Deng Rihua, the 80-year-old chief editor of the Seattle Chinese Times, calls his paper the "letters from the homeland". [Photo by Deng Yu / China Daily]

On the wall over Deng Rihua's office desk in Seattle's Chinatown is a beautiful Chinese calligraphy scroll Sang Zi Qing Shen, which in traditional Chinese script relates the deep feelings Chinese people overseas have for their homeland.

"We still have our bearings in the motherland. When the motherland is stronger, we will have a firmer footing where we live," says Deng, the 80-year-old chief editor of the weekly Seattle Chinese Times. "In the past few decades, China has expanded on its foreign policy. That has helped lift the status of overseas Chinese."

Deng still remembers when he was one of the more than 1,000 Chinese-Americans who participated in the welcoming ceremony when President Hu Jintao arrived in Seattle in 2006.

A lion dance greeted Hu at the airport when he arrived. The tops of buildings in the old Chinese district of Seattle were adorned with large Chinese flags, while down in a building basement, one of the oldest overseas Chinese groups, the Su Yuan Association, was busy putting final touches on welcoming signs and banners.

"Emotions were running high, as the US had never received a state leader against the backdrop of a strong China," he recalls. "Feelings of pride in being Chinese had never been stronger in Seattle's Chinatown."

Deng's true love for China and the Chinese community in Seattle is the reason for his 27 years of service to both, especially attracting overseas investments to his native province of Guangdong.

Deng was born in 1934 in the village of Yunfu in Guangdong. During most of his early life he experienced wars, wandered from place to place and endured many hardships, but he never thought of leaving China.

At the same time, he gradually started to write about masses of his countrymen living in dire straits, as well as their passion for their country and about their daily lives.