Description
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.
About the author
David T.K. Wong was born in Hong Kong and received his early education in China, Singapore and Australia. He has degrees in political science and journalism from Stanford University in America and a post-graduate diploma in public administration from the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague. Later, he also became a Fellow in Economics at Queen Elizabeth House at Oxford.
He worked as a journalist in Hong Kong, London and Singapore before joining the Hong Kong Government. After retirement from public service, he became the managing director of an international trading firm for eight years before migrating to London to embark upon a writing career.
He has published four collections of short stories and two novels. His short stories, some of which have earned him a number of awards, have appeared in magazines in the United States, Britain, Hong Kong and elsewhere. Many of his stories have been broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in the UK, RTHK in Hong Kong and various other stations in Europe.
Wong is now resident in Malaysia. He is the founder of the annual David T.K. Wong Fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in the UK. The Fellowship awards £26,000 to a successful candidate to write a serious work of fiction set in the Far East.
His website is at http://davidtkwong.com/.
