Five Star Billionaire: A Novel

by Tash Aw

  There was no one else in the restaurant now, except for the chef-owner, who was cleaning his knives with a small white cloth folded into a little triangle; when he finished each one, he would hold the tip level with his eye and stare at it for a few seconds before putting it away.

  Still seated, Sixth Uncle began to pull on his down jacket. His arms snagged in the sleeves, and the collar folded awkwardly against his neck. He sat at the table rubbing his eyes, the puffy jacket making him seem even more rotund than usual. “God, my head hurts,” he said.

  Outside, the afternoon had given way to a long northern twilight that tinged the snow-draped city a faint electric blue. They walked slowly back to the hotel along the windswept avenue. All around them, the branches of the cherry trees were clad in sleeves of frost studded with ice crystals. In a few months they would be covered in blossom again. They paused to look at a snow sculpture of a plump little cartoon cat with its paw raised in greeting. “Looks like me,” Sixth Uncle said. When Justin looked up at his uncle, he saw that his eyes were moist, and tears were streaming down his reddened cheeks.

  “Are you okay, Sixth Uncle?” Justin asked, returning his gaze to the cat.

  Sixth Uncle blinked and wiped his eyes with the palms of his hands. “It’s just the wind. I hate this damn cold.”

  They continued walking, and Sixth Uncle put his arm around Justin’s shoulders. “I swear to God, the moment you are old enough to take over this damn family’s affairs, I’m going to buy that farm and piss off to Tasmania forever.”

  HOW TO BE

  GRACIOUS

  I think we have already spoken of the value of education. Those of you who follow the cut and thrust of modern international entrepreneurship will be quick to point out that the majority of the world’s billionaires are not in fact highly educated in the traditional sense. All those Chinese property tycoons and coal-mining emperors, those Indian steel magnates—they skipped the glitter of Harvard and slid straight into life’s great river, thrashing about in the muddy waters until they learned to swim. The more pedantic among you will say that they were educated too, only in a different way—all that nonsense about the “university of life,” et cetera, et cetera.

  But that is not what I meant when I spoke of education, for, to my mind, learning how to double-cross someone is not education. All those fancy things that men (yes, it is usually men, though increasingly women too) of high finance speak about, like takeovers, selling short, asset stripping—are these not rich people’s terms for bullying, gambling, and cheating? I risk the wrath of my fellow entrepreneurial giants by saying all this, but most tycoons I know are, frankly, not very gracious. What can you expect? “Tycoon.” “Mogul.” “Magnate.” Even the words these people use to describe themselves would indicate a certain ruthlessness for they are not kindly words but ones designed to impress in the most crass of ways. They seek to dominate in that old-fashioned feudalistic way, to conquer, to destroy. And it is these base tendencies that you must resist if ever you are to become a gracious, generous billionaire. The time for that kind of old-fashioned accumulation of wealth is over. Indeed, part of the purpose of this book is to announce the end to this financial smash-and-grab and urge you to look away from the excesses committed by those who consider themselves the elite.

  I say “they.” But maybe I should say “we.” Most of you who are aware of my reputation will have assumed that I belong to this band of brutal overlords, and I do not blame you for doing so. On paper, my ruthless credentials are impeccable: the swift mergers and acquisitions of well-known companies that take the markets by surprise, the penthouse living, the transcontinental first-class flights—certain elements of my life will not endear themselves to the casual observer. Sometimes when I read an article about myself, even I recoil at the seeming callousness of my financial maneuvering. I look at the unflattering photo of me sitting in front of a microphone at some hastily arranged press conference, my face largely expressionless. What a dreadful life this Walter Chao must have, I think: Imagine being him. Often I forget that he is in fact me.

  But then I remember my tireless charitable and educational projects, such as the construction of modern fiberglass bus shelters in rural areas of Southeast Asia, which provide schoolchildren with respite from the downpours of the monsoon season, or the recent community center built entirely of recycled plastic bottles—the first of its kind anywhere in the world, I think. I read with dismay a few ungracious accusations in the press that made it seem that my bus shelters were a sneaky way of marketing in hard-to-reach villages, simply because they happen to carry advertisements for the brand of soft drinks that I acquired several years ago. Next they will be saying that my carbon-neutral, waste-utilizing community center is a mere publicity stunt because it is made from the same soft-drink bottles.

  Fortunately, I pay little attention to these sorts of comments, just as I ignore the sneering that accompanies my self-help books. I write these not to make money, you understand, but to share the map of my success with ordinary people in need of inspiration. Nor are these books an outlet for vanity or a search for deeper recognition: Most of them have been written under various pseudonyms, including the multimillion-bestselling Secrets of a Five Star Billionaire.

  So those of you who think you know me—think again.

  Shrugging off all ungracious thoughts, let us return to the concept of graciousness and education. Of giving and not expecting any return. I mentioned before that I am planning a long-lasting legacy to the world, and the ideas are accelerating as I write. My original proposal to build a fairly unassuming cultural center seems to have mushroomed somewhat since I began working on it. I was at dinner with one of the world’s leading avant-garde architects and urban planners (whose identity must remain secret until approval for the project is granted), who became terribly excited at my plans. This architect leapt out of his/her chair as soon as I explained what I intended to do, nearly embarrassing our host (the cold hors d’oeuvres had barely been served). He/she called me a visionary—a compliment indeed, coming from someone responsible for some of the most arresting buildings in the world. The architect has flung him/herself with great enthusiasm at this project—the first set of drawings is in development right now: part charitable foundation, part cultural center, part dreamscape. No municipal council in the world will be able to resist a work of such groundbreaking importance.

  Annoyingly, I have been somewhat distracted from this noble project by developments elsewhere in my portfolio of interests—what the ungracious would call my “empire.” But as I am on the brink of a daring acquisition of one of the oldest, most famous companies in Southeast Asia, I suppose it is hard to dispute accusations of bravado and entrepreneurial plundering. Yet I am only doing what others have done many times before me. It will hit the headlines in the next few days, so you will know all about it then—there’s no need to elaborate here. I will be a happier, more contented man once the deal is done and I can return to the work that really matters to me—the gracious business of giving.

  I forgot to say that I have identified a site for my cultural center. I will be traveling there very shortly to push matters along. The city? I said before that it should be one capable of showing off my legacy in all its twenty-first-century glory. That doesn’t leave many choices. In a few weeks I shall move my base of operations to the chosen city: Shanghai.

  7.

  CALMLY NEGOTIATE DIFFICULT SITUATIONS

  IT SEEMS THAT GARY HAS A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE THAT STRETCHES BACK some years, which is impressive for someone so young. Readers of tabloid newspapers will not fail to be astounded by the unexpectedly long catalog that is beginning to emerge. How the record company has managed to keep these incidents hushed up for so long is anyone’s guess—public relations people are so powerful these days.

  Among the revelations on the front page of the papers recently are: The wrecked luxury suite at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Singapore after his much lauded concert there last ye
ar (no comment was made by the hotel, which prides itself on discretion, but everyone supposes that they were paid off by Gary’s record company).

  A hotel chambermaid in Hangzhou who claims Gary exposed himself inappropriately to her last week. She says that he came out of the bathroom and let his towel fall to the ground before making an obscene suggestion to her. She did not report the incident, because no one would believe her.

  An unpaid bill of $12,000 U.S. in an upscale Kuala Lumpur restaurant, which included five bottles of Krug champagne.

  And an altercation in a trendy drinking spot in the Soho area of Hong Kong, when Gary allegedly grabbed the barman by the throat and threatened to kill him.

  Yes, it is clear that Gary has a drinking problem; no one can deny it. Like many young people, he certainly does not react well to alcohol. But is it right for a superstar with so many privileges to behave this way in public, especially when his actions hurt other people? This is a tragic affair, and no matter how many innocent, ordinary people are harmed by his alcohol-fueled madness, the ultimate victim is Gary himself: the fallen angel.

  Let us not judge him too harshly—he is a poor young man who should be left to deal with his problems in private, one magazine said, quoting a line from an interview with Vivian Woo, another Malaysian-born Taiwanese starlet who dated Gary for a few months. “His heart is made of gold; it’s just that he has a bad temper and sometimes does not know how to control it,” Vivian said. “That’s why people think he is a disgusting person.” When asked if he was ever violent with her, she replied, “No comment.” The picture they ran with the front-page interview was of Gary in the bar on the Bund in Shanghai, his beautiful profile revealing a man defeated by his weaknesses. How could such an innocent face be capable of such dark hatred? This is the question the papers ask time and time again—a question that fascinates the general public, even people who are not interested in pop music.

  It did not take long for the gutter press to find its way to Gary’s hometown in the north of Malaysia. Low-cost flights are so abundant nowadays that it is easy to send a small army of reporters from Hong Kong or Shanghai all the way to rural Malaysia. Within a week there were numerous stories of Gary’s troubled adolescence, all the fights he got into when he was a teenager, before he won his first talent contest. Various newspapers bore “testimonies” of local youths who supplied snippets of information that proved Gary’s waywardness even from a young age, his propensity for physical violence. “One time, ah, I call him a bad name. Just joking only, what! That time, we all about thirteen year old,” said one young man, a truck driver for a local cement company. “Suddenly, ah, he just take a brick and whack my face, ha, like that.” In the photo, the man points to his jawbone, his face creased in pain as if the act had been committed yesterday. From the cheap streaky yellow highlights in his hair and the gold bracelet on his wrist, it is obvious to most people that he is a small-town gangster, like many of the other people interviewed in connection with Gary’s scandalous life, but this fact is not relevant to the sensational story at hand. Readers do not want to know about those incidental lives: The truck driver drives his trucks; the ice-cream seller sells ice cream. People are interested only in those lives that are ruined. For when something is ruined, you can use the rubble to reconstruct something completely different, something that never really existed—this is something that Gary is beginning to realize.

  As he sits in his hotel room, looking at the newspapers spread out across the floor, Gary reads about himself with all the detached haziness of a dream: The reassembled fragments of his life add up to someone who is definitely him but also not him—a half-imagined, half-genuine Gary, whom he has problems recognizing. It is exactly how he feels when he sees himself in his music videos. He remembers hitting the truck driver twelve, thirteen years ago, when they were both still boys. With a brick, it is true—though it was only a fragment of a brick, so small that he could hold it concealed in his fist. And while Gary did make contact with the other boy’s face, the boy was able to dodge the full impact of Gary’s swing and was therefore not seriously hurt. He had lain on the ground for a long time after Gary hit him, the shock of Gary’s attack wounding him far more than the actual blow. It was the first real fight that Gary got into, and it emboldened him, made him feel strong. Gary remembers standing over his adversary, the other boy’s friends huddled in a semicircle around their fallen comrade. Some of their faces appear in the newspapers; Gary recognizes them—older, bonier, the harshness of their faces accentuated by age, talking about how Gary was always armed with dangerous weapons, an iron bar, a penknife. He can remember, too, their endless taunts—the bad words thirteen-year-olds call one another: bapok, chibai, kaneenabu—can remember crouching in a fetal ball on the ground as they kicked and punched him; can remember the moment he saw the piece of broken brick and picked it up in his hand, swinging his arm as fast as he could; can remember the gang leader’s open face, the confusion and shock; can remember the wild sensation of adrenaline pumping into his forehead, the soft crunch of the boy’s jawbone, the crazy exhilaration as the boy dropped to the floor, the knowledge that he could—and would—do this many times again in his life, that with every punch or kick he threw, he would feel this doped-up rush once more. Above all, he can remember the sad emptiness as the excitement later drained away from his veins, leaving him to realize that even his newfound source of ecstasy would truly never satisfy him, that it would always lift him to great heights before letting him plummet once more.

  Of course, the newspapers managed to track down his foster father—a wizened, leather-skinned man standing behind the metal-grille door of a small, badly kept single-story link house in a bad part of Kota Bharu. The photographs show the tiny cement yard in front of the house, the rusting, disassembled handlebars of an old motorbike, a pile of deflated tires, an empty cage that might once have contained a few chickens or a medium-size dog, and a clay pot full of weeds. The stories describe how, from behind the bars of the door, he shouts obscenities in Hokkien at every visitor. He is not used to company; he does not welcome strangers. One reporter recounts being physically chased from the house by this old grandfather wielding a broomstick. Now we know where Gary gets his tendency for confrontation! the journalist mocks. It is a hilarious image: a frail pensioner, barely five feet tall, chasing a young fashionable journalist from his shabby home, little more than a shack, wielding a broomstick. It makes readers laugh—this whole affair is not very serious at all. That’s what these provincial people are like; their lives are hard but at the same time (let’s admit it) slightly comic. The harshness of their meager existence makes them act in strange ways. You can’t really blame Gary for behaving erratically, for he can never escape his roots. He is a superstar who drank $1,000 bottles of champagne at the age of twenty-two, but at heart he is still a small-town ruffian—a miscreant who will never be able to change. His whole life from start to present has been ridiculous.

  Gary tries to remember if this little old man ever used a broomstick to hit him: rattan cane, broken table leg, plastic bucket, worn canvas boot, strip of car tire consigned to scrap—and, yes, a stump of a broomstick. He would use any banal domestic object that happened to be in his field of vision at the time of one of his tempers, but he never used his hands or fists, as if he was afraid of making contact with Gary directly, as if even a sharp blow with the back of his hand might involve a split-second touch of Gary’s skin. Gary had just turned eleven when his mother died and he came to live with this man, the skinny hunchback cousin of hers, a man who could barely support himself in retirement, never mind a hungry, growing child. At the age of sixty-six, he was still working part-time in a scrap yard to support himself, so it was no surprise that he did not take well to the arrival of a child in need of looking after. It was no surprise, too, that he beat Gary regularly, for he was already an alcoholic long before Gary arrived.

  But this is not a tale of misery; it is a tale of comedy. Because there is something
amusing in the gradual unearthing of Gary’s life, for sure there is. Everyone who reads these news articles says, Oh, how terrible, how sad, what a horrible boy he is, what a tragic story, but they laugh too. They snigger at the calendar of scantily clad girls that hangs on the porch of Gary’s foster father’s house, the kind of cheap freebie that you get when buying gas or beer, clearly several years out of date but still hanging there because its owner is a dirty old man—can you imagine, a grandpa his age looking at pictures of young girls like that. When there is an interview with one of Gary’s childhood acquaintances on TV, viewers make fun of his accent, for it is very unsophisticated. When rural Chinese people speak English, it sounds as if they are speaking Hokkien. An den I got say him, ey, why you want lie me, I no money oso you like dat one, ah? Many people, ah, they don like him is because he no money ma, so he got steal people handphone, people money. One time I got say him, ey, why I don do anything oso you lai kacau wo? Just say like dat oso kena wallop one. The viewers don’t mean to be rude, but even when this guy speaks Mandarin, it is so thick with Hokkien overtones and also mixed in with Malay words that it is really funny to listen to—you don’t even know what language he is speaking!

  Once you have seen and heard these comic snippets from his past, Gary’s recent antics seem pretty hilarious too. Watch again the video of him beating up the man in the luxury bar in Shanghai: He is swaying and unsteady, raising his fists as drunk people do in films. When he lifts the wooden signboard overhead and brings it crashing down on the man’s body, over and over again, he looks as if he is the villain in an old slapstick movie or even a cartoon, where people fall from great heights or get crushed by falling weights and all you do is laugh at them. His body is tiny compared to that of the inert fallen victim’s—a seagull pecking at the corpse of a walrus. The single word on the sign flashes before you. WOW! … WOW! … WOW!