Five Star Billionaire. Tash Aw
moving the furniture and washing the dishes. He told her he was sick. She said, ‘I guessed that.’ One day he emerged from his bedroom to find that she had double-boiled a chicken with medicinal herbs to make soup for him. He sat before it at the kitchen counter, unable to eat it. He found himself crying – hot streams of tears flowed down his cheeks. He hated crying and didn’t know why he was doing so. The strangest thing was that he felt nothing – no sadness or bitterness or loneliness. And yet he was unable to stem the tears.
He felt the walls of the apartment draw in on him, encircling him, making everything beyond their confines seem irrelevant, reducing the city to a mere idea, a vague memory.
Late one sleepless night, the hundreds of messages on his BlackBerry did not seem so terrifying, so he began to work his way through the emails and voicemails, deleting most before getting to the end of them. There were dozens of messages from his family – his uncles, father and brothers – whose title headings charted a growing sense of worry. It was fine, he thought: he was immune to their anxiety now. A few weeks ago he would have been panicked by their panic, but now none of it touched him. It no longer bothered him that he was uncontactable.
But among the more recent messages, one caught his attention: a voicemail from his mother, who rarely rang him. It began calmly, saying they missed him, and whatever wrongs they might have committed against him, would he please forgive them. They needed him now, he was the only one who could save them, his brother was not good at this sort of thing. His father had become very ill because of the situation, and there were creditors hovering like vultures. She sounded as if she was beginning to cry: she didn’t understand this sort of thing very well, but she knew the situation was very grave.
The situation. What situation? He checked earlier emails from his father. His tone was, as always, dry, the messages dictated and typed out by his secretary. There was no unnecessary information, just the basics: the family insurance business had collapsed. It had not withstood the global crisis. The biggest, oldest insurance firm in South-East Asia, founded by his grandfather, was no longer. Now an investor was offering them $1 to buy the entire company that, just a year ago, was worth billions. It was humiliating. They were facing ruin. He was their only hope. Maybe the property market in China would save them. Whatever the case, he had to take over the running of the entire family business now.
One other message he checked said, simply, Where are you, my son?
He turned off his BlackBerry and stared at the skyscrapers. It was after midnight, and most of the lights were off now, but still the buildings glowed softly. He went to bed without drawing the curtains, gazing at the watery quality of the sky, the swell of the low rainclouds illuminated by the fading lights of the city. He tried to feel something – anything. In his head he replayed his mother’s tearful voice, cracking, weak. We’re sorry for things we might have done. He imagined his father, proud even in his humbled state.
But none of those images and sounds moved him. He felt nothing. As he closed his eyes he could just make out the very tip of a skyscraper, a sharp rod stretching into the sky. It seemed fixed not just in space but in time, its metallic glint impervious to the passing of the days, months, years.
And he thought, I am free now.
How to Achieve Greatness
Greatness is never measured purely in terms of money. You must always remember this. For history to judge a man as truly remarkable, that man has to leave a legacy more profound than a collection of Swiss bank accounts for his children. He has to enrich the world around him in a way that is permanent and moving.
Recently I have been thinking of ways to leave behind something meaningful to the world once I am gone. My various philanthropic efforts are well documented, but I nonetheless feel that I have not yet given enough to mankind. All my donations to charity are, I feel, ephemeral; the giving of cash to the needy is a mere Band-Aid on a gaping wound. If I were to die tomorrow I would be known primarily as a visionary entrepreneur and perhaps a brilliant motivator. Occasionally at public events someone will realise who I am and insist on bathing me in compliments, which embarrasses me, for I have always scrupulously avoided the public eye. Adulation is a funny thing. Most people seek it in vain, often unconsciously, from their spouses, children, professional colleagues, or – the ultimate dream – from the public at large. To be admired by people who don’t know you would seem to be the summit of human achievement. Yet those of us who are in this position know that to be the centre of attraction in this way is not only distasteful, it is empty.
Once, and only once, I gave an interview. I was young and just beginning to make waves with a succession of audacious acquisitions. I was also, I admit, slightly prone to vanity in those days. My interviewer, a young woman from a respected local newspaper, peppered me with banal questions about my business strategy and then probed me with inappropriate questions about my private circumstances. Did I find it difficult to sustain relationships because of my punishing schedule? What did I look for in a partner? Was it true that I was so dedicated to my work that I had broken off not one but two engagements in the past? Had I even cut off contact with close family members? What about rumours that I’d changed my name to make myself appear more Westernised? She kept calling me ‘Walter’, in that familiar way that young people do these days, assuming it would be fine to address me by my first name rather than as ‘Mr Chao’. I asked if it was truly necessary to obtain this information from me. She shrugged and said that her editor had asked her for a ‘personal angle’ to the story. So incensed was I by this intrusion that I ordered the feature article to be reduced to a mere footnote in the business pages. Then, as an afterthought, I asked for even that little vignette to be deleted altogether. (There is a postscript to this because, a few years ago, when the newspaper was ailing, I bought it and fired the editor who had commissioned the interview. He was in his sixties and ready for retirement anyway.)
I have never done anything for the sake of public acclaim. Even my books have been written under a pseudonym. I want to inspire people – you – not because I seek gratitude or glory but because I gain immense pleasure just from the knowledge that I might have been able to help them, to change their lives. Giving without receiving. That is what truly satisfies me. In all the years of working hard, of the accumulation of huge wealth, I admit that I sometimes lost sight of this sentiment of charity, which is why I sometimes felt exhausted and dispirited and negative – as I suspect you do on occasion after a long, fruitless day at work. Maybe your boss has not acknowledged your talent and dedication. Maybe your clients are late in paying you. Maybe the taxman is being uncooperative. Maybe a colleague you thought was a friend is now brown-nosing his way ahead of you. Maybe you’ve come home after a nightmarish day in the office and your partner hasn’t done the washing up or made you dinner. Yes, it is dispiriting. But only if you are working only for yourself, if you are seeking praise. Let go of this neediness. Say to yourself: I am not working for glory, but for the joy of it. One day – soon – I will be dead, and who will remember my petty little promotion to Assistant Executive Managing Sub Director then?
Work to help others.
Elevate yourself from trivia.
That is the only way to true greatness.
All this brings me to the question of how best to leave my legacy without being thrust into the limelight. It is sad that even philanthropy these days is tied to celebrity, but I have to accept that this is the world we live in. Reluctantly, therefore, I might have to accept the accolades that will surely accompany my project. There are still many details to be ironed out before I can announce the nature of this venture, but for now I can reveal that it will be a sort of community centre for the twenty-first century that will benefit the young, the poor – all those who need nourishment, either for their stomachs or their minds or spirits.
The idea comes to me because, looking back at my own underprivileged childhood, I realise that the village school I attended between the ages of six and twelve carried an importance far beyond its modest proportions. Its three classrooms and tin roof were typical of primary schools in rural Malaysia at the time, but it was supported by wealthy benefactors, which meant that we had generators to power the ceiling fans and provide lighting during the monsoons