Five Star Billionaire. Tash Aw
come true.
All I cared for were these introductory images; the show that followed was of secondary importance to me.
So much wasted time.
Now, when I look back at those childhood fantasies, I chuckle with embarrassment, for I realise that I was foolish: I should never have been so modest in my ambitions, nor waited so long to pursue them.
It is said that the legendary tycoon Cecil Lim Kee Huat – still compos mentis today at 101 – made his first profit at the age of eight, selling watermelons off a cart on the old coast road to Port Dickson. At thirteen he was running a coffee stand in Seremban, and at fifteen, salvaging and redistributing automobile spare parts on a semi-industrial scale, a recycling genius long before the concept was even invented. Small-town Malaya in the 1920s was not a place for dreams. He was eighteen and working as an occasional porter in the Colony Club when he had the good fortune to meet a young Assistant District Officer from Fife called MacKinnon, only recently arrived in the Malay States. History does not record the precise nature of their relationship (those ugly rumours of blackmail were never proved); and in any event, as we will see later, imagining the whys and wherefores of past events, the what-might-have-beens – all that is pointless. The only thing worth considering is what actually happens, and what happened in Lim’s case was that he was left with enough money upon MacKinnon’s untimely death (in a drowning accident) to start the first local insurance business in Singapore, a small enterprise that would eventually become the Overseas Chinese Assurance Company, for so long a bedrock of the Malaysian and Singaporean commercial landscape until its recent collapse. We can learn much from people like Lim, but his case study would involve a separate book altogether. For now, it is sufficient to ask: What were you doing when you were eight, thirteen, fifteen, and eighteen? The answer is, I suspect: Not very much.
In the business of life, every tiny episode is a test, every human encounter a lesson. Look and learn. One day you might achieve all that I have. But time is sprinting past you, faster than you think. You’re already playing catch-up, even as you read this.
Fortunately, you do get a second chance. My advice to you is: Take it. A third rarely comes your way.
1
Move to Where the Money Is
There was a boy at the counter waiting for his coffee, nodding to the music. Phoebe had noticed him as soon as he walked through the door, his walk so confident, soft yet bouncy. He must have grown up walking on carpet. He ordered two lattes and a green tea muffin and paid with a silver ICBC card that he slipped out of a wallet covered in grey-and-black chessboard squares. He was only a couple of years younger than Phoebe, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three, but already he had a nice car, a silver-blue hatchback she had seen earlier when she was crossing the street and he nearly ran her over. It was strange how Phoebe noticed such things nowadays, as swift and easy as breathing. She wondered when she had picked up the habit. She had not always been like this.
Outside, the branches of the plane trees strained the bright mid-autumn sunlight, their shadows casting a pretty pattern on the pavement. There was a light wind, too, that made the leaves dance.
‘You like this music, huh?’ Phoebe asked as she reached across him for some sachets of sugar.
His coffees arrived. ‘It’s bossa nova,’ he said, as if it was an explanation, only she didn’t understand it.
‘Ei, I also like Spanish music!’
‘Huh?’ he muttered as he balanced his tray. ‘It’s Brazilian.’ He didn’t even look at her, though she was glad he didn’t, because if he had, it would have been a you-are-nothing look, the kind of quick glance she had become used to since arriving in Shanghai, people from high up looking down on her.
Brazil and Spain were nearly the same, anyway.
They were in a Western-style coffee bar just off Huaihai Lu; the streets were busy, it was a Saturday. But the week no longer divided neatly into weekend and weekday for Phoebe; it had ceased to do so ever since she arrived in Shanghai a few weeks prior to this. Every day tumbled into the next without meaning, as they had done for too long now. She didn’t even know what she was doing in this part of town; she couldn’t afford anything in the shops and her Italian coffee cost more than the shirt she was wearing. It was a big mistake to have come here. Her plan was so stupid; what did she think she would accomplish? Maybe she would have to reconsider everything.
Phoebe Chen Aiping, why are you so afraid all the time? Do not be afraid! Failure is not acceptable! You must raise yourself up and raise up your entire family.
She had started keeping a diary. Every day she would write down her darkest fears and craziest ambitions. It was a technique she’d learnt from a self-help master one day in Guangzhou as she waited in a noodle shop, killing time just after she had been to the Human Resources Market. A small TV had been set on top of the glass counter next to jars of White Rabbit sweets, but at first she did not pay attention, she thought it was just the news. Then she realised that it was a DVD of an inspirational life-teacher, a woman who talked about how she had turned her life around and now wanted to show the rest of us how we too could transform our lowly, invisible existence into a life of eternal happiness and success. Phoebe liked the way the woman looked straight at her, holding her gaze so steadily that Phoebe felt embarrassed, shamed by her own failure, the complete lack of even the tiniest achievement in her life. The woman had shimmering lacquered hair that was classy but not old-fashioned. She showed how a mature woman can look beautiful and successful even when no longer in her first springtime, as she put it herself, laughing. She had so many wise things to say, so many clever sayings and details on how to be successful. If only Phoebe had had a pen and paper she would have written down every single one, because now she cannot remember much except the feeling of courage the woman had given her, words about not being afraid of being on one’s own, far from home. It was as if she had looked into Phoebe’s head and listened to all the anxieties that were spinning around inside, as if she had been next to Phoebe as she lay awake at night wondering how she was going to face the next day. Phoebe felt a release, as if someone had lifted a great mountain of rocks from her shoulders, as if someone had said, You are not alone, I understand your troubles, I understand your loneliness, I am also like you. And Phoebe thought, The moment I have some money, the first thing I am going to buy is your book. I will not even buy an LV handbag or a new HTC smartphone, I am going to buy your words of wisdom and study them the way some people study the Bible.
The book was called Secrets of a Five Star Billionaire. This is something Phoebe would never forget.
One tip that did stick in her mind was the diary, which the woman did not call a diary but a Journal of Your Secret Self, in which you would write down all your black terrors, everything that made you fearful and weak, alongside everything you dream of. You must have more positive dreams than burdensome fears. Once you write something in this book it cannot harm you any more because the fears are conquered by the dreams on the opposite page. So when you are successful you can read this journal one last time before you discard it forever, and you will smile to see how afraid and underdeveloped you were, because you will have come so far. Then you will throw this book away into the Huangpu River and your past self will disappear, leaving only the glorious reborn product of your dreams.
She started the journal six months ago, but still her dreams had not cancelled out her fears. It would happen soon. It had to.
I must not let this city crush me down.
Phoebe looked around the café. The chairs were mustard-yellow and grey, the walls unpainted concrete, as if the work had not yet been finished, but she knew that it was meant to look like this, it was considered fashionable. On the terrace outside there were foreigners sitting with their faces tilted towards the sun – they did not mind their skin turning to leather. Someone got up to leave and suddenly there was a table free