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More of the family.
Feb. 4th, 2002 09:00 amWell, last night I said there'd be more of Ho's family soon, so I may as well bore you senseless while I wait for the office to get warm. Our landlord is not entirely clear on the concept that turning the furnace on before people arrive is a good thing, and even when he is, this end of the building tends to be much colder and the accounting offices tend to be much warmer than they should. (But I have an office in the cold zone, so I can live with this.) Here's more.
Ho's father was, as I said, fourth of five. His father Zhenhua was from a small family and had spent a great deal of his life with the knowledge that his parents' legacy was riding on his shoulders. He didn't particularly like it, but he accepted it, while at the same time vowing to avoid that problem with his own family. As it happened, the pressure touched him in a particularly unpleasant way. Zhenhua carried a genetic quirk neither he nor anyone else was ever aware of, and between the stress of familial expectations and a faulty gene, he developed a low-level case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. If a thing was worth doing, it was worth doing well. And thoroughly. And repeatedly. And repeatedly. And it probably deserved checking two or three or eight times after the fact. And it had to be done perfectly or there would be several Hells to pay. . . Zhenhua had enough sense to realize that this was not normal, and went to some pains to conceal these almost uncontrollable impulses from his family and anyone who knew him. Part of that involved developing an ironclad system of self-discipline, hammering down on the urges until he had a chance to indulge them without the chance of being interrupted or otherwise discovered. Got him a reputation of being somewhat cold and distant, but he figured that was at least acceptable on some level, whereas the unstoppable impulse to collect things and constantly inspect his businesses' kitchens/warehouses/inventory would attract too many questions. Another part of his shielding involved... well, raising the level of background noise so he wouldn't stand out against the silence. He married a seamstress who worked for some of the most demanding theater companies in Hong Kong, and he raised his children to believe in high dedication to their professions, callings, or whatever you want to call it. He more or less felt that if everyone around him was obsessed with whatever it was they did in life, no one would be particularly inclined to single him out as a madman. Not the healthiest course of action in the world, but he wasn't exactly a healthy man - and it's not like OCD was an especially well-known disorder at the time. If anything, he would have seemed like a man under a curse.
The Xiang family had owned several business concerns for some time, including a share in horse racing and a restaurant on Pearl Street that had been in the family since God only knew when. While Zhenhua was generally a pretty good businessman who made a profit, misfortune occasionally struck, and there was a particularly dark time after the birth of his third child. In an effort to keep his businesses afloat without revealing his own failures (selling any of them, or selling the slowly growing collection of art objects he'd amassed over the years, would have constituted a sign of failure to him), he wound up turning to some very bad people for a loan. They got paid off eventually - when Zhenhua made a promise he made damn sure he kept it - but they were involved in things forever after. Didn't make him happy, but they were discreet about it, and so he kept his mouth shut. He was good at keeping secrets like that.
Hong, his firstborn son, knew there was something his father was keeping from the family. He said nothing about it. There were some things it was best not to ask. If that meant the room in the basement that he always kept locked and never let anyone see him enter, then so be it. If it meant pulling him off shift at the Pearl Street restaurant and telling him to go work front of the house while Zhenhua did something in the kitchen's storage area, then so be it. Oh, he had his suspicions, but he would never have dreamed of bringing them up to his father. What good would it do? He instead stayed silent and learned everything put before him, and vowed to himself that he would do the whole family proud someday - and that he would never have secrets from his loved ones. People would know what he thought. And he'd be able to back it up, too, there was no sense in having big words and no substance. He grew into a brusque young man with a foul temper, and it only got worse when his father dropped dead of a heart attack. Hong was the first one into the locked room in the basement, and there he discovered his father's art hoard, and his father's balance books - and his father's long-ago involvement with the Triads.
Hong immediately ordered a full investigation into the accounts of the businesses he'd inherited. He sold off the worst performers, including the racehorse business, and pared the family holdings back to the Pearl Street restaurant and one or two others. This, of course, attracted some attention from his father's former associates. They paid him a visit, figuring they could feel him out and make a mutually acceptable proposal or two. Hong, needless to say, did not cooperate. What happened over the course of the next year is still unclear. Suffice it to say that Hong eventually made them a mutually acceptable offer: 'you ignore me, and I !&*()&! ignore you. You come into the restaurant and order dinner, we make you dinner; you come in and do something stupid, I sic the police on your !&*)&( asses and personally pick up any slack they leave. Leave me and my family alone, and I won't bother you. Family includes all my siblings and all their children, as well as my wife and children.' Whatever it was that had happened was enough to make this seem like a really good thing to the ones who'd dealt with his father, and they backed off and stayed backed off.
I never said everyone in Ho's family was nice.
Xiang Hong is currently the only member of the family left in Hong Kong. It's generally accepted by all his siblings that he's insane. (Actually, each of the Xiang siblings privately believes all the others are insane, but they can deal with that, 'cos it's always been that way.) It's also generally accepted that if any of them can survive the handover and remain unscathed by the PRC's rule, it's Hong. Fang is of the opinion that any Communists foolish enough to put any kind of squeeze on his eldest brother are going to end up like Mussolini - hanging from a meathook by their ankles on the front page of the newspaper. He's probably right. Hong can be a wonderful person and a very loving man to his family and friends, but asking him to participate in institutional dishonesty is a death sentence. He's like a very large rock in a farmer's field; it's easier to plough around and ignore the rock than it is to dig it up and move it, or destroy it.
That should do it for now, I think. Next up will be the girls.
Today's pulp survival tip is #39: Keep a civilized tongue in your head. The coolness factor outweighs any shock, disgust, or quizzical puzzlement the bad guy may exhibit at modern slang or profanity.
Ho's father was, as I said, fourth of five. His father Zhenhua was from a small family and had spent a great deal of his life with the knowledge that his parents' legacy was riding on his shoulders. He didn't particularly like it, but he accepted it, while at the same time vowing to avoid that problem with his own family. As it happened, the pressure touched him in a particularly unpleasant way. Zhenhua carried a genetic quirk neither he nor anyone else was ever aware of, and between the stress of familial expectations and a faulty gene, he developed a low-level case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. If a thing was worth doing, it was worth doing well. And thoroughly. And repeatedly. And repeatedly. And it probably deserved checking two or three or eight times after the fact. And it had to be done perfectly or there would be several Hells to pay. . . Zhenhua had enough sense to realize that this was not normal, and went to some pains to conceal these almost uncontrollable impulses from his family and anyone who knew him. Part of that involved developing an ironclad system of self-discipline, hammering down on the urges until he had a chance to indulge them without the chance of being interrupted or otherwise discovered. Got him a reputation of being somewhat cold and distant, but he figured that was at least acceptable on some level, whereas the unstoppable impulse to collect things and constantly inspect his businesses' kitchens/warehouses/inventory would attract too many questions. Another part of his shielding involved... well, raising the level of background noise so he wouldn't stand out against the silence. He married a seamstress who worked for some of the most demanding theater companies in Hong Kong, and he raised his children to believe in high dedication to their professions, callings, or whatever you want to call it. He more or less felt that if everyone around him was obsessed with whatever it was they did in life, no one would be particularly inclined to single him out as a madman. Not the healthiest course of action in the world, but he wasn't exactly a healthy man - and it's not like OCD was an especially well-known disorder at the time. If anything, he would have seemed like a man under a curse.
The Xiang family had owned several business concerns for some time, including a share in horse racing and a restaurant on Pearl Street that had been in the family since God only knew when. While Zhenhua was generally a pretty good businessman who made a profit, misfortune occasionally struck, and there was a particularly dark time after the birth of his third child. In an effort to keep his businesses afloat without revealing his own failures (selling any of them, or selling the slowly growing collection of art objects he'd amassed over the years, would have constituted a sign of failure to him), he wound up turning to some very bad people for a loan. They got paid off eventually - when Zhenhua made a promise he made damn sure he kept it - but they were involved in things forever after. Didn't make him happy, but they were discreet about it, and so he kept his mouth shut. He was good at keeping secrets like that.
Hong, his firstborn son, knew there was something his father was keeping from the family. He said nothing about it. There were some things it was best not to ask. If that meant the room in the basement that he always kept locked and never let anyone see him enter, then so be it. If it meant pulling him off shift at the Pearl Street restaurant and telling him to go work front of the house while Zhenhua did something in the kitchen's storage area, then so be it. Oh, he had his suspicions, but he would never have dreamed of bringing them up to his father. What good would it do? He instead stayed silent and learned everything put before him, and vowed to himself that he would do the whole family proud someday - and that he would never have secrets from his loved ones. People would know what he thought. And he'd be able to back it up, too, there was no sense in having big words and no substance. He grew into a brusque young man with a foul temper, and it only got worse when his father dropped dead of a heart attack. Hong was the first one into the locked room in the basement, and there he discovered his father's art hoard, and his father's balance books - and his father's long-ago involvement with the Triads.
Hong immediately ordered a full investigation into the accounts of the businesses he'd inherited. He sold off the worst performers, including the racehorse business, and pared the family holdings back to the Pearl Street restaurant and one or two others. This, of course, attracted some attention from his father's former associates. They paid him a visit, figuring they could feel him out and make a mutually acceptable proposal or two. Hong, needless to say, did not cooperate. What happened over the course of the next year is still unclear. Suffice it to say that Hong eventually made them a mutually acceptable offer: 'you ignore me, and I !&*()&! ignore you. You come into the restaurant and order dinner, we make you dinner; you come in and do something stupid, I sic the police on your !&*)&( asses and personally pick up any slack they leave. Leave me and my family alone, and I won't bother you. Family includes all my siblings and all their children, as well as my wife and children.' Whatever it was that had happened was enough to make this seem like a really good thing to the ones who'd dealt with his father, and they backed off and stayed backed off.
I never said everyone in Ho's family was nice.
Xiang Hong is currently the only member of the family left in Hong Kong. It's generally accepted by all his siblings that he's insane. (Actually, each of the Xiang siblings privately believes all the others are insane, but they can deal with that, 'cos it's always been that way.) It's also generally accepted that if any of them can survive the handover and remain unscathed by the PRC's rule, it's Hong. Fang is of the opinion that any Communists foolish enough to put any kind of squeeze on his eldest brother are going to end up like Mussolini - hanging from a meathook by their ankles on the front page of the newspaper. He's probably right. Hong can be a wonderful person and a very loving man to his family and friends, but asking him to participate in institutional dishonesty is a death sentence. He's like a very large rock in a farmer's field; it's easier to plough around and ignore the rock than it is to dig it up and move it, or destroy it.
That should do it for now, I think. Next up will be the girls.
Today's pulp survival tip is #39: Keep a civilized tongue in your head. The coolness factor outweighs any shock, disgust, or quizzical puzzlement the bad guy may exhibit at modern slang or profanity.
