FRAGMENT 54
"America Thanks You"
Fragment:Pieces of humanity falling away | A pillar of shame lodged in my throat
Time & Place:Autumn 2001 · Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong
September 11, 2001.
A little after eight o'clock that evening, I was having a quiet drink with an American friend in a bar in Lan Kwai Fong.
The atmosphere shattered without warning.
Everyone turned toward the television.
An attack was unfolding live in New York.
I glanced at my watch.
8:50 p.m.
A few minutes later, Barrie Harrop, then a public-relations adviser to the President of the United States, rose from his seat and stepped outside to answer a phone call.
I remained behind.
Surrounded by explosions.
By the infrasonic roar of tens of thousands of tons of steel and concrete collapsing.
By images of human beings falling from the sky, piece by piece.
Tears ran down my face.
I could not stop them.
About half an hour later, Barrie returned.
"Well, my friend," he said quietly, "America is facing a challenge unlike anything we've ever seen."
He slowed his speech, lifted his glass, and said:
"To America."
"God bless America," I replied.
He raised his glass again.
"You've been crying."
Then he smiled.
"Thank you."
A pause.
"America thanks you."
One year earlier, Barrie had signed a three-year consulting agreement with my company. He provided public-relations advice whenever needed and received an annual fee of two hundred and fifty thousand U.S. dollars.
His wife happened to be one of my university classmates.
Good liquor has strange powers.
Sometimes it loosens the tongue more effectively than any interrogation.
After speaking with his wife on the phone, Barrie began sharing more than he probably intended.
After watching the broadcasts, he left for the American Consulate.
I returned to my apartment.
The following day, Old Tong submitted an urgent report to the highest levels.
Within an hour, China's president publicly expressed profound sympathy to the American people.
I knew that parts of the statement had been added because of information I had passed along.
The next morning I watched the announcement on Phoenix Television.
I felt like a mute toad.
Barrie's clear blue eyes came back to me again and again.
So did the instinctive trust he had shown.
I even remembered the tiny sound of moisture moving across his tear ducts whenever his eyes shifted.
By then I was no longer the man I had been before 1989, forever immersed in ideas of loyalty.
Compared with exploiting a friend's trust, the word *loyalty* no longer resembled the inscription on my father's tombstone.
It felt more like a pillar of shame jammed into my throat.
On the day of the attacks, the two largest financial backers of our television company disappeared along with the World Trade Center.
Investors and fund managers were stunned.
Many abandoned planned business activities altogether.
Some surrendered themselves to pleasure.
Others simply stopped caring.
No one cared much about our company anymore.
I waited by the roadside for a long time before Baorigé's Mercedes finally arrived.
She stepped out looking radiant, her makeup flawless.
"So, darling," she asked cheerfully, "where are we going?"
"Anywhere."
Even to myself, my voice sounded uneasy.
Earlier that day, Old Tong had given me a brutal dressing-down.
When I refused to continue doing things that violated my conscience, he closed the door and shouted:
"Are you stupid? Without a source, without a foundation, how is that television company supposed to survive?"
"What's wrong?"
Baorigé looked at me carefully.
"Nothing."
I forced a smile.
"I missed you."
"Good boy."
She leaned closer.
"Let me smell you."
A bright red lipstick mark landed on my cheek.
FRAGMENT 55
The Senses Were Already Numb
Fragment:The rhetoric of a Taiwanese feng-shui master | Dirty jokes carried by a messenger of corporate revolt
Time & Place:Summer 2002 · Hanwei Plaza · China World Hotel, Beijing
Baorigé supported my desire to free myself from government control.
Her preferred method was highly ceremonial and took place in bed.
It softened my disappointment, at least temporarily.
Without official backing, my company could barely move forward.
Calls from Hong Kong and Macau arrived daily, urging me to slash operating costs. At the same time, every hope of securing new financing seemed to vanish before it could take shape.
The anxiety never left me.
I spent more and more time with women.
I threw myself into desire with the same intensity I once devoted to work, seeking relief in rehearsed passion, manufactured ecstasy, and temporary oblivion.
Eventually I stopped going home altogether.
Employees resigned.
Senior executives resigned.
The office grew emptier every month.
Only a handful of longtime subordinates remained, drifting in and out of my field of vision.
One afternoon I returned from my private apartment and sat alone behind my desk.
I smoked continuously.
The room filled with haze.
The telephone rang.
It was Richard Lee calling from Hong Kong.
"Boss, where will you be tomorrow morning at ten?"
"In my office."
"Good. Please wait for me."
"All right."
"Thank you."
Richard came from one of Yunnan's old wealthy families and had spent most of his life in Singapore.
After our company attracted public attention, he had been inserted into the organization by Borjigin's superiors and appointed Chief Executive Officer of our Hong Kong headquarters.
His annual salary was three million Hong Kong dollars.
I signed the checks.
For two years he had treated me with impeccable courtesy.
Always friendly.
Always respectful.
A brother from the jianghu, though never too close.
A few weeks earlier, Richard had brought a feng-shui master from Taiwan to my office at Hanwei Plaza.
Together they spent an entire morning rearranging furniture, shifting decorations, and "improving" the flow of energy.
At lunch, Richard suggested that the master examine my personal fortune.
The old man, having just earned tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars for his services, spoke with remarkable confidence.
Every sentence landed exactly where it was intended.
One prediction in particular stayed with me.
He declared that I was destined for extraordinary political success.
"In the future," he said, "you'll walk in and out of Zhongnanhai as easily as crossing an open field."
Toward the end, he lowered his voice mysteriously and instructed me to recite the Buddhist *Heart Sutra* every day.
Things like:
"Thus have I heard..."
For two hours he directed everyone's attention toward invisible and unverifiable forces.
Yet he never mentioned the financial condition of my company.
Perhaps he sensed that money itself did not interest me.
Or perhaps he simply knew better than to calculate what was already obvious.
We were running out of cash.
I had no interest in determining whether he was genuine or a fraud.
The White Crow had stopped working.
Apart from the sound of money and the smell of money, my natural powers of perception had long since been flooded with an esthetic.
FRAGMENT 56
Echoes of a Corporate Coup
Fragment:The rhetoric of a Taiwanese feng-shui master | Dirty jokes carried by a messenger of corporate revolt
Time & Place:Summer 2002 · Hanwei Plaza · China World Hotel, Beijing
At 9:58 that morning, Richard arrived at my office.
He suggested we walk a few hundred meters to the lobby of the China World Hotel.
He knew I liked the atmosphere there.
"Boss," he began, "a meeting was held in Hong Kong the day before yesterday. I've been asked to relay the outcome."
Behind his thick glasses, Richard studied my face carefully.
A novelist had kept me awake most of the previous night.
I was exhausted.
Still, I forced myself alert, drank half a can of Coca-Cola, and answered in my usual decisive tone.
"Go ahead."
It was a distinctly Chinese corporate coup.
The bankers from Citigroup, several Chinese executives still in office, a group of investors, and a collection of fund managers had joined forces.
An "expanded meeting" had been convened.
The decision was unanimous.
I was to be removed as CEO and President.
The primary charge was that I had accepted media interviews without authorization and allowed damaging reports about the company to circulate, causing serious losses to investors.
Only then did I remember the interview.
A few weeks earlier, after speaking with a financial weekly magazine, an article had appeared that contained far more speculation than fact.
By the time it reached print, the company I led had been transformed into something resembling a commercial fraud.
The magazine was enormously popular among Chinese businesspeople.
Its circulation kept climbing.
The reporter they sent was a remarkably thin woman, not yet thirty.
Her complexion was sallow.
Her thick glasses looked cheap.
Her hair was dry and slightly disheveled.
She dressed plainly.
Yet her questions had been sharp.
Painfully sharp.
Sharp enough to leave even a former journalist struggling for answers.
"Boss?"
The silence had stretched too long.
Richard was waiting for my reaction.
"Oh."
I blinked.
"Sorry. Go on."
"I don't have much else to add."
He hesitated.
"Though I did hear a joke from an old friend recently. Maybe it'll cheer you up."
"Let's hear it."
Richard possessed excellent social instincts.
And he loved telling stories.
"Well," he said, leaning forward, "do you know which part of a woman men appreciate most at different ages?"
He laughed before continuing.
"Not my theory, of course. Just something a friend told me."
"Go on."
I was probably smiling by then.
Richard launched into a cheerful analysis of male desire from age twenty to seventy.
He liked to imagine himself as a refined Hong Kong gentleman.
Unfortunately, enthusiasm kept defeating elegance.
Tiny droplets of saliva escaped whenever he became excited.
His aging eyes sparkled.
He looked like a mischievous old schoolboy.
He spoke of faces.
Breasts.
Hips.
Meanwhile, I saw only a series of gravitational curves drawn through space by the human body.
I crushed my cigarette into the ashtray.
Then looked up.
"You shameless old bastard."
I laughed.
Then changed the subject.
"Brother, are there documents you still need me to sign?"
"Ah. Yes. Right here, Boss."
He avoided my eyes.
Only a few months earlier he had quietly encouraged me to replace the chairman chosen by the shareholders.
I glanced through the paper.
Nothing more.
I removed a Montblanc fountain pen from my pocket and signed.
After settling the bill, I stood.
"Take care of yourself, brother."
Then I walked away.
FRAGMENT 57
Oktoberfest
Fragment:The soundscape Of There sienwiese | Historical echoes of Napoleon's defeat
Time & Place:Autumn 2002 · Theresienwiese, Munich · Champs-Élysées, Paris · Waterloo, Belgium
Waiting for me at Munich Airport was my old friend, Sir Thomas.
He greeted me in Chinese.
"Big Brother!"
His face broke into a wide smile.
In truth, I was only one day older than he was.
The previous year, during his visit to Beijing, I had accompanied him everywhere for an entire week.
The next day was Oktoberfest.
Thomas insisted on taking me.
On the way, I bought an old-fashioned plaid shirt for four hundred euros.
Thomas, dressed in leather trousers and a similar shirt, kept nodding approvingly.
"Perfect," he said.
We arrived at Theresienwiese and entered one of the enormous festival tents.
No sooner had we settled into the VIP section than several young women were invited over.
Two sat beside me.
On my left was an Ethiopian flight attendant, a black pearl whose eyes displayed such perfect contrast between dark and light that they reminded me of black and white Go stones.
On my right sat a blonde German woman.
Her traditional dirndl emphasized her figure so effectively that it seemed almost engineered.
Both women embodied the cheerful sensuality for which Oktoberfest is famous.
Apart from that drunken evening at Ninety-Nine Yurts, I never drank socially in China.
Even people who knew I was Mongolian could not persuade me to break my rule of remaining sober in public.
This time was different.
In a completely unfamiliar soundscape, I accepted every toast Thomas and the women offered.
My hearing and vision had already become numb.
The women dancing before me seemed naked.
My ears registered little except the distant sounds of urinals flushing in crowded restrooms.
I danced with the German girl.
The pressure of her thigh against mine, the warmth of her body, the small black hand of the Ethiopian woman brushing my ear—everything blended into a haze of alcohol and instinct.
Then the German girl's lips touched mine.
At that exact moment, my hearing returned.
The soundscape inside the human body surged back like an irresistible command.
The rifle that moments earlier had been fully loaded instantly became a rope, binding and restraining the primitive desire that had been expanding within me.
Several tall women were modeling outfits on a distant stage.
For an instant, I thought I saw Rowan Lee among them.
I staggered toward the platform.
When I arrived, she was gone.
Perhaps she had never been there at all.
Suddenly the world fell silent.
Returning to my seat, I looked again at the two women beside me.
The glamour had vanished.
The seduction had vanished.
They were simply professionals doing their jobs.
Beer steins continued colliding around me.
People continued swallowing beer, saliva, and laughter.
The sounds flooding into my ears easily overwhelmed the rock music blasting from the stage.
For several minutes, my arms felt too weak to lift.
I emptied a can of Coca-Cola in one long swallow.
Then I buttoned my shirt carefully, one button at a time, and sat upright.
"You all right?" Thomas asked.
"I'm fine."
I paused.
"A little sleepy."
He summoned his chauffeur-driven Maybach and sent me back to the hotel.
The German girl climbed into the car as well.
She helped me onto the bed.
She said nothing.
She did not undress.
I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep.
Quietly, she left the room.
The door closed softly behind her.
Suddenly I felt dirty.
I rushed into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
Only cold water.
The next day I flew to Paris.
Along the Champs-Élysées, I caught the scent of Chanel No. 5 drifting from passing French women.
Later, from Gare du Nord, I boarded a red Thalys train.
After changing trains in Brussels, I continued on to Waterloo.
I wanted to experience, for myself, the acoustic remains of Napoleon's defeat one hundred and eighty-seven years earlier.
FRAGMENT 58
The Sky Pressed Down with the Voice of a Yak
Fragment: A bass note like a yak's call | Whispers hiding behind the shadows of lamplight
Time & Place: Autumn 2002 · Nightclubs and hotels in Kunming ｜ Spring 2003 · Yangfang Alley, Beijing
I flew directly from Europe to Kunming.
I wanted peace.
Instead, I found stimulation.
My university classmate Ma Xincheng, three years younger than I was and then serving as Deputy Secretary-General of the provincial government, surrounded himself with businessmen the moment work ended each day.
Old friendship, combined with the political and commercial resources standing behind both of us, filled those days with dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, and what medicine classifies as endocannabinoids.
I had always been fascinated by the chemistry of existence.
Human nature interested me far less.
Every evening, once Ma Xincheng left the office, he and his entourage dragged me from restaurant to restaurant, from sauna to nightclub.
Drinking.
Singing.
Touching.
Forgetting.
Then a Tibetan singer entered the room.
She announced her name:
Dawa Yangzom.
Her song:
"Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.”
Unlike many performers, she never refused a drink.
Her face carried traces of Indo-Aryan ancestry. When she reached the highest notes, it felt as if the ceiling itself might split open.
Everyone in the room was stunned.
I listened carefully.
The melody began to descend.
Then, just before the ending, it arrived.
A bass note.
A yak's voice.
The entire sky seemed to press downward.
It echoed from the depths of a cave.
It crawled through every joint in my body.
I shattered.
I exploded.
My eyes turned red again.
Tinnitus screamed through my head.
The pain became unbearable.
Blindness.
Deafness.
Memory loss.
When I opened my eyes, I was in the executive suite of Kunming's finest hotel.
Soft light floated through the room.
A woman sat beside me.
"You're awake, Boss.”
I looked at her face.
That highland light still lingered in her eyes.
"You drank too much."
She smiled.
"Do you still feel sick?"
Wrapped in a bathrobe, she lay down beside me.
After that came love.
And then, unexpectedly, more than love.
For a time we became inseparable.
Ma Xincheng and the businessmen around him assumed I was merely indulging another passing romance.
They believed it was lust.
They were wrong.
Dawa and I were truly in love.
Not long after SARS faded from public memory, Beijing returned to its usual noise.
The dead were quickly forgotten.
Gao Yong's father became the only ministerial-level official to die from the epidemic.
After the funeral, Gao Yong asked to meet me.
We sat in a private courtyard restaurant in Yangfang Alley near Houhai.
The location was only a few hundred meters from the small courtyard in Pocket Hutong.
One room.
One table.
One meal.
Ten thousand yuan.
Only the two of us.
After a long series of arguments, persuasion, and negotiation, he finally convinced me to return to the Macau satellite television company as Chairman of the Board.
"This platform cannot be allowed to fall into outsiders' hands."
The seriousness in his voice felt excessive.
I laughed.
"Don't be so dramatic, Minister Gao. I obey."
"Excellent."
He rose immediately and stepped toward me.
I stood as well.
His hands, now thicker and heavier than before, rested lightly on the back of mine.
I felt a faint tremor.
Dawa's deep voice echoed somewhere in my memory.
My perception sharpened like a scalpel.
For an instant I seemed able to peel back the layers of Gao Yong's rapidly spinning mind.
I remembered the heartbeat of desire that money had ignited inside him back in Bamboo Garden.
I remembered the frequencies pulsing through him when he won at the casino.
And I became certain of one thing.
He intended to make money from me.
Our laughter drew the proprietress from the shadows.
She remained just beyond the circle of light and asked softly:
"Are the two bosses satisfied with everything tonight?"
