Authors: John Lanchester
Tan Son Nhat airport is unpleasant. The Vietnamese authorities are frightened of foreigners attempting to smuggle subversive
literature
and videotapes into their country so they subject all
baggage
to X-ray examination on arrival. It is a slow process which ensures long queues. On this occasion the man in front of me in the queue for customs was carrying videotapes. It was late before I got to the arrivals hall.
I went with the oldest of the taxi drivers who approached me. Vietnamese roads are dangerous and my theory is that the older a driver is, the more cautious he has been. I showed the driver the hotel’s address in Vietnamese characters. He nodded and we set off.
‘Business good?’ I asked as we headed into Ho Chi Minh City.
‘Better than 1998. Still bad,’ he said.
At the hotel I gave them my name and they gave me forms to sign. In Vietnam there are always many forms. The room rate was listed as a hundred US dollars. I said:
‘The price we were given was forty dollars.’
‘This is our business concession rate,’ said the girl. I took the confirmation fax from my bag and showed it to her. She typed out another form and gave it to me without a word. The price
listed
was now forty dollars. ‘So sorry,’ she said with a smile. She was very pretty. She rang a bell on the counter and a man came and carried my bag up to my room. I tipped him in dongs. It was too late to call Sydney so I went straight to bed.
My grandfather taught me to make coffee, and the coffee he and I make is the best in Asia. After that the second best is the
coffee
in Vietnam. It is one of the things I like about Ho Chi Minh City. The next morning I had coffee at the hotel and then I went to the factory in Cholon. The trip took half an hour and we almost had three accidents. There are more cyclists even than in China and none of them ever stops at an intersection. I made the taxi driver drop me in Hung Vuong Boulevard around the corner
from our factory. One of the side doors was open. I stepped in and went up the stairs immediately to the left, leading up to Nguyen’s office. From the stairs I could look down on most of the floor space. It was busy but not too busy.
I smiled at Nguyen’s secretary, Mah, and went straight through to his office. I could see him through the glass. He was seated at his desk wearing a baseball cap with his head down over some papers. He looked up as I went in and for a moment there was a look of horror on his face. Then he made a big smile.
‘The sun has risen twice today,’ he said. That is a Chinese proverb on meeting a friend unexpectedly. He said it in English. He speaks excellent English, nearly as good as mine. ‘How are you? And please: how is your family – is Lily well, and Mei-Lin?’
‘Yes, thank you – and your son? His examinations are over now?’
‘Top in his class,’ said Nguyen, straightening slightly. He made a gesture over my head at Mah and she came into the room. ‘I have forgotten my manners. Tea?’
‘Thank you.’
His look at her, I thought, contained some other instruction. As she left he bent and began to take some folded papers out of a low desk drawer.
‘Can I interest you in our latest operating figures?’ he asked.
The reason for my being in Vietnam was as follows: we were losing money on our factory there, with costs considerably greater than revenue, and had begun to suspect that a fraud was taking place. The nature of the fraud was likely to involve the inclusion on the payroll of workers who did not exist. I had come to Ho Chi Minh City to assess the evidence about this. The
difficulty
was that our operation was a joint venture with former members of the Ho Chi Minh City government, who provided capital and also help with the legalities of permits and
permissions
. If there was fraud it was likely that they would be involved in it. The further difficulty was that the rule of law in Vietnam is not strong and it would be hard to prove fraud or to prosecute it. By now we were in what the Americans call a lose– lose situation. If there was fraud it would be a big problem but if our factory was losing money for other reasons it would also be a big problem.
It was not a fruitful day. I did not achieve my primary purpose. Nguyen kept me in his office and my only opportunity to look at the factory was when we went to lunch. I asked to take a walking tour around the floor. There did not to seem to be as many people engaged in machine assembly as I would expect. All I learnt was that the figures were indeed bad. The latest numbers were even worse than the data we had most recently seen in Hong Kong.
‘Our quality is high but so are our prices,’ said Nguyen. ‘Western machines.’ He gestured at the overhead air-conditioning unit above his desk. It was not one of our own models. For a
second
I thought: I must not say anything about labour costs. He will realise I am thinking about the size of the workforce and perhaps that I suspect fraud. Then I thought: no, it is too obvious. If I avoid the subject he will realise that I have suspicions. So I shrugged and said:
‘But if you could make them more cheaply …’
He smiled and said:
‘The owners of a business always think costs are too high.’
I smiled back:
‘And the owners are always right.’
I snapped my folder shut and stood up. We were finished for the day. I went back to the hotel to tidy up before dinner. Nguyen had insisted on taking me out. I knew this would happen. He had called his cousin who owned a restaurant near the Continental Hotel. It was a good restaurant and the meal would be good.
I had a shower. The water was not quite warm enough. I changed back into my work suit and then thought that was too formal, so put on a short-sleeved shirt and trousers instead. This is a shirt that makes my wife giggle because of its bright pattern so I wear it only when I am away from home. Because I had half an hour to spare I walked to the restaurant. The streets were crowded and lively and colourful. I was glad to be going
somewhere
. I find that the end of the day when I am travelling is often lonely.
I was early, but Nguyen and his wife were already there. He was sitting at a round table, laid for six, in the middle of the room. They stood up and we greeted each other. The others arrived while we were still on our feet. Thieu was a senior figure in the bureaucracy of the city and Lau worked for the Ministry of the
Interior. They were both senior Party members. Thieu brought his wife, who was related to Nguyen’s wife. They were both very beautiful and smartly dressed.
Nguyen spoke to his cousin and ordered the food. Everybody drank beer. The atmosphere was very friendly. We spoke English. I talked to Nguyen’s wife about their son. We discussed the economy. I talked about Sydney and about astronaut
syndrome
and everyone pretended to have sympathy.
‘People say the Internet this, the Internet that,’ I said. ‘It’s going to change the face of business. No one will have to go anywhere, everything will be virtual, everything will be video conferencing. When? Always next year, next decade. Everything is always about the future: next week, sometime, never. Okay, it sounds good. No more flying for me. No more excellent food in Ho Chi Minh City – what excuse would I have to tell my wife? I get to live with my family and do business. But when?’
The waiter brought bowls of phô. It was a modern version, like the consommé my grandfather makes when he feels unwell. The bean sprouts and chillies and mint were served on a little white plate to the side. I always think Vietnamese food tastes clear and light. When the waiter went away Thieu lent forwards. I could feel discomfort behind his smile. His eyes were bright.
‘I will tell you something. The Internet is not a friend of Vietnamese people.’
‘Surely it is merely a tool, capable of good and bad use like any other instrument,’ I said.
Nguyen said something in Vietnamese. He turned to me.
‘I was explaining “instrument”,’ he said. Thieu spoke rapidly back to him in Vietnamese. ‘He says, the Internet is full of lies. It is like a river, a torrent of lies. Many falsehoods about Vietnam. He says the Party has as much of a duty to protect the people from lies as it does to keep excrement out of people’s drinking water.’
‘Not very different from television, I think,’ said Lau, older and calmer than his friend. ‘It is what is broadcast that is important.’
‘Television can be in our control,’ said Thieu. ‘Internet very difficult to control.’
A year or two before, the government had closed all the cybercafés in the country and confiscated all their computer
equipment. I argued with Thieu about this for a while, until the waiter arrived to take our plates. Mrs Thieu asked a question about what presents I was going to take my wife and daughter, and the conversation changed. The rest of the evening was calm. I drank more beer than I had intended to.
After dinner, I walked back to the hotel. It was much cooler but no less humid and only a little less busy. There were still many people on bicycles. A small group of Western backpackers stood around one of them who was vomiting into a gutter. I could smell the alcohol as I walked past them. A prostitute accosted me in Putonghua. I said, no thank you. The walk made me feel a little drunk.
When I got back to the hotel I checked my email. There was a one-word message from my partner.
‘Well?’
I typed back:
‘Don’t know yet. Plan B.’
*
In the morning Nguyen and I walked to the factory together. Several competing noodle carts across the street were already busy. The smell made my mouth fill with saliva. We worked over papers and orders while his secretary brought many cups of tea.
‘Where would you like to go for lunch?’ Nguyen asked at 1 o’clock. I pushed my chair back from the desk and stretched.
‘I’m not so hungry,’ I said. ‘But I’m feeling a little sleepy and thick in the head from the jet lag and the beer last night. I think the best thing is if I go for a walk. Then maybe when I come back I will be able to keep up with you.’
‘Well, I don’t like to miss a meal if I can help it,’ he said,
making
a joke of cupping his stomach in both hands. It was true, he had begun to put on some weight. But he was still handsome. I did some more stretching and yawning as I headed for the door.
When I got out of the factory I walked around two corners, looked left and right, and stopped a passing cyclo.
‘Thien Hau Pagoda, please,’ I said.
The driver was young and fit and we got there quickly. There was a crowd of incense sellers and pilgrims outside the temple gates. I went in and looked around. Then I saw him: a Chinese man in his sixties standing beside one of the giant urns in the
main pagoda. He was wearing thick glasses. He nodded at me. I approached him and we shook hands. We walked slowly around the courtyard together.
‘Ah Fu,’ I said. ‘It is good to see you again.’
‘I like to come here to thank Thien Hau,’ he said. ‘I came with my brother the night before he left Vietnam.’
Thien Hau is the goddess of the sea. In Hong Kong there is a big festival for her. Many of the boat people came to this temple to pray before they left Vietnam.
‘Thien Hau looked after him well,’ I said. Fu turned to me. His glasses made his eyes look bigger. His eyes were rimmed with red.
‘I was scared to leave,’ he said. ‘I should have been scared to stay behind.’
Fu’s brother had left after the North won the civil war. He was a businessman who had good contacts with the government of the South. Because of that and because of being Chinese he was in a vulnerable position. Fu himself had been a university teacher and he had stayed. He lost his post soon afterwards and had lived on menial work ever since. His brother got to Hong Kong, where he spent three years in a refugee camp. When he was released he found work in a hardware business and eventually came to know my partner’s father. They played mah-jong together. My partner’s father said Fu’s brother had the best memory for
mah-jong
of anyone he had ever met.
‘Shall we go outside?’ Fu said.
There were many people outside. We stood beside the temple wall. Fu took out a spiral-bound notebook covered in beautiful tiny Chinese characters, a real scholar’s handwriting.
‘It is obviously difficult to give exact figures. There is much
different
business, men come and go, there are deliveries. But I observed the traffic in and out of the factory during working hours for more than two weeks and I would put the likely range of employees present during that period – which obviously does not allow for longer illnesses or vacations, both of which I suspect are unlikely but that is your consideration – I would put the likely range as being between seventy-five and eighty-five with an absolute upper limit of ninety. That is the figure for everyone going into the building on non-delivery work, including
temporary
workers and the like.’
He held out the notebook, offering documentary proof. I handed him an envelope from my jacket pocket. Five hundred US dollars was objectively too great a payment. But Fu both needed and deserved it. He took the money as if it was an insult.
‘Thank you, that is excellent. How …?’ I asked.
Fu was too proud to smile. ‘Noodle cart,’ he said.
I hailed another cyclo outside the pagoda and headed back to the factory.
That evening I wrote an email to my partner:
‘It is as we feared but worse. The real number of workers is at best ninety, more likely eighty. Payroll as you know is 135. When one of us goes there, Nguyen must use temporary employees. The eighty he has must work very hard to achieve the levels of productivity that they do. But that is not relevant. We have a big, big problem.’
The next day I flew back to Chek Lap Kok and caught a
connection
to Baiyun airport in Guangzhou. The flight was very bumpy. Then I took a taxi to an apartment belonging to a cousin of Ah Wong’s called Lai, as I often did. He knew I was coming. It was restful to use his apartment because he was almost always out. I let myself in. In the hallway he had two posters, one of Bill Gates and one of Mao Zedong.
A girl was sitting at the table in Lai’s kitchen. When she saw it was me she looked disappointed.
‘I’m Man. I’m his cousin Wong’s business partner.’
‘I’m Jade,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to be his girlfriend.’
‘You must be a model or an actress. I can tell from just looking at you.’
She gave a little pout. She was pleased.
‘I have done some modelling.’
We sat down to watch television together. There was a historical soap opera about the Opium Wars. I had bought Lai a bottle of Chivas from the duty free at Chek Lap Kok. We drank some of it. At half past eleven, just as I was going to bed, Lai arrived. Lai is an engineer who worked for one of the big factories pirating Microsoft software. The factory specialised in Windows NT and 2000, which they customised and supported for individual businesses. It was a brilliant idea. Lai often said their support was better than Microsoft’s. The business was owned by the People’s Liberation Army.
‘So sorry, so sorry,’ he said to Jade. ‘Big crisis at work. I called but your mobile was switched off. I didn’t know where you’d be.’ He tried to be cheerful but I could see he knew he was in trouble. Jade took her telephone out of her tiny expensive-looking
handbag
. It was on and working. I said goodnight and immediately went to bed. For about half an hour, I could hear them arguing, and then the door slammed as she went out.
I never sleep well in Guangzhou. The city feels too busy. I woke
early and lay in bed. I could hear Lai moving about. He sleeps only at weekends. I tried to stay in bed longer but I couldn’t, so I got up. Lai was eating congee. He was depressed.
‘I spent a hundred yuan last night. Perfume. Dinner. Nightclub. A hundred fucking yuan. Do I get inside her pants? No. Do I lose the girlfriend I already have? Yes. Fuck. What’s the matter with me? You tell me, Spaceman.’
That is Lai’s nickname for me. I suspect, behind my back, some of the others in the office also use it.
‘Maybe you are too ugly.’
He tilted his head from side to side and looked at his reflection in the window. Across the compound was another new
apartment
block with laundry hanging from many of the windows.
‘No, it can’t be that.’
‘Too poor?’
‘Definitely not that.’
‘Too stupid?’
‘No, and in any case women don’t mind.’
‘Maybe she’s the kept mistress of a rich businessman in Hong Kong and was too ashamed to tell you.’
He clicked his fingers and spun round from the window where he had still been looking at his reflection.
‘I knew you’d work it out.’
He sat on a stool beside the kitchen counter and sighed.
‘Aeeyah. Maybe she’ll have me back. It’s all so tiring. Maybe I should get married. How’s the family?’
‘All fine.’
‘Going to see the Fat Fucking Fool?’
‘No, I am in Guangzhou for pleasure, because I enjoy the company of its polite, calm, philosophically minded
inhabitants
, temperate climate, slow pace of movement, and healthy lifestyle.’
We left for work. Lai gave me a lift on the back of his
motorbike
. It is a BMW. When Wong and I set up AP Enterprises we tried to hire Lai to come and work for us but he said that although we would pay him more than he earned in China, his standard of living would be much higher in Guangzhou. We used his version of Windows NT at our office. We paid him cash, in US dollars.
*
Chan’s father-in-law was the second most powerful man in the Party in Guangzhou. The whole company might already have gone under if it were not for the contract we had won with his help. It was a contract to supply air conditioners to a new office block being built for a mixture of Party functionaries and city
officials
down near the riverfront. The deal was worth a million US dollars and we had paid about two hundred thousand in
sweeteners
to win it. That was cheap. We needed Chan’s father-in-law. Unfortunately, this meant we needed Chan also.
I spent as much of the day as possible touring the factory. The deputy foreman took me around. He was a fifty-year-old Cantonese man who was missing the little finger on his left hand from an industrial accident. The factory worked well because he and the foreman ran it.
I did not eat all day because I knew we would be having
dinner
. Some contact of Chan’s in the local Party or city
administration
would come out with us. This always happened. Because it was not his money Chan would order much too much food. The kitchen staff had the leftovers and he got credit at the restaurant for subsequent meals. It was the system.
At 6 o’clock, rubbing his hands, Chan came into the small office where I was working. He took a bottle of brandy and two glasses out of a cupboard.
‘Very good, very good,’ he said. ‘A good day’s work. Time for some refreshment.’
I accepted the drink but did not take any of it. Chan drinks more than most Cantonese. It would be a long night. I felt
homesick
.
‘Wan Guo has a new Mercedes,’ Chan said. I had no idea who he was talking about. ‘Aeeyah! Sixty thousand American dollars! Probably the same again for the shipping and import licence! An SL. CD, air conditioning, every extra you can think of. He says the best thing about it is that it makes his girlfriend twice as active in bed because she is so worried about losing him to another woman! The man who sold it to him …’
Chan talked a lot more. I blocked my ears but kept him going with grunts and nods and by repeating the last words he had said in the form of a question.
‘Went to Shanghai?’ I asked.
‘Aeeyah, took two prostitutes and asked for a suite at the Hyatt. The man at the desk said …’
There was a slim chance Chan’s father-in-law might be present at dinner. If so the evening might be worthwhile. I could feel him out on our prospects and ask about any large upcoming city contracts. If he wasn’t there, the occasion would be pure
guanxi
maintenance.
‘… which is why I’m so excited, I think he could be a very important contact for us,’ Chan eventually concluded. He seemed to think he had been talking towards a conclusion. I tried to remember what he had been saying. Something about some spoilt little emperor, the only son of somebody or other.
‘Remind me who his father is again?’
Chan was incredulous.
‘Only the Party boss of the whole of Guangdong province and the Special Economic Zone!’
The chance that anything useful would come through contact with this man’s son was zero. People are full of fantasies about how to do business in China. The key is that you must find
people
with power and deal directly with them and be clear about everything and be prepared to pay.
Chan drank brandy and talked for an hour and a half. Then we took a taxi to a restaurant. He had a new Toyota Jeep, which he described and praised at some length. Then he told me about the restaurant.
‘The chef trained with Deng Xiaoping’s chef. Szechuanese. Spicy food! But very good! Ingredients very fresh!’
The restaurant was in a new hotel, built with Japanese money but run by Chinese managers. We had a private room. There were mirrors on the walls and a revolving mirrored ball on the ceiling. The factory foreman was there, looking clean and scrubbed. I sat next to him. Friends of Chan’s joined us. They were all princes and princesses, the children of people who had power. One wore dark glasses. There were two or three people from the local Party hierarchy. One of them, Xiang, I had met before. He was wearing a Party membership button on what looked like an expensive Western jacket. He had a small scar over one eyebrow.
There was a lot of food. It is difficult to get good Szechuanese
cooking and I enjoyed the meal more than I thought I would. There was a delicious hot-and-sour soup thickened with
chicken
’s blood.
‘I was not sure about your Tung,’ one of the Party members said. ‘He has an unintelligent face. But he did well when he killed all the chickens.’
There was a scare in Hong Kong in 1997, after reunification, when a chicken virus crossed over to the human population. The Government killed every chicken in the territory and the disease went away.
‘I haven’t eaten half-done chicken since,’ I said. That is chicken served bloody and half cooked.
‘Ah, but it’s good though,’ said Chan, who was putting a bone down on the edge of his bowl with his fingers. His lips had a sheen of grease.
There were many courses. As a concession to Cantonese tastes the meal ended with a steamed fish, a grouper. The
superstition
is that the fish is not turned over, because if it is, a
fisherman
drowns. I could see Chan looking sadly at the uneaten portion of the grouper. All the others were so full they could hardly smoke.
Chan stood up. He rubbed his hands again.
‘That’s the hard part of the evening over,’ he said. ‘Now who wants some fun?’
About half of the group excused themselves. I said goodbye to the foreman.
‘I don’t think I’m going to eat again this week,’ he said. He had the hiccups.
Most of the Party members went home but Xiang said he would come to the nightclub. Most of the princelings said they would come too. Taxis arrived and we got in. The man in dark glasses had still not taken them off.
The nightclub was called Shanghai Palace. The Chairman of the Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, is from Shanghai, so
everything
about the city is fashionable in China, even in the south. The nightclub had bright coloured lights inside.
‘Fibre optics,’ said Xiang. ‘Expensive.’
Whenever I go to Guangzhou I think of my first visit there in 1974 on our way to Hong Kong. Then it seemed so colourless.
Now there are colours and bright lights everwhere. You can buy anything you want.
We sat at a table. Girls brought drinks. A band was playing Cantopop so loud that no one could talk. Chan looked flushed and sweaty from the meal. But he was content. Xiang had a faint smile that could have been a sneer. He had taken his jacket off and hung it on the back of the chair.
Two men began to argue at a table behind us, accusing each other of something. Their women tried to quieten them down. They only got angrier. Then one of them hit the other. But it was a bad punch and struck high on the temple. The man who had been punched dived over the table. He landed on top of his opponent. It was unscientific but effective because he had a big weight advantage. The table was made of glass, and it overturned and smashed. Three or four of the staff arrived and dragged the men apart before
throwing
them out. The women followed, trying to look defiant. The staff came back in and started to sweep up. The band kept on playing. By the time the song finished the mess was gone.
‘Lucky there were no Public Security Bureau here,’ I said.
‘This nightclub is owned by the PSB,’ said Xiang with his
smilesneer
.
After two more songs, the band took a break. My ears were ringing. I would stay for one more set of songs and then I could go. The others began talking among themselves. Xiang turned to Chan.
‘So how is your wife’s father enjoying his retirement?’ he asked.
I froze. Chan, nodding and smoking, said:
‘Classical literature. Fishing. Gardening. He loves it.’
‘He is a cultured gentleman,’ Xiang said. He glanced at me. It would be a big loss of face to admit I did not know about this. But I had no choice. I said to Chan:
‘Your father-in-law has retired?’
The Fat Fucking Fool was looking beyond me, towards the bar.
‘Tired of all the, you know, work. The politics. Factions. Spends most of his time with his grandchildren. He’s much happier. It’s great.’
Xiang said to me:
‘There have been some changes in the Party in Guangzhou. You know how it is. Modernisation. Different people.’
I said: ‘And might there be a way of getting to know these people?’ I didn’t even pretend to spare Chan’s feelings.
‘Of course. But they are very very busy. Difficult to get access to. You know how it is.’
We changed the subject. The band came back and played another set. When they finished I said my goodbyes and left. I made sure I took Xiang’s card. Chan was drunk and happy.
‘A good night!’ he said. He had a girl sitting on his lap. No doubt she too would end up on the company’s bill.
When I got back to Lai’s flat, it was past midnight. He was still out. I called Wong on my mobile phone. He was out too, so I left a message.
‘Partner,’ I said, ‘I have good reason to believe that we are fucked.’
*
Lai still wasn’t there in the morning. Either he was doing a big push at work or he had got lucky with a girl.
It took me two days to get Xiang on the phone.
‘Please excuse my elusive behaviour,’ he told me. ‘My boss has had me rushing around Guangzhou looking at building sites. I’ve barely had time to go to the bathroom. So sorry. And after such an enjoyable evening.’
I had not noticed previously because Xiang spoke perfect Cantonese, but over the telephone I could hear a faint Shanghai accent. That explained his nice manners. It explained other things too. We made an appointment to meet the following day. I offered to buy him dinner but he declined. He was polite.
Lai came home that evening. I was waiting for him.
‘Chan’s father-in-law is out. I found out two nights ago. It was a fucking ambush. How come you didn’t tell me?’
He put his laptop on the table. He looked tired from work rather than from sex. He said: