Overview

In 1981, David Wong retired after 20 years as an administrative officer in the Hong Kong Government to chance his arm in the city's cut-throat free market, as the managing director of a large multinational trading corporation. He soon discovered more legal and ethical boobytraps in business than he had bargained for. Nonetheless, he sidestepped them and in 1982, during the Sino-British negotiations to end British rule, he quickly sensed a unwarranted panic over the value of the Hong Kong dollar. He acted accordingly and made himself millions in weeks. Wong then visited different parts of China with friends. In the process he fell in love with a young and beautiful member of the Communist Youth League. When he tried to marry her, however, the mainland bureaucracy threw a host of obstacles in his path. After all, he was perceived as a capitalist from Hong Kong. But Wong's friends used their collective guanxi with members of the Politburo to gain him permission to marry the girl. The title of this volume is aptly Love, Money and Friendships. Interlaced with Wong's narrative are fascinating insights into aspects of China's long and colourful history and culture.

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9789887554745

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Reviews

David T. K. Wong is an exceptionally fluent writer whose compelling stories cover a wide range of themes. His talent sparkles, inveigles and mesmerizes. - Sylvia Tankel, Editor, Short Stories International David T. K. Wong sends us on exciting journeys between East and West and challenges our perceptions of what has been gained and what could be lost in the process. - Pam Fraser Solomon, Senior Producer, BBC Radio 4 David T. K. Wong's prose, spare and clean, occasionally rises to eloquence. Sometimes I found myself pausing to replay a paragraph, marvelling at how nicely he lays words down on the page. - Joel McCormick, Window magazine

"""David T. K. Wong is an exceptionally fluent writer whose compelling stories cover a wide range of themes. His talent sparkles, inveigles and mesmerizes."" - Sylvia Tankel, Editor, Short Stories International ""David T. K. Wong sends us on exciting journeys between East and West and challenges our perceptions of what has been gained and what could be lost in the process."" - Pam Fraser Solomon, Senior Producer, BBC Radio 4 ""David T. K. Wong's prose, spare and clean, occasionally rises to eloquence. Sometimes I found myself pausing to replay a paragraph, marvelling at how nicely he lays words down on the page."" - Joel McCormick, Window magazine"

Author Information

David T. K. Wong was born in Hong Kong and has degrees in political science and journalism from Stanford. At the ripe old age of 89, he is publicly exposing for the first time some of the shadier insider dealings in the colonial administration during the governorship of Sir Murray MacLehose. Wong is now resident in Malaysia where he is working on the next volume of his family memoirs, dealing with the goings-on in the Hong Kong commercial sector during the 1980s when he was managing director of Li & Fung, an international trading company. He is the founder of the annual David T. K. Wong Fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in the UK. His website is at http://davidtkwong.net/.

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