the family first became Japanese nationals, they were opposed by relatives and friends at home. After becoming a naturalized Japanese, Zhang Bentianjie entered the Japanese national team all the way. He told Yuhiko Inoue that in China, it is basically impossible to play in the CBA without a doorway, let alone enter the Chinese men's basketball team.
Today, Zhang Bentianjie has married a Japanese wife, and the two have given birth to a baby. Zhang Bentianjie said that when he went to China to play for the Japanese youth team, he was booed during the free throw. If he can beat the Chinese men's basketball team on the field in the future, he will feel very excited and happy, so that he can prove to everyone that his original choice was correct.