One Who Moved Out to Get Rich

After dinner, I go to skype, to talk with my son Daniel, about creating a homepage. Daniel is a student of “Computing and Digital Media” in Augsburg. He designs websites for a German company between semesters. I ask to join us for a Thailand vacation, but he refuses.

“My opinion about the security situation in Thailand is, depending on what I were reading in newspapers and watching on television at that time, I advise that it is not safe to travel to Thailand.”

Hong thinks, Daniel since he is a well-travelled person who always knows his way around. I disagreed with him because a few years back, when I was on holiday there, it was beautiful and peaceful.

I am not in any way threatened. Already Hong and I are planning to go for a holiday in Thailand, after the new year's celebrations. I ask Hong what she thought of a beach holiday in Pattaya, a prominent tourist resort for foreigners. Pattaya is only two hours drive south of Bangkok. I chose this place because I invested money to buy an apartment some years ago. It should be built on a mountain overlooking the sea. I still vividly remember everything about this brochure, even though it is ages ago today.

Despite Daniel's warnings, Hong surprisingly agreed that we go to Thailand.

“I want to see where your money is gone”, she smiled.

That night, we booked the holiday online, using a Chinese travel agency. Hong pulled out her credit card to pay, but it did not work at first. In an angry mood, she banged the keyboard, asking herself what the problem was, but after trying a couple of times, the payment went through.

In China, employers are generous in approving additional holidays. For wedding, I got 10 vacation days from HR department.

I should get only three, as I was married before, but they ignored this law. In Germany, a special holiday you get is generally on your wedding day. The reason for the Chinese's flexibility on allowing generous holidays, is likely to bet that people get married early, perhaps get children, from which the state would benefit, for the pension fund. But I am not a Chinese…

That time, I was thinking about the Chinese emperor in Dietfurt near Eichstätt in Bavaria, Germany. Sometimes such spontaneous thoughts come my way. I told Hong how the Dietfurt population hid under the wall when the Bishop of Eichstätt wanted to collect taxes.

"Coward like the Chinese," the bishop scolded them, and since then a Chinese emperor with a concubine and carriages ruled there for fun, not just for the annual carnival.4

It is cold and wet outside. According to the weather forecast, we expect snow tomorrow. Whatever the weather will be, I will have to go to the bank, to invest my savings on interest. Although in China, banks open even on bank holidays, Hong advises me to go on the first working day, after the Chinese New Year, because it is when banks will charge low-interest rates. While she was telling me this, I noticed that something was not well with her. She seemed to be in excruciating pain. Around this time of the month, she usually experiences the same problem due to her menstrual cycles. As if unconcerned with pain, she pulled out her phone to show me a new app which shows the best time when to have a child, and when one should be careful not just to conceive when you are not ready. On opening the app, her dates were matching.

But wait a minute, I thought it was the very Hong who said after the incident of knocking down a dog a few days ago, that this horse year was not good to have children! Why is she now thinking about children, and showing me the app? I asked myself inwardly. I was perplexed because she said herself that she did not want to have children in a polluted environment like that of China. But I did not mind much about it. I would find out from my in-laws whether they also supported the idea of not having children outside of China.

The night of the fifth day after the New Year was time to remember. A loud whistle of the remaining fireworks works was blown, to honour and celebrate the birth of the God of property. I know that for the European reading this now, you should be surprised to hear of the worshipping of GOD here since religions is not a popular ideology in China. Many Chinese believe in Buddha and Taoism, where there are many different gods. There is also the God of marriage, and Guan Yin–Pusa, Goddess of compassion.

Godness of compassion observes all the sounds of suffering in the world and gives children to humanity and their supervision.

My father-in-law’s’ birthday coincides with the Chinese New Year' today, so we shall "kill two birds with one stone ", celebrating the fifth day of the New Year, as well as his birthday. Hong told me that every Chinese gets an extra year older, according to the Chinese lunar calendar. If you take this tradition closely, it would mean that every Chinese gets two birthdays in a year. However, this custom is slowly fading away; it is being celebrated mostly by the older generation. The young age follows the Western calendar, and therefore, they celebrate this day every year on the same date.

I check on my emails regularly. Being a busy person, I sometimes wake up at night to do that. On New Year's Day, I received an email from Germany, requesting for some calculations, and yesterday I received another one asking whether I had done the calculations. I had sent a note to my bosses that I would be absent for some days, until the seventh of February after the celebrations.

Hong asked me what present we were going to buy for her father's birthday. She prefered flowers. I had a different opinion. I was thinking of buying a grey jacket from Germany, but I was not sure whether Hong would like it. However, Li Gengnan, prefers an egg clock, and kitchen utensils. Getting all these presents wouldn't have been a problem, because many shops in China are open on bank holidays, but time was not on our side. The party was starting in a few hours, followed by lunch dinner. I quickly put on my suit, grabbed Hong to head for the nearby flower shop. Thick fog and the slowly fading cloud of last night's fireworks were still hovering above. When we came back from the shops, guests were already arriving at my in-law's place. Some were sitting on the couch in the living room.

Hong gives me the red envelopes with banknotes inside that I have to hand over to the children. Everybody was thankful. The Presence of elders of the family at the party is something that will make them proud. Hong and I present our presents, the bouquet and Grey Jacket in the restaurant. Party gifts are not bound by particular rules. You give what you can. Children from low-income families get freebies such as pens, books and other small items that would fit within the budget of the one buying the gift. Wealthier families, however, spend as much as they want, with whatever they can. I prefer everyone to be present when opening a gift, give a handshake, to who has given it to me rather than thanking them on the phone or otherwise. The typical procedure here, though, is to unwrap gifts after people have left, I disagree with it. There is something that seems strange for us Europeans when it comes to donating gifts.

In China, when you invite someone, traditionally you are obliged to present a gift. Above all, you must also include a receipt of the item you bought, especially in the case of gifts to children. It is done to make sure that when people get children in future, they would also receive presents of the same value, as those which they donated.

The party is going on. Children have been playing and screaming for the last three hours now. Bottles of rice liquor are slowly going down throats of guests. Food leftovers are happily packed to be taken home by whoever wants to. After many had left that evening, we continued as a family gulping down beers while enjoying the food too. After the party celebrations, Hong, her father, and two of the family acquaintances start playing Mahjong, a tile game, very popular in China. Mahjong is believed to have widely spread after 1905, taking over Chess.

I asked Hong why Mahjong is a game for only four people. "It's just a matter of only people being able to play." She replied. I am only a foreigner I don't know the rules of this game, that is why I had to ask. Wang, one of the family acquaintances, is an old army friend of Li Gengnan. They have been friends for a very long time since days when they were working in northern China. Wang is a Buddhist; he is a vegetarian and lives with monks.

He lives in a temple in Suzhou, working as a driver in a Germany company that I know as well.

"The only difference is that Wang has hair on his head, which is very rare for monks" Hong observed amusedly.

After spending time with guests, I am getting bored. I decide to go to the living room and have a look at birthday gifts. These gifts are somehow different from those given out in Germany. These are kiwis, apples, and many other types of fruits. Nuts are also part of the gifts given out. Every gift is expensive, of high quality, and nicely packaged. There is another wrap of a bouquet.

Hong joins me in the living room and took the opportunity to ask me to teach her the right way to do reverse parking on the curb.

She suggests that we get out, despite the coldness and practically show her how they do it. I do not resist, because I am used to her abrupt decisions about doing things, insisting on them to be done the way she wants. We go out in the cold night together, we then sit in an old VW Jetta that belongs to Li Gengnan. I start with simple tasks, which she grabs quickly, and masters in a few minutes. Hong is thrilled and jokingly says that I could become an excellent driving instructor. I smile back, thankfully.

"Yes, I mean teaching only beautiful women how to park", she says, pointing her upper lip towards me.

“Wait a minute, what is all this? Is this a market gap?” I tease her back.

She shruggs me off, pretending to be annoyed, but later huggs me with a lovely kiss and a smile.

“Yes, ideally you are a quick learner, I am now going to teach you how to play billiards, and dancing”, I say, looking directly into her eyes. The night is cold again. When I go for a shower in the morning, I realize that we hardly had warm water. As I explained earlier on, in the West, red colour on the water tap stands for hot water, blue stands for cold water. I was still tipsy because of the previous night's drinking. So, when I opened the red tap, ice-cold water gushed out on to me. It instantly sobers me back to my senses.

I scream still wondering why in China red colour stands for cold water and blue for hot water. It does not make sense to me at all. The theory of the Five Elements, which include wood, fire, metal, water and earth, was born in Daoism China, about 2000 B.C. It is these Five Elements around which the dynamic process of change, were assigned in China.

This theory started with four cardinal elements. Since then, endless assignments such as shapes, seasons, animals, and even colours surfaced. For Westerners, fire is logically represented by red, and metal with white/grey. In China, I am confused even up to now, why yellow represents earth; black representing water, and wood with green. I don't understand a thing. In China red colour, as you may already know, stands for wealth and joy. Green is also associated with wealth, harmony, and health, which does not differ much from us in the Western world. However, when it comes to colours of items of clothing, a green hat, for example, symbolizes infidelity, and a cheated husband. Yellow colour as in dress stands for neutrality and happiness. Yellow is the most prestigious colour, which is why the emperor's clothes, palaces, altars and temples were all decorated in yellow colour. Black is the colour of the northern sky, revered as the colour of kings. Despite its brightness and purity, white symbolizes death and suffering, it is common at funerals.

It is now time for breakfast. I will have to take "

yan wo

", an expensive traditional Chinese medicine. It is translated in "swallow nest". The drug is a product of dried mucus of birds. Before taking it, you must mix it with hot water. Uuuuhhh!! I can guess that you are thinking what I am thinking, but as the saying goes, "good medicine does not always taste good". It is not cheap to buy either.

Taobao, the most prominent Chinese online auction shop sells five grams for just under one hundred and ninety RMB. That is around twenty-five euros according to the current exchange. What I am not sure about is its curative capability.

From the neighbourhood, I can hear the roar of loud music. In this neighbourhood, everybody knows everybody, where most of the residents are pensioners living amicably and peacefully together. As a child Hong lived here for many years. She is known to everybody here. At breakfast table, we discuss many things. Our conversation is mainly about the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), at Microsoft. He is an Indian. Chinese believe that Indians have conquered Silicon Valley. The way things are unfolding, it is one thing after another. The purchase of nine robot companies by Google, robots and the speed at which they are taking over human resources, and many others. Hong said that soon we are going to see robots cooking, or even taking care of children, we already know that they can do cleaning work. When it came to discussing robots "looking after children", I reserved my words, for fear of being misunderstood by in-laws. They consider grandchildren as unique gifts from God, and therefore their care should not be equated to anything other than the unconditional love of their grandparents.

I was not surprised about how precious, and unique grandparents take their grandchildren to be, because Hong, as a child, was deeply loved by her grandparents. Li Gengnan was in the military according to reliable sources. It was on a one-month leave, when he got married to Wu Meilan who conceived, later giving birth to Hong.

Hong owes her life to the then Chinese party leader Mao Zedong, who stopped the invasion to Taiwan. He called for the end of the war, apparently saving Hong's grandfather from fighting and so he could take care raising Hongś mother.

Li Gengnan had to go to Russian border to prepare for fighting, but this war was stopped as well, shortly before his marriage to Wu Meilan. He was on the border with Russia. They were on the verge of war. To their surprise and relief, the conflict was settled through negotiations, and so the fighting did not take place. The one-child policy in China that prevented Hong from having siblings, is now being swept under the carpet because it is relaxed a little bit. The fact that girls are not necessarily on the procreation wish list is deeply rooted in Chinese culture and tradition. In Germany whereas a woman's name can be assumed as a surname, in China, only men that can use surnames. Traditionally girls have no inheritance rights.

It is boys who get the assets, but the tradition is slowly fading out.

With all this knowledge, I am grateful to my in-laws, for embracing modern efforts to fight for gender equality

On the last day of our holiday, we drove back to Taicang. We stopped at a local bank in Suzhou, to open a fixed-rate deposit account, to transfer my salary from ICBC Bank aiming at earning a reasonable interest rate. Because of the bureaucracy of the Chinese banks, there are several forms I must sign in Chinese language to confirm that I have taken note of the final print. Cash withdrawals from other Chinese banks with foreign names, cannot easily be made from that bank. The machines were designed differenty. It was better to withdrawal cash from the bank next door which were compatible with various features, and then deposit cash in this one.

Oh God! I said to myself, this is too complicated, I remember doing this twenty years ago.

“At that time, online banking was not yet operational. Hasn't the world changed here?”

Hong said that withdrawing cash from one bank and deposit it into another was possible, if it could help you save on transfer cost and avoid bureaucracy. By the time we did all that, it was three o'clock in the afternoon, no bank was open, so I did not have a chance. I thought of using a cash machine, but with ATM, the maximum amount you could withdraw is RMB 20,000, the equivalent of 2,750 Euros, on the exchange rate of the day. So, I rightly abandoned the idea. I then opted to use online money transfer.

The problem is that in China, all online transactions go through the Bank of China in Beijing. Hong looked at me and wondered why I wanted to transfer the money in a hurry.

"Tomorrow is the first official working day after the New Year, what is it that cannot wait till tomorrow?" she asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

It was still cold outside. We had nothing to eat except for the hard Chinese kiwis that were given to us by Hong's parents. We decided to go to a Chinese barbeque restaurant. Such restaurants are often crowded, making it hard to get a place where to seat. We had to wait. I needed to use a toilet, when I went there, I met a man who told me that he had come from Australia, specifically for this Chinese New Year celebrations.

I grabbed a raw fish to put it on the grill plate. As soon as I did that, Hong hurriedly pulled the fish out of my hand; she believes that women were the masters at this work.

"You don't know anything. What men can do is to eat, sleep, and snore, no more," she grumbles provocatively. I look at her thinking of what she had just said about men not being masters at cooking when she knows full-well that at home, her father is always in the kitchen. I murmured without finishing the sentence.

"A fish in the morning dispels sorrow and worries, but a fish in the evening..."

Oh goodness me, I did not know that Hong had heard what I said.

She retorts inaudibly, grabs a small piece of paper, writes something and passes the note over to me, it read.

"Yaaa right… when the time comes, sleep well."

I read the note and wondered why she should have written that, but she looks less bothered, for her, it was business as usual. It was now time to pay. I pulled out my bank card, entered a PIN, protecting my details with a palm of my hand.

"Let them see the PIN, why are you hiding it?", she rebuked.

"Well, I am sure you know that banks always advise us to protect our details to deter probable fraud, forgery and the like. When the waitress gets hold of my PIN, for example, the next thing you know is my account being emptied", I replied.

It at all it happened, by the way, it would be a big problem for me. Since I do not have an online account yet, it would take me time to sort it out. In Germany it is different because the option of changing bank details online is always available.

“Anyway, it is time to let go of the talk of banks and online accounts, let us enjoy our food”, I said to Hong.

After eating, we continued our journey home.

When we arrive home, the apartment is dead quiet. Before we left, Hong had turned off the air conditioning system. I wondered whether that was a smart move. I thought it would have been a sensible thing to keep the heating on before we left since it was a cold season. As if she knew what I was thinking about, she replied that it would have been much expensive to leave the heating on.

Hong reasons that it is better to succumb to the first few minutes of the cold while the heat was gaining momentum, than paying vast amounts of money in gas bills.

“You can still learn a lot about savings from us the Chinese”, she retorted.

“In China, everybody is a saver; even hot sewage sells for recycling. It can be ordered directly from factories such as steel mills.

They use them as water coolers for their machines”, she explained to me that even hot water could sell to the public, for bathing, washing, and many other benefits.

It could be true though because I observed that this scheme is cheaper, affordable and profitable too, for the end-user. However, what I am sceptical and doubtful about is the health and safety of this brackish water, which I have used many times in China. I wonder whether it is not radioactive. As I am still thinking about savings, Hong proposes that if I wanted to save money, I would turn off the heating, and put on warm clothes instead.

I spared myself the burden of arguing about saving money.

Women would always have the last say anyway, especially in China.

The mentalities between East and West are too different. Yes, I would love to save money, also, but not at the expense of our health.

The first night on returning home from the New Year's celebrations, we could not sleep because of the heartburn. Was it because we overate food or too much glutamate?

On the second day it rained cats and dogs. Unfortunately, on my side, I had no choice but to dare the torrential rain to go to transfer the money, as my wife had advised me. Hong picked up the driver, he sat on the steering wheel, and we set off to town. We arrived at the bank just in time. It was still early in the morning; we did not have to join long queues in the bank. We picked up two large bundles of banknotes and went to deposit them in the other bank.

Were the counting machines on holiday too! They were not working correctly. The bank employee in the counter had to count the notes manually. It was followed by many papers that I had to fill and sign before depositing the money, here China is the same as Germany.

When it comes to interest rates for new customers, today's rates are a little bit higher than in recent days.

After coming from the bank, Hong quickly prepared herself to go to the Thai Embassy in Shanghai, to apply for a visa for our joint holiday. I do not need a permit. As a German citizen, I can go in and out of Thailand, as many times as I want, if I have a valid return ticket on entry. The visa offices are closing at half-past twelve; we have less time left, so Hong must hurry up before they close. I go to office and driver and Hong go on.

I arrive at the office at half-past eleven in the morning. It is on the twenty-second floor; it is cold. I am told by my colleagues in the office, that the central heating system in the entire building was still switched off, and that the canteen on the fifth floor down, is also still closed. It could not make sense to me. What is the point of paying rent then? Are our landlords only interested in collecting rent to save operational costs, instead of providing better services to their tenants!

Most employees here are not going back to work, until the following week on Monday, others maybe a little bit later than that.

My American boss is also present in the office. We are discussing the budget and other cutting-costs measures. At noon we go to the restaurant next door with my American boss, he pays for our meals, typical of him. I like his way of doing things. That evening around six o’clock, I have to attend a meeting with my employee Dr. Zhang, to discuss company issues in order to fullfill orders from our headquarters in Germany.

After the meeting with Dr. Zhang, I head home. I inform Hong about the lunch we had at the restaurant with my business friends. I say to her how my friends laughed at me because I usually use Skye and emails to communicate. They accused me of being “out-dated and backward”, in a modern world where people use WeChat or WhatsApp. Hong has both on her phone, the Chinese WeChat, and the Western WhatsApp.

“The problem with you is that you are always too busy to take care of yourself, do you know that many companies now cannot do business without WhatsApp?”, she asks.

Without dragging the topic farther, I promise, I will change into a modern man.

Hong tells the driver about the small accident where she crashed into a dog, that escaped with no injuries, and how the car got a small dent. The driver advises her to contact our insurance company, to cater for that minor damage because the leasing company would not pay after all. We have to wait until the end of the week and initiate a accident which will be reported to the police.

In the West, according to our calendar, the week starts on Sunday.

In China, it is different, because to them the days of the week are counted from Monday to Saturday. So, Monday is day 1, Tuesday is day 2, and so on. In China, Sunday has two names, Sunny Day, and Sky Day. Travelling is learning. Whenever and wherever you travel, will undoubtedly learn about many new things.

Today is a working day because it automatically compensates for the additional holidays that we took during the New Year. Even though this is the case, many people are not yet fully back to work, which is common during such periods. I have to work hard to get the backlog out of the way because today I want to go home earlier than usual.

When I arrive home, Hong is in the shower braving the cold water; I become frustrated when I think about the meaning of saving, that makes a person have a cold bath, in this weather! I feel pity for Hong. While we are having dinner, Hong told me that she did not have lunch, because there was plenty of work to do.

I look at her, thinking about the proverbial saying, "all work and no play, made Jack a dull boy".

"Bytheway there is no drinking water left", she adds, while gulping a glass of water. I nod signalling that I got it. After dinner, I quickly ran to the supermarket to buy a few bottles of water.

After coming back from the supermarket, I sat down on the sofa and watched the movie "Bourne Identity". I am a fun of films because they take the stress off me, after a busy day at work. When watching the movie, I realise what the American secret service has been doing all the time; the Chinese had done it much earlier if not longer. I remember that twenty years ago when I first came to China, all cars and hotel room would be bugged, and telephone conversations intercepted. All accommodation employees, all drivers to mention a few, were "undercover agents". That time the Chinese were more suspicious of Western foreigners than today.

Have they completely abandoned their secretive spying missions, given up, or are doing it even more than before? I have no answer for that.

It was getting cold. I decide to pour the rest of my Chinese rice wine in a saucepan and warm it a little bit. Since this wine is yellow, it is also called "Yellow Wine" in China. You can also get rice wine in Japan. It is called Sake, and in Korea, they call it Magoli, but the difference is that amongst other countries, the wine is colourless, not yellow as it is the case in China.

After warming the wine, I grabbed a glass, poured it in and headed for my private office on the third floor of our house. Before I could even warm my seat, Hong came running in the office shouting.

"The whole house is smelling of yellow wine, have you vomited?" she asked, blowing her nose with her right palm.

Still holding the glass in m hand, I answered. "No, I just warmed it because it was too cold".

"Ya right, you just warmed it because it was too cold, do you then have to suck the whole bottle?" she interjected before I even finished the sentence.

"Calm down Hong, it is not a bottle; it is only a glass" I answered, trying to calm her moods down.

"Do you know what is going to happen now?" she asked.

"No, I don't" I answered back.

"Your sperm is now going to get drunk; then it will start swimming aimlessly drunk without hitting the target, this is why children are born drunk from drunkard fathers like you," she said dejectedly.

Hong is a woman who always has something to say about everything. When it comes to having or not having children, Hong is a very fickle minded person. What does she want? Children or not? Is it because of the alcohol in the rice wine, or is it whatever she said was smelling in the house, what makes her so upset? I cannot tell. Whatever the reason could be for her mood swings, I think there is more alcohol in Brandy that than in a rice wine.

While still thinking about Hong’s behaviour, she calls me to go to her office, one floor down. My heart pumps rapidly, thinking about what she was going to complain about next. I am wrong; it is entirely about a different topic. It is about a property for sale in Taicang, very close to our neighbourhood. Like in Germany, assets whose owner become insolvent, are advertised and sold by the banks to recover part of their money, or the whole of it sometimes charging interest on them. I browse through the advert and tell her that the property is too expensive. The court and the bank want to make more money, on top of what they are supposed to. Hong is quick to add before I could even finish the sentence that from her experience, the price in the advert is negotiable. I agree and propose to go and visit the property.

I am astounded to learn that the down payment as the deposit was a whooping 300,000 RMB, the equivalent of 40,500 euros of the then exchange rate. I was, however, not too much in agreement with such craftily designed adverts only meant to lure people into spending. I showed Hong part of the advert reading as follows in small print, “getting your money back later”. I warn that paying the money is one thing and getting it back as quickly as the writing seems to suggest was another thing. If those banks and other financial institutions got the money, they would twist languages using all technical words to protect their side. Hong agreed.