Pat thought of Chairman Mao and his peasant state as he wandered around Shamian Island admiring its handsome late 19th century colonial buildings. He wondered why they had survived, was it some kind of latent admiration for the men who come so far to build their trading empire, bringing with them the best of their way of life. It was evident that Mao was a man of the people, but the British, and to a lesser degree European merchant class, were aped not only by the Chinese nouveau riche, but also by the ruling classes in general.
The Chinese, of all classes, wore Burberry, Dunhill, Vuiton, Cartier and all the rest; those who had money bought the real thing whilst the less monied classes bought fakes. Those with obvious fakes were ridiculed and called shanzai, and those that tried to be fashionable without the accepted accoutrements were called tubie, or wingless cockroaches.
Located on the historical Shamian Island, overlooking the famed Pearl River, the White Swan Hotel, despite its thirty or more stories, remained an oasis of tranquillity from the hustle and bustle of this busy city. The Atrium lobby was an indoor microcosm of the famed landscapes of Southern China. Cascades of waters flowed down a spectacular rockery above which stood a richly adorned Chinese pavilion amongst a profusion of luxuriant vegetation and flowering plants.
As Lili had told him the restaurant was just a short walk from the White Swan. On arrival they were greeted by a smartly uniformed doorman, complete with top hat and tailcoat, on the steps that led up to the entrance of what had once been the mansion of a rich taipan. The lobby opened onto a richly decorated ground floor dining room, to one side of which a broad staircase led to a balcony and more tables. The decor was a discrete mixture of Chinese and Art Deco styles setting off the elegant tables, laid-out with the crystal glasses and fine silver ware glittering under the lighting.
They were greeted by a smiling and deferential hostess, elegantly dressed in a traditional Chinese cheongsam, as were the rest of the female personnel. She accompanied them to a lift, which they took to the rooftop club two floors above. There they stepped out into a richly panelled lobby furnished with the same discrete luxury and decorated with fresh flowers. The smiling receptionist immediately recognised Lili and politely greeted her in Cantonese, leaving her to give Pat a guided tour of the establishment. To the left side was another restaurant and to the right a nightclub and bar with a small dance floor and discrete booths; for the moment few people present to listen to the soft music.
They returned to the restaurant, the focal point of which was an enormous aquarium that covered one entire wall; the home to a number of sharks, rays and barracuda, silently gliding back and forth. A bemused Pat wondered if they were eyeing-up the prosperous, fashionably, dressed clientele for their next meal, or whether they were part of the menu.
The tour over, the hostess led them out to a rooftop terrace overlooking the tree lined avenue and the lights of the island with the Pearl River beyond. They were shown to a table and once seated Lili ordered drinks and started by telling Pat the story of Shamian.
The island had been an important port for Guangzhou’s foreign trade from the Song to the Qing dynasties, and where England and France had been granted trading concessions in the late 18th century. It was a reminder of the colonial period, with its quiet pedestrian avenues flanked by trees and lined by historical buildings, most of which been built in the late 18th and the 19th centuries and had recently been restored to their former splendour.
Shamian was separated from the city of Canton by a canal crossed by two bridges, which in the past had been closed at ten each evening. The English bridge guarded by Sikhs, and the French bridge by Annamites.
Later the rich foreign owners of trading companies from England, France, the US, Holland, Germany, Portugal, Italy and Japan built their elegant mansions along the waterfront. After the Communist take-over in 1949, these housed government offices or became apartment houses with the churches transformed into factories.
As Lili told the story their meal arrived with what seemed to Pat like an endless number of plates including Peking Duck, a favourite with foreigners, which he had already enjoyed in Hong Kong. Though he was delighted with everything he saw and even more pleased to be sitting at a table with this very attractive and clearly very refined Chinese girl, he was still surprised confused by the unexpected encounter with Lili and why she had rolled out the red carpet.
‘It seems like people have a lot of money here.’
‘Yes, people here have got money to spend, and Chinese like to be seen spending it.’
‘This place, I mean the island, is very European. How did it survive the Revolution?’
‘Basically because we love all things European. That’s why you see all these English towns and villages being built across China, complete half-timbered mock-Tudor homes, cobbled lanes and Georgian terraces,’ she said laughing. ‘Personally I don’t like them, too kitsch for me.’
‘Have you been to England?’
‘Yes, I went to the LSE.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes, I spent a year there.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘Well it was all very confusing to start with, I was very young.’
Kennedy laughed. ‘You’re not exactly old.’
‘Well it was eight years ago. Anyway I was glad to come back home.’
‘Where does your family live, I mean your parents?’
‘Here in Guangzhou, in the city centre.’
‘What do they do?’
‘Well my father’s on the Provincial Committee.’
‘Committee?’
‘That’s the provincial government?’
‘So he’s a politician.’
‘In a way I suppose,’ she reluctantly replied. ‘Of course he’s a member of the CPC.’
‘CP…’
‘That’s the Party.’
‘The party? Asked Kennedy vaguely wondering if it was related to the Tea Party or something like that.’
‘The Chinese Communist Party.’
Kennedy started, he was taken aback; here he was sitting with at Lili, the daughter of an apparently important Chinese Communist. Given his ingrained Irish Catholic background it had a strange effect on him, even after all the years that separated him from his Christian Brother education at the Ardscoil Rís Jesuit school in Limerick, and in spite of the fact he hadn’t seen the inside of a church, not to mind confessing, for decades; at least since his wife had thanked God after his acquittal for fraud a decade earlier.
Lili took his surprised look for his ignorance of the workings of the CPC and proceeded to enlighten him.
‘There’s the CPC Central Committee in Beijing and at a local level, the CPC Provincial Committee with a governor.’
‘I see,’ said Pat, hoping she would change the subject.
‘My father is with the Guangdong Province Department of Finance.’
That didn’t mean very much to Pat, as far as his knowledge of Chinese administrative structures was concerned she could have been talking of Martians.
The next day, Sunday, Lili picked him up at midday. It was the first day of the Moon Festival, a public holiday, and the Pearl River esplanade was thronged with holidaymakers and sightseers, many carrying small paper Chinese flags that they waved happily as they posed for photographs.
‘The Chinese Moon Festival, or the Mid-autumn Festival, is for us like your Christmas, it’s one of our most important annual holidays. According to tradition families get together and watch the full moon, eat moon cakes, and sing moon poems.’
Christmas, that made sense to Pat, he understood the festive mood.
‘It’s also a romantic one festival,’ said Lili coyly.
‘Oh.’
‘They say it’s a moment when lovers eat moon cakes together watching the moon.’
Pat thought of more interesting things to do rather than eat moon cakes.
‘Now we are going home.’
‘Home?’
‘Yes, I’d like you to meet my f
ather.’
Kennedy was surprised, but curious to see her Communist father. In his mind’s eye, he recalled black and white pictures of Mao and peasants.
Lili had other plans.
After their meeting she had Googled INI and checked Pat out. It seemed strange that a person of such obvious importance was travelling around alone, like a tourist, a better class backpacker. She had already reconciled herself to the idea she would never really understand Westerners, but that aside she was not about to let him slip through her fingers.
He was not like many Western top level bankers surrounded by a pack of interpreters and lackeys. The Wu Family were survivors from the old times and the family business could use a contact like Pat Kennedy. Lili’s ancestors had traded English opium in the 19h century; they had survived the tumultuous events of the 20th century: the arrival of Mao, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and many other tribulations.
As her father climbed the ladder to the Provincial Central Committee, he had discretely continued the family’s textile business with the help of their relations in Hong Kong. Then, during the period in which China opened up to the West, the business had expanded, and under Deng Xiao Ping they had branched out into electronics and real-estate.
Pat looked around the living room as Mr Wu prepared tea. The room was impressively large, with elaborately carved rosewood furniture, the walls decorated with Chinese paintings, porcelain vases stood on cabinets and lacquered chests. Wu was treating him to what was obviously a practiced ritual, spooning tea into an exquisite tea pot, pouring boiling water into it, filling fine tea cups then pouring the tea back into the pot, a process that he repeated several times.
‘How do you like China Mr Kennedy?’
‘Very interesting,’ replied Pat. What else could he say; he had seen so little of the vast country and up to now had understood very little.
‘China has undergone a lot of changes and today we are discovering consumerism,’ he said. ‘Before we were very poor, and now, suddenly we have discovered we can have anything we want, with a little money.’
‘Young people are buying everything, fashions, the latest mobile phones, tablets…. I’m older now, I prefer traditional things, porcelain, paintings, calligraphy. In China today people buy anything, but mostly to impress others, they don’t have any taste. The wealthy are even buying their own copies.’
‘Copies?’
‘Yes, copies of English villages with English churches, Versailles, Tower Bridge and the Eiffel Tower,’ he replied laughing. ‘And the less rich want to be photographed standing in front of them, wedding pictures, holiday souvenirs.’
On his visit to Macau, Kennedy had seen the Las Vegas style copies of Venice for himself, and the stories of mock English villages built in China were familiar.
‘The middle class is pointing the way forward in China. A huge consumer market. Today they can’t travel to Paris or Venice, but they will buy souvenirs in places like Suzhou.
‘Suzhou?
‘Yes, it’s our own version of Venice, the Venice of China, its old city is a very a popular tourist destination, canals, pagodas, gardens and small streets full of restaurants and souvenir shops.
‘In a way people like old things, here at least in the centre of our cities everything is new, that’s why we like picturesque old things. Our New China is everywhere, before in the 20th century it was America, and before that England.’
Kennedy had heard that before and the idea of being a has-been gnawed at his pride.
‘I suppose that’s why our universities are so popular with Chinese,’ he said forcing a laugh.
‘Quite so, universities in Britain and America are the best. That’s why we send our children there. We still have a lot to learn.’
In China, there were schools where only English was spoken and uniforms were worn, to prepare Chinese students for Western university education. Wealthy families, business people and government officials, paid up to ten thousand pounds a year for their child to receive an English education without them ever having to leave China.
‘You see ours is a highly competitive system and those who want to succeed have to use all the means at their disposal. If they want to get a good job they have to get into a grade-one university. It has a lot to do with our one-child policy. When there’s only one child in the family and if he or she is not successful, then it’s a failure for the whole family.’
Kennedy was beginning to understand Lili’s urgency.
There are advantages with our Gaokao system, but unfortunately creativity is not part of it. That’s why our young people want to go to the US, or the UK, for a broader type of education, you know one that prepares them for leadership, teamwork, and one that stimulates creativity.’
Pat listened carefully, he was getting a first-hand insight to Chinese society, at least of those at the top.
‘You see Mister Pat,’ said Wu offering Kennedy a Cognac, ‘today our society is focused on one object: money and getting rich.’
The Chinese people, on average, were much wealthier than they had been in the recent past. However, traditional values had suffered, thanks to three generations of years of expedient socialism, followed by its one child policy, which had transformed it into a selfish individualistic culture.
For many social status was now defined by ostentatious displays of wealth. Apartments, cars, fashions, gadgets and even family pets. Of course all of these had to be new and easily recognisable thus their penchant for well-known foreign brand name.
Once a family acquired the minimum external signs of wealth, an apartment was the next must followed by a safe investment, which invariably meant more property, something that increased in value and would cover medical bills, children’s schooling and retirement. Stock markets, more often than not are rigged, were for gamblers. Banks offered poor returns, and putting money into dollars was excluded, as the Chinese yuan was strictly non-convertible. It was a system where only the wealthy and privileged classes could transfer their wealth overseas. As a result the middle classes invested wildly in property, with their savings stoking what was potentially the greatest property bubble in history, which when it bursts, as it inevitably would, the explosion would be felt across the entire planet.
Pat Kennedy, who was in many ways a solitary person, in spite of his affability and his easy contact, devoured knowledge: history, geopolitics languages, science and the biographies of those who had left a lasting impression on the destiny of man.
Old Wu’s story, in spite of its complexity, filled him with curiosity and alerted his sharp sense of observation, it reminded him of the questions Paul Gauguin had asked when inscribing one his famous painting with the words:
d’Où Venons Nous
Que Sommes Nous
Où Allons nous.
It also recalled the history of China’s endeavour related on the Qingming Scroll, a copy of which he had seen at the home of John Francis, portraying scenes of life in the city of Kaifeng, the capital of China in 11th century during the Song Dynasty, then the world’s largest city. Mineral bituminous coal was used, on an industrial scale for the very first time, for the smelting of iron in Kaifeng. More than one hundred thousand tons a year of iron was produced in furnaces fired by coal, mined from the extensive deposits in the surrounding region. The Chinese had been pushed to this expedient after the massive deforestation of the region for their industrial and domestic needs.
He heeded the older man’s words and decided he would learn as much as he could of China and its history from the Wu family.
As he listened, his head started to turn slightly, the effect of the Cognac, and could do nothing to prevent Old Wu refilling their glasses again. Watching Wu, Pat was struck by what he now saw as an obviously important man, emanating wealth and power. His meeting with Wu was fortuitous, like so many of the contacts he had made during his life. One of the strange gifts he enjoyed.
‘Tell me Mr Kennedy, what are
your projects China?
‘Well our bank has a property fund and we are looking for investors.’
‘Investors in the fund or in property?’
‘Both. London has become one of the world’s most important places to invest in prime property.’
‘Like Hong Kong?’
‘Not exactly. In the UK the government doesn’t regulate land and things like that. It’s entirely private, market determined.’
‘I see. It seems that many of my countrymen are buying property in London, but I suppose it has always been a preferred place for Hong Kong people.’
‘That’s right, but for the moment there is not too many. That’s why I’m here to meet people interested in investing.’
‘Very interesting Mr Kennedy. You should meet Lili’s elder brother in Hong Kong.’
‘I’d like that, but I don’t want to seem like I’m intruding on your family.’
The Hong Kong Wu’s were listed as one of the world’s super rich families and the SAR was where they managed the family’s complex and secretive business.
‘Don’t worry there’s no hurry. You know we Chinese have a long history, five thousand years, so we have learnt what patience is. By the way, I hope Lili is showing you around Canton,’ he said turning towards Lili and speaking in rapid Cantonese.
‘You have seen the streets of Guangdong Mr Pat, but have you seen our Museum?’
‘No,’ said Kennedy carefully.
‘Then Lili will show it to you, it’s a lesson to anyone in humility, what our ancestors knew two thousand years ago. It’s different to our modern skylines filled with tower cranes, and modern architectural projects. It’s our equivalent to Xi’an and the Terracotta army, or perhaps the Forbidden City. You won’t find it full of crowds, but it’s our own secret,’ he said with a small laugh.
Chapter 71 A SAFE HAVEN
The Plan Page 71