6
The Chengs
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HONG KONG
Most people driving past the squat grayish-brown building on a busy intersection of Causeway Bay would likely assume it was some sort of government health office, but the Chinese Athletic Association was actually one of Hong Kong’s most exclusive private clubs. Despite its rather perfunctory name, it was the first Chinese-founded sports facility in the former British Crown colony. It boasted the legendary gambling tycoon Stanley Lo as its honorary president, and its restrictive membership had an eight-year waiting list open only to the most established families.
The CAA’s public rooms were still firmly entrenched in late-seventies chrome-and-leather decor, since members voted to spend all the money on updating the sports facilities. Only the acclaimed restaurant had been revamped in the last few years into a plush dining room with pale-rose brocade walls and windows overlooking the main tennis courts. The round tables were strategically aligned so that everyone was seated with a view of the restaurant’s main door, allowing its esteemed members to make a grand entrance in their après-sport outfits and making mealtimes a prime spectator sport.
Every Sunday afternoon, the Cheng family would come together without fail for lunch at the CAA. No matter how busy or hectic the week had been, everyone knew that Sunday dim sum at the Clubhouse, as they called it, was mandatory attendance by all family members who were in town. Dr. Malcolm Cheng was Asia’s most esteemed heart surgeon. So prized were his skilled hands that he was famous for always wearing lambskin gloves—made specially for him by Dunhill—to protect his precious hands whenever he ventured out in public, and he took additional measures to safeguard them from the wear and tear of driving, opting instead to be chauffeured in his Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit.
This was something his well-brought-up wife, the former Alexandra “Alix” Young of Singapore, felt to be overly ostentatious, so she preferred to call for a taxi wherever possible and allow her husband the exclusive use of his car and driver. “After all,” she was keen to say, “he’s saving people’s lives every day and I’m just a housewife.” This self-deprecation was standard behavior for Alexandra, even though she was the true architect of their fortune.
As a bored doctor’s wife, Alexandra began channeling every cent of her husband’s considerable earnings into properties just as the Hong Kong housing boom was taking off. She found that she had a preternatural talent for timing the market, so beginning in the oil-recession days of the seventies, through the Communist-panic sell-off of the mid-eighties and the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Alexandra was always snapping up properties when they hit rock bottom and selling at the peak. By the middle of the first decade of the new century, with Hong Kong property going for more money per square foot than anywhere else in the world, the Chengs found themselves sitting on one of the largest privately held real estate portfolios on the island.
Sunday lunch gave Malcolm and his wife a chance to inspect their children and grandchildren on a weekly basis, and it was a duty they undertook with utter seriousness. For in spite of all the advantages the Cheng children had growing up, Malcolm and Alexandra were constantly worrying about them. (Actually, Alexandra was the one doing most of the worrying.)
Their youngest son, Alistair, “the hopeless one,” was the pampered ne’er-do-well who had just barely scraped through Sydney University and was now doing something or other in the Hong Kong film industry. He had recently become involved with Kitty Pong, a soap-opera star who claimed she was from “a good Taiwanese family,” even though everyone else in the Cheng family doubted it, since her spoken Mandarin took on a distinctive northern China accent rather than the more cutesy inflections of Taiwanese Mandarin.
Their daughter, Cecilia, “the horsey one,” had developed a passion for dressage at an early age and was constantly dealing with her temperamental horse or her temperamental husband, Tony, an Australian commodities trader whom Malcolm and Alexandra secretly nicknamed “the Convict.” A “full-time mother,” Cecilia actually spent more time on the international equestrian circuit than raising their son, Jake. (Due to all the hours he spent with their Filipino maids, Jake was becoming fluent in Tagalog; he could also do a brilliant impression of Sinatra’s “My Way.”)
And then there was Eddie, their firstborn. To all appearances, Edison Cheng was “the perfect one.” He had breezed through Cambridge Judge Business School with distinction, done a stint at Cazenove in London, and was now a rising star in Hong Kong’s private banking world. He had married Fiona Tung, who hailed from a politically connected family, and they had three very studious, well-behaved children. But privately, Alexandra worried the most about Eddie. In the last few years, he was spending far too much time hanging around with these dubious Mainland Chinese billionaires, flying all over Asia every week to attend parties, and she worried how this might be affecting his health and his family life.
Today’s lunch was especially important since Alexandra wanted to plan the logistics of the family trip next month to Singapore for the Khoo wedding. It was the first time the entire family—parents, children, grandchildren, servants, and nannies included—was traveling together, and Alexandra wanted to make sure everything went off perfectly. At one o’clock, the family began filtering in from all corners: Malcolm from a mixed-doubles tennis match; Alexandra from church with Cecilia, Tony, and Jake; Fiona and her children from their weekend tutors; and Alistair from rolling out of bed fifteen minutes ago.
Eddie was the last to arrive, and as usual he was on his phone, coming to the table and ignoring everyone, chattering loudly in Cantonese on his Bluetooth earpiece. When he finally finished his call, he flashed his family a self-satisfied grin. “It’s all sorted! I just spoke with Leo, and he wants us to use his family jet,” Eddie declared, referring to his best friend Leo Ming.
“For all of us to fly to Singapore?” Alexandra asked, a bit confused.
“Yes, of course!”
Fiona raised an immediate objection. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. First, I really don’t think the entire family should be traveling together on the same plane. What would happen if there was an accident? Second, we shouldn’t be asking such a favor of Leo.”
“I knew you were going to say that, Fi,” Eddie began. “That’s why I came up with this plan: Daddy and Mummy should go a day earlier with Alistair; Cecilia, Tony, and Jake can fly with us the next day; and later in the day, the nannies can bring our children.”
“That’s outrageous. How can you even think of taking advantage of Leo’s plane like that?” Fiona exclaimed.
“Fi, he’s my best friend and he couldn’t care less how much we use the plane,” Eddie retorted.
“What kind of jet is it? A Gulfstream? A Falcon?” Tony asked.
Cecilia dug her nails into her husband’s arm, annoyed at his eagerness, and cut in. “Why do your kids get to fly separately while my son has to travel with us?”
“What about Kitty? She’s coming too,” Alistair asked quietly.
Everyone at the table glared at Alistair in horror. “Nay chee seen, ah!” Eddie snapped.
Alistair was indignant. “I already RSVP’d for her. And Colin told me that he couldn’t wait to meet her. She’s a big star, and I—”
“In the New Territories maybe a couple of idiots watching trashy soap operas might know who she is, but trust me, nobody in Singapore has ever heard of her,” Eddie cut in.
“That’s not true—she’s one of Asia’s fastest-rising stars. And that’s beside the point—I want all our relatives in Singapore to meet her,” Alistair said.
Alexandra considered the implications of his declaration quietly, but decided to pick her battles one at a time. “Fiona is right. We can’t possibly borrow the Ming family plane two days in a row! In fact, I think it would look very inappropriate for us to fly in a private plane at all. I mean, who do we think we are?”
“Daddy’s one of the most famous heart surgeons in the world! You are Singaporean royalty! What’s wrong with flying on a private plane?” Eddie shouted in frustration, his hands gesticulating so wildly that he almost hit the waiter behind him, who was about to place a huge stack of bamboo steamers on the table.
“Uncle Eddie, look out! There’s food right behind you!” his nephew Jake shouted.
Eddie glanced around for a second and continued on his tirade. “Why are you always like this, Mummy? Why do you always behave so provincial? You are filthy rich! Why can’t you be a little less cheap for once and have more a sense of your own self-worth?” His three children looked up momentarily from their math practice test books. They were used to his rages at home but had rarely seen him so upset in front of Gong Gong and Ah Ma. Fiona pulled at his sleeve, whispering, “Lower your voice! Please don’t talk about money in front of the children.”
His mother shook her head calmly. “Eddie, this has nothing to do with self-worth. I just feel this sort of extravagance is completely unnecessary. And I am not Singaporean royalty. Singapore has no royalty. What a ridiculous thing to say.”
“This is so typical of you, Eddie. You just want all of Singapore to know that you flew in on Ming Kah-Ching’s plane,” Cecilia interjected, reaching for one of the plump roast-pork buns. “If it was your own plane, that would be one thing, but to have the audacity to borrow a plane for three trips in two days is just unheard of. I personally would rather pay for my own tickets.”
“Kitty flies private all the time,” Alistair said, though no one at the table paid him any attention.
“Well, we should get our own jet. I’ve been saying it for years. Dad, you spend practically half the month in the Beijing clinic, and since I plan to expand my presence into China in a big way in the coming year—” Eddie began.
“Eddie, I have to agree with your mother and sister on this one. I just would not want to be indebted to the Ming family in this way,” Malcolm finally said. As much as he enjoyed flying private, he could not stomach the thought of borrowing the Ming jet.
“Why do I keep trying to do this ungrateful family so many favors?” Eddie huffed in disgust. “Okay, you all do what you want. Squeeze into economy on China Airlines for all I care. My family and I are taking Leo’s plane. And it’s a Bombardier Global Express. It’s huge, state-of-the-art. There’s even a Matisse in the cabin. It’s going to be amazing.”
Fiona gave him a disapproving look, but he glared at her so forcefully that she retreated from any further objection. Eddie shoveled down a few rolls of shrimp cheong fun, got up, and announced imperiously, “I’m off. I have important clients to attend to!” And with that, Eddie stormed out, leaving a rather relieved family in his wake.
Tony, mouth full of food, whispered to Cecilia, “Let’s see their entire family plunge into the South China Sea on Leo Ming’s fancy-ass plane.”
As much as she tried to, Cecilia couldn’t stifle her laugh.