Our Man in China: A Novel

By Ming Liu

Eric Chen is ready to make a name for himself. American-born Chinese (ABC) and armed with a high-powered banking job, he is destined for success and riches in the world's next superpower.

But the New China is rapidly changing, its billion-plus people ambitious, hungry and on the move. Determined to win a take-over deal that sees him shuttle between Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and New York, Eric encounters those also profiting from the world's most promising nation: the playboy son of a Hong Kong tycoon, a hedonistic boss, and another ABC desiring to belong. In the New China, cultural assimilation and confusion, along with temptation and seduction, abound- and Eric could lose himself not to mention those he loves most.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477235164

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© 2012 by Ming Liu. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/27/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3515-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3516-4 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter One Hong Kong

Chapter Two CBD, Chao Yang District, Beijing

Chapter Three Shanghai Hong Qiao International Airport

Chapter Four Shanghai Pudong International Airport

Chapter Five London Heathrow Airport

Chapter Six Huai Hai Road, Shanghai

Chapter Seven Central, Hong Kong

Chapter Eight Hong Kong International Airport

Chapter Nine Shanghai International Airport

Chapter Ten The Center Building, Center 989, Shanghai

Chapter Eleven Newark Liberty International Airport

Chapter Twelve The Center Building, Center 989, Shanghai

Chapter Thirteen Xintiandi, Shanghai

Chapter Fourteen Xinyi CBD, Taipei, Taiwan

Chapter Fifteen Harbour City, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Chapter Sixteen Pingu, Shanghai

Chapter Seventeen New York City

Chapter Eighteen Hong Kong International Airport

Acknowledgements

To

E.H. and I.M.

The world is too much with us; late and soon

—William Wordsworth

男怕入错行, 女怕嫁错郎

—Chinese idiom

Chapter One

Hong Kong

That’s the only number you’ll need.

That’s what Sebastian had told Eric when he landed the China job.

Vincent Kwok’s father is some big property tycoon, Sebastian had continued. Made a shitload of money in the Eighties, and is now expanding into China. I think the guy lives in Shanghai now . . . But don’t worry, Vincent spent plenty of time in the US—in fact he’s more like a Brit. Euro. He’ll think you’re totally American though, his business school classmate’s laugh had made Eric uncomfortable. That kid is seriously hooked up—drives a Porsche, owns half of Hong Kong, screws only models. And in China too, for that matter. He told me his motto once: ‘A woman in every province.’ That, is what Vincent calls a ‘mainland connection’.

And, were it not for Vincent Kwok, Eric would not be standing where he was now, at the entrance to Rolar, the most exclusive nightclub in Hong Kong, with the paparazzi and a few turn-aways behind him. Vincent’s friends, all dressed in black, were pressed around him, as if afraid of being left behind, their feet shifting impatiently, their fingers buttoning and unbuttoning their blazers.

Eric put his hands in his pockets. They felt light. A cripple with sores on his wasted limbs had been sitting on the pavement near Rolar and Eric had given the man all his change. The man had thanked him in a dialect he did not recognize, and Eric now remembered that some quarters and dimes had been in his pocket, too—he had only just landed from New York that afternoon—and he wondered what a beggar in Hong Kong would do with quarters and dimes.

The bouncers were giving the group unwelcome stares, their Caucasian necks thicker than the rest. Eric saw that the one in front, with his white face and self-important expression, had a plastic device in his ear. His air made Eric feel territorial, and slightly uncertain.

Vincent suddenly emerged, ghost-like, from the pool of black.

Vinny, the bouncer smiled sycophantically when he saw him. Eric stretched his neck, straining to hear what they were talking about, but all he could make out was random sounds (though he did catch the name Maggie Luk). He watched as Vincent gestured indifferently behind him without looking back.

Within seconds Eric was floating forward with the rest of the group, the click of metal and sealed doors sounding behind him. He was really in, just like that—and he turned around to look at the bouncers’ heads and their ear pieces and short necks behind him, on the other side of the dark glass windows. I must tell Jennifer about this, Eric thought triumphantly.

A hallway lined in heavy red curtains greeted them. The group, still no one had spoken to Eric, made their way down this corridor, the blazers unbuttoned for the final time. As Eric saw ahead another set of curtains, these ones black, he heard a voice call out.

Darling, the accent was glossy, foreign.

Mariana. Hello. Vincent had stopped—and the others with him—and he drawled, as he did, in his British-Hong Kong accent, the A’s monotone, extended. He kissed each cheek of the woman’s and held her with both hands clasped at her back, staring deeply into her eyes. Her fingernails, Eric noticed, were white-tipped.

We missed you darling, she cooed. Her gaze was sleepy, but her words bold. Father summoned you back? The question made Vincent go quiet. Two people, boys, brushed past the entwined couple, one of them unzipping his jacket as he did so, and he glanced back, confirming. Vincent, still silent but never missing such things, crept his fingers up Mariana’s spine.

Come find us in the front, ’kay? She breathed as she slithered away, passing through the black curtains. Maggie’s expecting you. As if swallowed by the drapes, Mariana disappeared into the club.

At the very front of Rolar’s main dance floor was a raised stage, erected for the owners John and Frank, their girls and their friends—and tonight, with Maggie Luk, as the centerpiece. John and Frank were the ones who came up with the idea of Rolar and whose families owned the land—but in reality the club had nearly thirty owners. There was Gilbert and Spencer, and the other Frank Siu, Frank’s sister Peggy, their cousins Kay and Ray; there was Justin Chang and Justin Chan—but not the Justin Chan with the Mercedes CLK 230, but Justin Chan with the yellow BMW M3 and distinguishable plates, though that was only because of his stepmother, and besides, as people always said when he was out of earshot, those plates were useless outside of Macau. Nevertheless, John and Frank, as owners of modeling agencies, realized that a nightclub, along with just great fun for their friends, was the best way to date each other’s girls since they had already slept with all their own. It was also John and Frank’s idea to build a platform at the club’s front, exclusively for them, the very one that Vincent was now making his way towards. Eric had heard of this section. It was Members Only, and now he saw seven or eight girls dancing there against a wall-to-wall screen, their silhouettes willowy and expressions half-hidden. Waiters collecting empty champagne buckets slipped between them, the condensation wetting their red button-down shirts.

Eric tried to keep pace with the group but kept falling behind. He felt engulfed by infinite Chineseness: a dark ocean of black hair, pale skin tones, slender figures and equal heights, the faces identical. A blonde head was occasionally peppered in, like an island misdrawn on a map. Here Eric felt like part of a family, no longer a quota or some afterthought of color added to the mix. And, thanks to his height—which was the real sweetener—he towered above the majority.

What Eric did not know, however, was that there were distinct territories at Rolar. Opposite John and Frank’s exclusive divide sat the Hong Kong Tatler entourage: the Botox-considering wives of wealthy Hong Kong tycoons and fluttering around these tai tai’s were their divorced socialite friends, gay interior designer and shop assistant sycophants, and some B and C celebrities. Adorned in screaming logos and reflective hair accessories and, if they had checked the paparazzi had not infiltrated with a camera phone, they would sometimes be found tucking their overpriced, pink slip-on mules under the table and dancing atop it. In the very back, the Section by the Stairs which Eric would never even realize existed, was a section that John and Frank knew best to let be. This was triad member territory, where aspiring gangsters with stiffly gelled hair and animal-inspired titles like Little Chicken and Big Dog sized up their counterparts and awaited text messages from their bosses—who even with a gun at their temples would never be found at Rolar, patronizing instead the privacy of Kowloon’s karaoke bars that the lao wai would never find. And finally, separated innocently from all this, was a hip-hop room where a younger, much younger, set of Hong Kong impressionables bounced in chain-bejeweled denim and texted each other on rhinestoned phones. A few teenage girls would sometimes escape into the main room, though only venturing out in groups of threes or fours, huddling and giggling, and closely behind an equally-naïve male friend who promised to introduce them to his older, and by default, richer cousin.

A beat shook the room. As a set of lights shot on, the heaving crowd was lit up in cosmic green and white. Vincent by now was some way away. Eric looked for him over the heads of the crowd. He was certain that their final destination was up ahead, in John and Frank’s sectioned-off area where Maggie Luk, the model and actress, was celebrating her birthday. But he was also feeling anxious: he did not want to be separated from Vincent when they finally got there—the night’s true purpose would be lost if he failed to be introduced to her.

Maggie Luk. Eric wondered for a moment what he would tell Jennifer about Maggie Luk. They were now in a long-distance relationship and he had promised to call her when he got home tonight, assuring her it would not be too late. Yet some things, Eric was learning, were just not dispatched back. While he was excited to tell Jennifer about Rolar, what could he tell her about Maggie? He himself, really, only had the facts: Eurasian (half-French), modeled once for British Vogue, recently starred in a film with that Korean pop act who used a Japanese name (Hireki? Harouki?) and, most importantly, was a friend of Vincent’s. She was also, Eric would only realize later, that very same billboard girl he passed twice everyday on the escalator that took him to his office in Central. But he would withhold this fact from Jennifer, too. Such information, he felt, seemed unnecessary, and might do more harm than good, now that he was in China and his girlfriend still back in New York.

Eric looked up. Vincent had finally stopped, to his relief, and a small space had formed in front of him. Eric slowed himself, suddenly afraid to be too close. He didn’t want to appear desperate. He looked back, craving a shot of something—tequila or vodka would do; he only wanted to have a glass or a cigarette in his hand when he met Maggie. But a crowd had formed behind him, swelling and pushing forward and before Eric knew it, Vincent’s long-As, distinct and clear, were directly at his right ear.

"Haaay lang lui."

Eric was forced onto the final step.

Happy Birthday, he heard someone else say.

And then there she suddenly was, Maggie Luk, staring right at him.

Maggie Luk was unquestionably tall, but what really struck Eric about her was her face; under the green and pink lights she looked like a praying mantis. Her chocolate East-meets-West hair sliced into a pair of elevated cheekbones, set on skin like white jade, her light-dark eyes sharp and set in enviable brow bones—these were the features that had made Maggie an Original Super, one of Hong Kong’s founding supermodels, and who back then, could have only been of mixed blood.

Vincent! she now exclaimed with a tone and gesture that made Eric, somewhere deep inside, ache. Darling, when did you get back? She gripped Vincent tightly, her lips curled.

"I’m so old," she whined after Vincent said something to her in Cantonese, the girl’s fingers tapping a cheek which Vincent had just kissed. The two fingers on her other hand skillfully pinched the spine of a champagne glass, her pinkie one gesturing towards her table. Eric was now craftily trying to break away, desperate for that shot and something in his hands, and in his haste to get to the table of alcohol, he knocked his shin on a sleek glowing cube of a seat. At last he managed to pour himself a generous drink, and after throwing it hurriedly back, he sensed Maggie and Vincent’s eyes on him. Quickly, guiltily, he spun around. Without time to think, Eric wiped his mouth and with this same hand he extended it towards the girl.

I’m Eric, he shouted over the beat. Vincent’s friend.

Eric noticed right away that Maggie was unimpressed by his height. She returned a smile; a half one really, her eyes looking irritably at Vincent. Hoping to make some kind of impression—if only he could offer her a drink or light her cigarette but he saw its bud, orange and lit, in the darkness—Eric followed Vincent’s lead and leaned in to greet her. But she only rewarded him with a stiff and lukewarm air-kiss, the champagne glass floating above Maggie’s head. Her hair smelled like almonds.

So you’re the famous birthday girl, Eric motioned upwards in a toast, but suddenly he remembered his glass was empty. Unsure what to do, he blurted out a phrase he’d picked up at business school. "Chin chin he chirped, and then instantly felt ridiculous. Sorry, I just got back from New York . . . a little jet-lagged and out of it, he shouted over the music, moving his head in an exaggerated circle to make the point. Have you been to New York—you’re half Chinese, right? Maggie, the cigarette to her lips, inhaled and looked down at the crowd dancing below her. But I live here now, Eric went on, uncertain if she could hear him. Should’ve come earlier . . . Come back, I mean. Maggie squinted, the slant in her eyes sharpening. Eric, twisting at the waist, patted his pockets feeling for his business cards. I went to Columbia Business School. In Manhattan."

Maggie shrugged. Can’t hear you, it seemed to say. But the shot was now finally starting to work, injecting into Eric a dose of confidence. And just as he was readying himself to pass his card to her and start speaking again, louder this time, a jolt on his right side stopped him. Turning, he found a skeletal frame at his shoulder, the intruder’s haircut rakish and uneven.

Maggie unraveled. She leapt onto her toes, rapturous, and startling Eric with her giddy girl-like shrieks and pushing him aside, she smothered her friend tightly. Upon release, both began to bounce excitedly, exchanging expressions and hand motions that Eric could only assume were compliments on the shorter man’s part (weren’t they always, for Maggie?). He was closed off. Cantonese was so much louder, Eric thought, and though he found its syllables cacophonous and anachronistic, he suddenly wished he understood what Maggie was saying. She was animated and beaming and simply gorgeous.

Eric arched his back as if to stretch, hoping it made him appear taller. His glass was still empty. He wondered where Vincent had gone off to.

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At the table was more Cantonese. Vincent was on the couch and cheerily knocking glasses with Odet, his arm slung heavily around his friend. Seated at the table were several other girls, undoubtedly from Maggie’s set—angular limbs and protruding collarbones gave this away—and then also another girl, who was clearly not from Maggie’s set. Small in stature, she had on a shiny striped top, her hair pinned back by a lace clip that an infant might be given to wear, and her nose was small, pug-like. Eric was still having trouble differentiating the Chinese—the various Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Singaporean and mainlanders—and this confusion was something he was embarrassed to admit. Back in America he had ridiculed Americans for confusing Asians, boasting he could borrow the fake ID of any Chinese, Korean or Japanese, but here Eric found that he struggled with those very faces he was meant to identify with. Language only made it harder: the overabundance of accents, cadences and assorted slang failed him in China, the intonations obliging and singsong and all identical. So as a result Eric had often fallen to relying on clothes to tell the Chinese apart—the distinct foreign labels or the grating local cuts, but with men, it was nearly impossible: to him he just saw a collective of rimless glasses on thin, ageless faces, five-foot-eight or nine in a uniform of dark suit, white shirt and nondescript ties . . . and these were his colleagues and clients, those very faces so crucial to his business success, now that he was here.

Eric examined the girl next to Vincent, her fingers entwined tightly around Vincent’s arm. Eric guessed she was from the mainland.

A Motorola Razr was thrown onto the table, clanging on the glass. "Wahhhh, why is your hand phone so old, man? For a reason that was lost to Eric, Vincent in that moment had switched from Cantonese to English. Like your fucking taste in cars, you obachan," this jibe, finished in Japanese, was directed at Odet.

"They’re called vintage, Vincent. You are such a philistine." Odet said, throwing the phone back at him. This banter continued for several rounds until, without warning (to Eric at least), Vincent then suddenly lunged at Odet, the Cantonese roaring and shoes sounding on the couch. Laying heavily into his friend’s arm, the two struggled like schoolboys. Odet and Vincent had known each other since birth, in the days when their fathers shared a helicopter and before that relationship had soured. But the boys had remained close and, distance bonding them, their reunions were a cocktail of Thanksgiving and bank holiday breaks in New York and London.

In St Moritz this guy got us an old fucking car, the combination was Chinese and English now, and Vincent flinched as he blocked Odet’s blow from the left. The girl under Vincent’s arm was sent forward with him, yet her eyes were calm and willing.

Next time, Vincent’s voice turned serious, and he pointed his finger, "Next time we get the Aston. Wai ham aw, ho sai lay! This guy, I have to tell you, he turned towards the table. You know, every night he’s so boring lah that after skiing he . . ." as Vincent went on, his story building, a girl beside Odet cupped her hands around her mouth, her eyes widening.

And then Vincent added something else, a short quick statement that made the entire table erupt into laughter.

"Oh my god, so qi xing! exclaimed the girl beside Odet, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and who was an actress from Shanghai and who, in a few weeks, would upstage Maggie in winning the lead for a Hollywood film. Vincent, ni zhen de tai dou le, I can’t believe it!" More laughter and Japanese jibs, shoes sounding on the leather couch. The rush of dialects and intonations unfazed everyone except Eric, and he was beginning to feel like he was taking up space.

Twenty minutes and three rounds of shots later, however, the girl beside Vincent turned unexpectedly to him and asked in Chinese if he and Vincent worked together.

No, I’m at Goldberg Brothers. The investment bank. Eric enunciated proudly in Chinese, and in that moment he realized he had no idea where Vincent worked. He had simply assumed for his father, in property. I’m doing mergers and acquisitions, mainly, for the technology sector. I just relocated here.

The girl’s name was Vicky, she had told him, while shaping her fingers into a V at her mouth. As Eric lit her cigarette, feeling more relaxed, he thought Vicky was pretty, in a child, gamine sort of way, but what Eric liked most about her was the way she stared at him, admiringly, quiet. Vicky told him she was from China, and he felt rather proud of himself for having guessed this correctly.

As Eric went on, Vicky nodded, listening, though he could not be sure she understood what he was saying. Yet, by this point things were starting to merge and muddle together, and so it was just easier to speak to Vicky in English. "I looked at apartments on the peak when my firm first sent me over—huh, that sounds like a reconnaissance mission, doesn’t it? Reconnaissance? It means, like, a mission. Re-con-naiss-ance. Like what James Bond does," Eric chuckled.

Vicky nodded her head, smiling.

"You know James Bond, right? The . . . the spy? Double-oh-seven. Ling ling qi?"

On the stage in front of them a circle of gyrating bodies had formed. The music was making a chiming noise, like cowbells, and Eric spotted Maggie in the middle of the floor, her porcelain face beaming. She caught him staring at her too, and she leaned to her left to say something to a girl beside her. It was the Brazilian Mariana, slithering slowly. In his slow inebriation Eric began to relax and feel good: surely they were talking about him. He sat up, leaned his head back and looked on.

The beat turned distinctively harder now and one of the girls at their table suddenly let out a feminine gasp.

I love this song!

Lit up like Rolar’s walls, she clapped her hands together and quickly stood, pulling a friend up with her. Lingering on their long legs, their arms slightly raised as if balancing themselves, Vincent was the only one to stand up and let the girls through. Eric watched as they danced their way to the floor, their backsides as thin and flat as their fronts, and he saw now that Mariana had broken off from the crowd and had slipped into the DJ box, where John’s younger brother was busy with a computer.

A half hour later, Eric found himself alone at the table with Vincent. In silence, they watched the girls dance until Eric then felt the need to say something—not knowing what exactly, but the need at least to seize the opportunity and form some kind of tie with Vincent. He could tell Vincent Kwok was the kind of person who was rarely alone.

Hey, thanks for tonight, he said, as Vincent stared on ahead. It’s been crazy at work. We’re trying to win this massive take-over, for a Chinese company . . . Eric was prohibited from saying it was Grand Telecom, the largest telecommunications firm in China, and its intention to acquire a US company, and remembering the sensitivity of the transaction, he immediately stopped himself. And, well, I just got back from New York this afternoon, if you can believe it. Vincent still was not looking at him. So, thanks a lot. And it was great to meet Maggie. Eric held up his drink and shook it lightly, the ice cubes sounding. Let me know what I owe you.

Pleasure is mine. Vincent continued to stare ahead.

So you’re friends with John and Frank? The owners? That’s pretty cool. Eric had been hoping for an introduction, but when Vincent still did not say anything, his eyes fixed on the girls, he felt like he might be trying too hard, and so he went quiet. He wished he had more cigarettes, but by now he had smoked his whole pack.

After a few minutes and without any prompting whatsoever, Vincent then turned to him.

Eric, what do you think of Vicky?

Vicky? Eric glanced aside to scan the crowd, but he could not see her. I . . . , he began, wondering why Vincent would ask him this. Vicky, the mainland girl?

But his friend just shrugged. Pink and green lights danced across his face. He turned back to gaze into the crowd and, at last, said, She found out I was in Hong Kong and well, just came.

Eric waited. He was not sure what Vincent meant. Was Vicky his girlfriend then? And was he mad that he had talked to her? But he had hardly said a few words to her, he recalled, feeling insistent—and, really, she hardly had said a word to him. Eric didn’t know if he should ask if they were together. Most of all, however, he didn’t want to offend Vincent.

But it was Vincent who then spoke.

I could use a Chongqing connection.

It was all he said, and then Vincent simply sat back, settling deeper into the couch, his face blank and vacant and staring at Maggie and her friends.

Eric would not mention Vicky again, afraid as he was to pry, but what came to Eric at that moment was his classmate, Sebastian: a girl in every province, that’s Vincent’s Kwok’s motto. As Eric now stared ahead too at Maggie and her friends, their lissome figures outlined by the lit screen, Eric found that he was overjoyed. He thought of how he had come to meet Vincent, how proud he was to have done so, all on his own.

This is it, you’ve arrived, he thought, and he wished he could shake his friend’s hand or just thank him or maybe even give Vincent a high-five, but, he thought cautiously, perhaps that’s not what one does in China.

Several songs later, after Odet returned with two cigars, a bottle of red wine and, in full force, the Cantonese, Eric for the next hour and a half had to duck from him and Vincent’s gesturing arms and blows. But this time he felt less intimidated. Perhaps I should learn it? Eric considered the dialect for a moment as he watched Vincent whispering in the ear of yet another girl, who lingered at his friend’s side with one hand pressed to her face, a jade bracelet on her wiry wrist. He would later learn from Vincent that she had been discovered on horseback in Qinghai. And she’s an extremely, fucking good equestrian. Giggling, she playfully shoved Vincent away now, just as his other mainland connection emerged from the stairs. Vicky—Eric only remembered now that she had gone to the bar—was holding two glasses in her hands, her eyes, melancholic and determined, fixed on her task.

Only Eric seemed to notice her, as he followed her through the Cantonese and chalky emerald lights. He thought now of a Chongqing connection of his own and, wishing the night could go on forever, he did not notice how late it was, completely forgetting the promise he had made.

Chapter Two

CBD, Chao Yang District, Beijing

In the back seat of the taxi, Joanna Lee sat alone, on the side