Five Star Billionaire

TASH AW

Five Star Billionaire

A Novel

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 next to the Brazilian-music lover. He was with a girl. Maybe it was his sister and not a girlfriend.

Phoebe sat down next to them and turned her body away slightly to show she was not interested in what they were doing. But in the reflection in the window – the sun was shining brightly that day, it was almost Mid-Autumn Festival and the weather was crisp, golden, perfect for dreaming – she could see them quite clearly. The girl was bathed in crystal light as if on a stage, and the boy was cut in half by a slanting line of darkness. Every time he leant forward he came into the light. His skin was like candlewax.

As the girl bent over her magazine, Phoebe could see that she was definitely a girlfriend, not a sister. Her hair fell over her face, so Phoebe could not tell if she was pretty, but she sat the way a pretty person would. Her dress was a big black shirt with loads of words printed all over it like graffiti, meaningless sentences such as PEACE

Phoebe looked away at once. Her cheeks felt hot.

Do not let other people step on you.

Sometimes Shanghai weighed down on her with the weight of ten skyscrapers. The people were so haughty, their dialect so harsh to her ears. If someone talked to her in their language she would feel attacked just by the sound of it. She had come here full of hope, but on some nights, even after she had deposited all her loathing and terror into her secret journal, she still felt that she was tumbling down, down, and there was no way up. It had been a mistake to gamble as she did.

She was not from any part of China, but from a country thousands of miles to the south, and in that country she had grown up in a small town in the far north-east. It is a region that is poor and remote, so she is used to people thinking of her as inferior, even in her own country. In her small town the way of life had not changed very much for fifty years, and would probably never change. Visitors from the capital city used to call it charming, but they didn’t have to live there. It was not a place for dreams and ambition, and so Phoebe did not dream. She did what all the other young boys and girls did when they left school at sixteen: they travelled across the mountain range that cut the country in two to find work on the west coast, moving slowly southward until they reached the capital city.

Here are some of the jobs her friends took in the year they left home. Trainee waiter. Assistant fake-watch stall-holder. Karaoke hostess. Assembly-line worker in a semiconductor factory. Bar girl. Shampoo girl. Water-cooler delivery man. Seafood-restaurant cleaner. (Phoebe’s first job was among those listed above, but she would rather not say which one.) Five years in these kinds of jobs, they passed so slowly.

Then she had some luck. There had been a girl who’d disappeared. Everyone thought she was in trouble – she’d been hanging out with a gangster, the kind of big-city boy you couldn’t tell your small-town parents about, and everyone thought it wouldn’t be long before she was into drugs or prostitution; they were sure of it because she had turned up one day with a big jade bracelet and a black eye. But from nowhere Phoebe received an email from this girl. She wasn’t in trouble, she was in China. She’d just decided that enough was enough, and left one morning without telling her boyfriend. She’d saved enough money to go to Hong Kong, where she’d been a karaoke hostess for a while – she was not ashamed to say it because everyone does it, but it was not for long – and now she was working in Shenzhen. She was a restaurant manager, a classy international place, not some dump, you know, and she was in charge of a staff of sixteen. She even had her own apartment (photo attached – small but bright and modern with a vase of plastic roses on a glass table). Thing is, she’d met a businessman from Beijing who was going to marry her and take her up north, and she wanted to make sure everything was OK at the restaurant before she left. They always needed good waiting staff at New World Restaurant. Just come! Don’t worry about visas. We can fix that. There were two smiley faces and a winky one at the end of the email.

Those days were so exciting, when they emailed each other several times a day. What clothes shall I bring? What is the winter weather like? What kind of shoes do I need for my uniform? Each email that arrived from China made Phoebe feel that she was one step closer to lifting herself up in the world and becoming someone successful. It made the hair salon where she was working at the time seem so small – the clients were small people who did not realise how small they were. When they said to her, Hey, Phoebe, you are not concentrating, she just laughed inside because she knew that very soon she would be the one giving them orders and leaving them tips. She was going to experience adventures and see things that none of them could even dream about.

It took her a few weeks to get enough money together for the ticket to Hong Kong plus a bit extra to get her to Shenzhen, but from then on it would be plain sailing, because she had a job lined up and she would stay with her friend for the first couple of months until she found her own place. She didn’t need all that much money, she would start making plenty once she got there, her friend assured her. From then on anything was possible. She could start her own business doing whatever she wanted – some former waitresses at the restaurant were already going around in chauffeur-driven cars just a year after they quit their jobs. New China was amazing, she would see for herself. No one asks too many questions, no one cares where you are from. All that counts is your ability. If you can do a job, you’re hired.

People say that it is hard to leave their lives behind, and that when the time comes for you to do so you will feel reluctance and longing for your home. But these are people with nice lives to leave behind. For others it is different. Leaving is a relief.

The emails continued, full of !!! marks as usual, but they were less frequent, and finally, at the internet café near East Tsim Sha Tsui station, waiting for the train to Shenzhen, Phoebe logged on for the first time in four days to find not a single email from her friend. Not even a short message that said, Hurry, too excited, followed by lots of smileys. When at last she got to Shenzhen it took her some time to locate the restaurant. The sign was proud and shiny. New World International Restaurant, it read above twin pillars of twisted gold dragons – Phoebe recognised it from the photos her friend had sent her. The menu was in a glass case outside, a sure sign of a classy joint. But as she approached, Phoebe’s heart began to experience a dark fluttering in her ribcage, the way she imagined bat wings would feel against her cheek. It was a sensation that would stay with her for the rest of her time in China. The glass doors were open, but the restaurant inside was dim even though it was the middle of the afternoon. When she stepped inside she saw an empty space without any chairs and tables. Part of the floor had been ripped up, and on the bare concrete she could see messy patches of glue where carpets had once been laid. There was a bar decorated with scenes of Chinese legends carved in bronze, cranes flying over mountains and lakes. Some workmen were shifting machinery and tools at the far end of the restaurant, and when Phoebe called out to them they seemed confused. The restaurant had closed down a few days ago, soon it would be a hotpot chain. The people who worked there? Probably just got jobs somewhere else. No one stays in a job for long in Shenzhen anyway.

She thought, This is not a good situation.

She tried calling her friend’s mobile phone number, but it was dead. This number is out of use, the voice told her, over and over again. Each time she dialled it was the same. This number is out of use.

She checked how much money she had and began looking for a cheap guesthouse. The streets were clean but full of people. Everyone looked as though they were hurrying to an appointment, everyone had some place to go. Amid the mass of people that swarmed around her like a thick muddy river, she started to notice a certain kind of person, and soon they were the only people she really saw. Young single women. They were everywhere, rushing for the bus or marching steadfastly with a steely look on their faces, or going from shop to shop handing out their CVs, their entire lives on one sheet of paper. They were all restless, they were all moving, they were all looking for work, floating everywhere, casting out their lives to whoever would take them.

So this is how it happens. This is how I become like them, Phoebe thought. In the space of a few hours she had passed from one world to another. One moment she was almost an assistant manager in a classy international restaurant, next moment she was a migrant worker. Her new life had materialised out of thin air like a trick of fate. Unattached, searching, alone. Some people say that when you find other people who are just like you, who share your position in life, you feel happier, less alone, but Phoebe did not think this was true. Knowing that she was the same as millions of other girls made her feel lonelier than ever.