Fragrant Harbour (32 page)

‘I’ll call you,’ Cheung told the driver. ‘About ninety minutes.’

We went into the restaurant. Two chefs shouted a welcome in Japanese. It was a narrow, crowded place like a noodle bar. But they had a table.

‘London’s okay for food, but good sushi is hard to get. You been to Japan much? The sushi there is unbelievable. Go to Kyoto, they say, no, don’t bother with sushi here, it’s too far from the sea. That means forty kilometres.’

I understood: Cheung was not quiet at all. He was shy. When he began talking he talked all the time.

‘I feel funny eating raw food,’ I said.

‘Well, you’re more Chinese than I am, I guess. I can’t get enough of it.’

‘Please order for both of us.’

This gave face. He was pleased. When the waiter came he spoke Japanese to her. When a man speaks to a woman in Japanese it always sounds as if he is giving orders.

‘I’m impressed,’ I said. He shrugged.

‘I spent two years in Tokyo after Stanford. I speak it okay. My Chinese completely sucks. In fact my daughter speaks it better than I do. She talks to her grandfather in Putonghua. They do all this ethnic pride stuff in school now.’

The waitress brought us two beers and a plate of raw soybean pods. I was surprised. Cheung did not look or act like a drinker. He picked up his glass:

‘Here’s to a free afternoon.’

‘
Yum cha
,’ I said.

‘I try to take at least one afternoon or morning completely off when I’m on the road. I don’t always make it but I feel better when I do. Catch up on sleep, do some shopping, make family calls, do my email. Otherwise the walls start to close in. Everything gets out of balance.’

The waitress began to bring food. Cheung had ordered
spider-crab
rolls; maguro sushi; eel teriyaki; a dish of pork stir-fried with baby Japanese asparagus; a dish of tofu stuffed with sushi rice and deep fried. We switched from beer to cold sake. He had flushed bright pink. We talked about business. It was clear that his Weigen franchise was at the moment more lucrative than ours.

‘But I think we’re going to take a bath in China,’ he said. ‘The business grows and grows and we still don’t make any real money out of it. Plus you never know when they’re going to change the rules. It’s like you run on the field dressed for basketball and expecting a basketball game and they come out dressed for
baseball
and so you think, okay, it’s baseball, and then one of them comes over carrying a bat and hits you on the head.’ He giggled.

‘We have the same problem,’ I said. ‘In Vietnam too. Good
factory
, good prospects, growing economy. Everything looks great. Trouble is we’re being stolen from and there’s nothing we can do.’

‘There’s never
nothing
you can do,’ said Cheung, holding up a sake flask in the direction of the waitress. We were by now the last customers.

‘In principle I agree. But –’ I explained the situation. Cheung nodded.

‘No problem. Sell us the factory.’

‘Good joke.’

‘Not a joke. We’re expanding so fast in Vietnam we’re tripping over our own feet. We’re looking for a new factory anyway. Cholon is perfect. All we have to do is retool. Weigen will kick in some help with that. We did it before in Singapore. We’ll buy out your share for a fair price and give the crooked partners nothing. We’ll use the threat of exposure. Hold a gun to their heads. It’s perfect. Everybody wins.’

‘If we thought it was that easy to expose them we’d do it
ourselves
.’

Cheung, flushed and drunk, composed himself.

‘Look. You know the Americans have these stories. “What do you call a nine-hundred-pound gorilla with a machine gun?” “Sir”. These jokes. Well, it’s like that. How do you get the
attention
of a nine-hundred-pound gorilla? You turn up with a
twelve-hundred
-pound one.’

‘I don’t think gorillas get that big.’

‘They do in Vietnam. We’ve got one. Our Vietnamese partner is a member of the President’s family.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s a good business rule for Asia. When in doubt, get a bigger gorilla.’

We swapped cards. I took the bill. 

My grandfather will not allow any publication from the Wo empire in his house so I keep the magazine cutting in a plastic folder in the office. When I got back to Hong Kong I took it out.

The piece went on to talk about the subject of astronaut
syndrome
, using me and a number of other young Chinese entrepreneurs as examples. Miss Stone and I had met in a plane, which is why I suppose she thought of me as a possible interviewee. As it happened we had met in business class, thanks to my air miles. But there were many other inaccuracies in the piece also. When it was published in
Asia
magazine I did not recognise a single remark attributed to me.

My partner was angry when he saw the article.

‘Industrial machinery!’ he said. ‘What does that mean? Does she know nothing? It’s no use as an advertisement for our
business
! A waste of time! You should send her a bill for the time she wasted! A thousand dollars an hour, minimum!’

Perhaps because he was so angry he had not remembered Dawn Stone’s name. But I had. She was often mentioned in the business pages after she moved from journalism to an executive post in the Wo media company. She was much in the news at the time of the handover. Gossip about her said that she was having an affair with her superior, an Englishman called Oss. After the handover he moved to run Wo’s entire overseas operations, and not long afterwards Miss Stone became the head of the Wo media company. Wo himself ran the Asian businesses. He was also supervising their expansion into China.

I had kept in touch with Miss Stone through the exchange of Christmas cards, this being one of the ways in which Westerners maintain
guanxi
. I had on one or two occasions been able to help her, when she was still a journalist, with factual information and once with an introduction to some contacts in Guangzhou. Relations between us were cordial, even though I had met Miss Stone in person only on three occasions. The first time was on the flight to Kai Tak from Heathrow. She had never been to Hong Kong before. She seemed young and eager, and she wanted not to seem innocent. At the same time she asked lots of questions. Also she listened to the answers. I liked the fact that she was not a
typical
expatriate. She was dressed well but not expensively. I could see she was nervous. I talked about my business. At Christmas we sent each other a card.

The next time I saw her was for the interview. It was half a year later. She was much more confident. She had many opinions. Her clothes were more expensive. Her eyes looked different. She behaved like an important person. She was more aware of
questions
of status and face. But I still got a Christmas card every year.

I next met her in 1998, at a drinks party she gave to celebrate her promotion to head of the media company. The party was in Felix, the restaurant at the top of the Peninsula hotel. The fact that she was able to take it over for an evening was a big sign of her status. There was no mistaking that she was a senior executive of
a powerful company. She was wearing a red suit. Her hair looked very expensive. She was still friendly on the outside. But
everything
about her expressed an interest in power.

‘Matthew,’ she said when she met me. ‘Whatever you do, don’t leave without having a pee. Apparently in the gents you wee on a glass window, looking down on the whole of Hong Kong. If it doesn’t make you feel like a Master of the Universe, you need to get your serotonin levels checked.’

She turned away to talk to someone else. I didn’t know anyone at the party so I didn’t stay for long.

The Sydney flight arrived at eight in the morning. At customs, the sniffer dogs stopped an old Chinese woman, a grandmother, who was trying to bring some sausages and wind-dried meats into the country, wrapped inside many plastic bags. She was arguing with the customs officers. She was not going to win the argument.

There was no queue for taxis, which there often is at Sydney airport. It was a beautiful day. I sat in the front of the car.

‘Come from far, mate?’ asked the driver.

‘Hong Kong.’

‘Visiting?’

‘I live here.’

‘Ever been to the sashimi auction at the fish market?’

‘No.’

‘You’d love it.’

The taxi driver dropped me at Circular Quay. I like to arrive home by ferry.

People were streaming past on their way to work. The fact that they were at the start of their day made me feel tired. I bought a ticket to Mosman and stood at the railings. The harbour has a smell nothing like that of Hong Kong. There were commuter
ferries
, container ships, private yachts. The ride was short, and we came into Mosman bay. Quite a few Australians got off and began walking in the same direction as me.

I stopped at the little shop beside the quay and bought some mineral water. It is an expensive way of drinking water but it was a way of reminding myself to rehydrate. I walked up the hill. I was glad I had only my hand luggage. Two Australians ran past me.

‘… the teacher hates it if you are late,’ one of them was saying.

When I turned the corner and could see our house there were thirty or forty people in the front garden. All of them were
standing
with their arms in the air. My father-in-law was facing them. He was in the same position. It took me a moment to realise they were doing t’ai chi. I walked up the driveway. My father-in-law smiled and nodded at me but did not stop speaking.

‘Now push away! Slow hands! Push away! Repulsing Monkey!’

I let myself in the front door. My wife came out of the kitchen wearing an apron and embraced me.

I said: ‘There are many Australians in the front garden doing t’ai chi under the instruction of your father.’

‘Yes. I was going to tell you. People observed him doing his exercises. They grew curious. One or two asked him to teach them. It developed from there. Australians are very fond of
outdoor
pursuits.’

I drank some mineral water. We went into the kitchen where my wife did some small tasks and I stood and watched her.
Mei-Lin
was at school. Our mothers had gone shopping together. Through the open window I could hear my father-in-law.

‘Little baby – give him your finger. Try to take it away. Very difficult! Baby very strong! Baby have good
chi
! No blocks! Grown people many blocks! Weak! Bad
chi
! Must be like little baby! Good
chi
! Strong!’

I always try to stay awake during the day after I have been
flying
because it helps to adjust the body clock. But I did not want to be too tired when Mei-Lin came home from school so I lay down for an hour after lunch. When my wife woke me I felt as if I was rising up from deep under water. The Australians in the front garden had gone away. I went to collect Mei-Lin and arrived just in time. A flood of small girls was coming out of the gates and being met by their parents.

‘Dad!’ she said. She ran up to me and gave me a hug.

‘You are taller.’

‘I know.’ Mei-Lin did a comic curtsey. A blonde girl carrying a recorder and holding her mother’s hand walked past. The
mother
smiled at me. She was very elegant.

The girl said: ‘See you tomorrow, Mi.’

‘See you, Ali. Tell Deb I’m sorry she’s feeling crook.’

A frowning Chinese woman walked past with her daughter without looking up. Both of them were wearing sunglasses. They got into a Mercedes. Mei-Lin made a face at the girl’s back.

‘Who’s that?’ I asked as we walked away.

‘That’s Michelle. She’s jealous.’

‘Because you’re prettier?’

‘And better at swimming.’

We walked home. That night my wife cooked a special meal. Mei-Lin stayed up late with us and her grandparents. After
dinner
my wife and I talked. I told her about the difficulties with the business and what it meant.

‘So the conclusion is,’ I said, ‘we are going to go out of business, unless we secure the contract in Guangzhou.’

‘And that means we lose all our money, and the house, and the apartment in London, and our citizenship status in Australia is possibly compromised also, because bankruptcy would imply that we did not tell the truth about our solvency.’

‘We would lose everything.’

My wife shook her head.

‘And you don’t know what this whole Wo thing is about?’

‘He won’t tell me. He just says, “the future is more important than the past.”’

She shook her head again. ‘Then you had better go and talk to Miss Stone.’

I made an appointment to see Miss Stone through her secretary. I wrote a letter and then called twice. I could tell that there were layers of importance surrounding her now. Eventually I
managed
to set a time.

When the day came, I went to her office. The building was a new block right on the harbour, in Admiralty. It was Wo’s latest development. The bottom five floors were a shopping mall. There was a hotel in the building. One whole floor was given over to a swimming pool, with glass walls. Miss Stone’s office was on the fifty-sixth floor. The lift travelled so fast that when its acceleration slowed there was a brief moment of weightlessness.

Outside the lift a secretary sat at a big desk. There were offices with glass walls on either side of her. People were working. Beyond the offices were windows with views to the east and west. I gave my name. The secretary asked me to wait. I sat on a red sofa and looked at the magazines and newspapers. There were many of them from many different countries and it took me a moment to realise that every one was part of the Wo empire. There were two television screens above and across from where I sat. The sound was turned down but I could see they were
showing
footage from a recent Hollywood film made by the studio Wo part-owned. The screens showed a car chase followed by
explosions
.

I waited for about half an hour. Another secretary came out of the room behind the first one and said:

‘Miss Stone will see you now.’

I went through. The first thing I saw was the view of the
harbour
I had been expecting. From so high up Kowloon looked very close, as if I could take a big jump and cross the harbour in one leap. Then I saw Miss Stone. She was talking on the telephone. The secretary showed me to a leather seat opposite her desk. There were black-and-white photographs on the walls of people with bad teeth who looked like circus performers. On the desk
where people keep pictures of their family was a photograph of a car. It was a silver Mercedes SLK.

‘I have to tell you I don’t think this one’s going to fly. Yeah, me too. We’ll talk later.’

She put down the telephone and stood holding out her hand.

‘Matthew. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to seem like the killer bimbo from planet Zorgon but they put that call through just as Janice went to get you and I had to take it. So good to see you, you’re looking wonderfully well. Has anyone offered you a refreshing beverage? Don’t have a coffee, I swear they make it with harbour water. How’s the family? Janice, can you bring me a Perrier?’

‘I like these photographs,’ I said.

‘Arbus. Weege. They add a note of freak chic. From the Hong Kong point of view, the main thing about them is that they’re
outlandishly
expensive.’

‘I like these chairs also.’

‘They’re from the Conran shop in London. Or rather one of them is. I had it knocked off. I’ve got a couple more at home. Now – I’ve read your business plan. It seems okay. So what can I do for you?’

I made a slow breath in and out. I could hear my father-in-law standing in the garden shouting at his t’ai chi students: ‘Good breathing, good
chi
! Bad breathing, no
chi
! You die!’

‘The thrust of our business is to expand energetically into China.’

‘Sure. Like I said, I’ve read the plan.’

‘We have encountered certain difficulties which are not described there.’

I explained the position.

‘The figures in our plan are, I believe, exceptionally cautious. This could be an enormous business. However, we have some short-term difficulties. Specifically, an important contract, one that guarantees our company’s future, has fallen through in Guangzhou. A change in local politics has caused a change in local rules. You will be familiar with the phenomenon. We need advice, support, and subsequently further investment, to help resolve the situation. We need more friends in Guangzhou, Beijing, and’ – I coughed – ‘Shanghai. In short we need a new partner.’

She listened in a different way from how she had listened when she was a journalist. More aggressively. When I finished she sat pressing her fingers together.

‘So the bottom line is, you need a big brother in China. Someone to open doors, run interference. Someone with more juice than the people who are jamming you up.’

‘A partner and ally.’

‘A bigger gorilla.’

I jumped. She smiled. ‘It’s an expression people are using. And in return?’

‘Equity. A share of our business. It will be a big business, even a very big business, one day. Even by Mr Wo’s standards. We are sure of that.’

It was the first time either of us had used his name. I was
raising
the stakes.

‘You know I don’t work directly with Mr Wo. My boss is Philip Oss.’

‘You have
guanxi
, I know that. You’re an extremely important person in the organisation. I know that the introduction to Mr Wo is within your gift.’

She moved about in her chair. Then she said:

‘Okay, you’re on. As I said, I looked at your numbers and they seem pretty good. The thing is, there’s a time factor. He’s off to London tomorrow evening to buy a mobile-phone company. That’s a secret, by the way. Then he’ll be out of town for a couple of weeks more. So it’s this afternoon or never. I’ve spoken to his secretary and got you a slot at three. That’s in about’ – she looked at her watch – ‘oops, it’s less than half an hour. At his office. You know where it is?’

Everybody in Hong Kong knew that. It was the top floor of this same building. I did not know what to say.

‘How long should I allow for the meeting?’

‘If it goes well, who knows. If it doesn’t, you’ll be back on the street in two minutes. And just so you know, I won’t be there. This one’s all on you. Good luck.’

‘Thank you. I say again, I’m –’

‘One last thing. Now this really is between us. When I was a journalist back in England, I once had an editor who was mad about electronic devices. We used to say about him, “If he can’t
fuck it or plug it into the mains, he isn’t interested.” Now, if you omit the bit about sex, and replace the mains with a modem, that’s Mr Wo. At the moment, it’s all the new economy with him. So come up with an angle.’

I went downstairs and walked around for fifteen minutes to try and calm my nerves. I called my partner but his mobile phone was only taking messages. Then I took the lift up to the
sixtysecond
floor. It was a separate lift which went to that floor only and I had to wait while a guard in the lobby rang to confirm my appointment.

I was expecting the best view of the harbour I had ever seen. But when I came out on the sixty-second floor I was
disappointed
. There was no direct view to a window. There was no sense of where I was. The office could have been anywhere.

The first receptionist led me through, introduced me to a
second
receptionist, and sat me down to wait. Again there was a big selection of magazines published by Wo family companies. There were two large framed photographs of oil tankers on one wall, and on another an electronic map of the world with the countries in which the Wos had an investment picked out in red. Almost all of the map was red. It was tempting to work out what the
investments
were. I could think of most of them: property, shipping, media. For a moment I could not think why most of South America was red. Then I remembered that Wo had recently bought a big share in the main Spanish-language Internet portal.

My previous experience had led me to expect a significant wait. There seemed to be a correlation between a person’s sense of their own importance and how late they were. But at exactly 3 o’clock the door opened and a young Chinese man came out.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Ho. I am Quentin Hong, Mr Wo’s
assistant
. May I invite you to follow me?’

I went into Wo’s office. Again there was no view. The drapes were drawn. A man sat in an armchair at the far side of the room and got up as I entered. It was Wo. He looked much smaller and frailer than he did in photographs. He pointed to a chair across from him. He was wearing thick tinted glasses.

‘Mr Ho, has anyone offered you a drink?’

‘I have no need of one, thank you, Mr Wo.’

His assistant sat in a straight-backed chair to one side of and behind Wo. He took out a pen and notepad. Wo took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Then he looked at the paper he had in his lap. It was the covering letter from my business plan. I had time to look around the office. There was a beautiful ornate kimono hanging on one wall, and above it a pair of Japanese swords in a display case. Across from the desk, near the door where I had come in, was a Go set with a position from a game set out on it. The room was lit with soft overhead lights and two desklamps, one of them beside Wo’s chair. He noticed me
looking
around.

‘I am having some trouble with my eyes,’ he said. ‘Daylight hurts them. Hence this arrangement.’

He went back to reading. I had been expecting more force and energy from him, but Wo seemed to be a mild man. Any fire was hidden. He did not act like a tycoon or a multi-billionaire. I realised that was probably because he had no need to.

He put the letter down. ‘Miss Stone spoke to me. Good figures,’ he said. ‘Can I believe them?’

‘Yes sir, I think so. China is a source of enormous potential opportunities for our company. As you know, it is extremely hot all over the country in summer. Air conditioning is scarce. When it comes, it could make as much difference as it did, say, to the south of the United States.’ I had used that line before. It was always effective. ‘We make the best industrial air-conditioning units in the world. Further down the line, as China’s economic growth continues at the current rate, the wealth of the country will double every six or seven years. That means in twelve years’ time the average Chinese will be four times richer than he is today. There are currently 1.2 billion Chinese. Taking these facts together we have here, in my opinion, the most important
business
opportunity in the history of mankind. I believe that in the medium term we are well positioned to sell an almost
inconceivably
large number of units.’

‘But if your Guangzhou deal falls through …’

‘Then no, you can’t believe the figures. Our company will
collapse
.’

He nodded. ‘So perhaps I should invest in the company who will get the contract in your stead.’

‘I am sure that whoever has your backing will prove
successful
,’ I said.

‘It would certainly make life a lot simpler if that was true,’ he said, turning slightly to look at his assistant, who was smiling.

‘But less interesting, perhaps,’ I said.

He looked at me again. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Sir, I was brought up in Mongkok, but now my mother and wife and daughter –’

‘I meant before that. You have an accent.’

‘Sir, I was born in Fujian. I came here when I was eight, in 1974.’

‘That can’t have been easy,’ he said in Fujianese. I had not
spoken
the language in more than twenty-five years. I said:

‘No, sir, it was not.’

Wo smiled.

‘Well, well, a country boy. My father was from Fujian too. He said they always made the best pirates and the best businessmen, but that the Cantonese made the best whores, the best cooks, and the worst mothers-in-law.’

‘My mother-in-law lives in Australia.’

‘It sounds as if you have things arranged correctly. Still drink much Oolong tea?’

‘Yes sir. I bring it back when I go to China.’

‘Too strong for me. Makes me pee all the time. My father used to love it. Said it keeps a man thin. You have that skinny look.’

‘It’s partly the tea, and partly worry about our business, sir.’

‘Ah yes – business,’ said Wo. He tapped the plan, in its plastic folder, on his knee twice. ‘You know all the talk about the future. China this, China that. Also the Internet this, the Internet that. My companies have many areas of interest, but this is now my main concern, you understand? The future. Other people study the past. I concentrate my efforts on the future. This is a good
business
on this piece of paper, but I see many many ideas for good businesses. The ones which interest me are about the future. About a different world. So tell me how this fits your proposal.’

Wilson had given me a line about this, which I had used when we were raising money from banks.

‘Sir, the new economy means lots of big computers. Mainframes. Especially in China where there are so few. Internet systems, relay switches. One thing they all produce is heat. A
great deal of heat. The kind of heat that you have to make go away with an air conditioner. If China gets a new economy, it will need a lot of air conditioning. Why else do they keep running out of power in California, sir?’

It was interesting: as I got Wo’s attention he seemed to slow down. He showed less reaction, not more.

‘… so an Internet economy means very many air conditioners. Somebody will make them. If not us, somebody else. But I would like it to be us.’ He did not react. He was looking down. I
struggled
hard not to keep talking into the silence. He thought for
perhaps
a minute and then said:

‘I will vouch for your business plan to my friends in Guangzhou. If the deal goes ahead, we will be partners.’

His assistant stood up. I did too. This time, Wo did not.

‘A Fujian boy, eh?’ he said. ‘Good for you.’

The assistant led me out. ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘That’s the first pitch I’ve heard him say yes to in a year.’

I said, ‘I can’t feel my legs.’

The lift was like free fall. I went out into the road and a taxi missed me by a few inches. I took the overhead walkway back into Central. I had my mobile phone in my briefcase but did not want to call anyone yet. I felt as if I had done enough talking.

It was a sunny day and not too humid. I took my jacket off. I walked past the old government offices, across the road, and went through the park where the cricket ground used to be. There were many people sitting and talking and listening to music. I walked past Legco and across Statue Square and into Prince’s Building to find a café. I was beginning to panic about what I would say to my grandfather. I went to a wine shop to buy him a present and then I walked to the ferry terminal and bought a ticket for Cheung Chau.