Swimming with Asian Sharks - Business Secrets from the Pacific Rim

Disclaimer:

The names of people and companies mentioned in the book have been changed to protect their reputations and privacy.

The views expressed in this book are those of the author, and may or may not be accurate in assessing the character or conditions of people or companies mentioned.

Special thanks to:

Mr. Lun, without you, this book would have no contents.

Yolande, for editing the original broken manuscript.

Betsy, for the excellent cover art.

 Winnie, for letting me run wild in Asia without running away.

Chapter 1: Lessons from the Past

Never Underestimate the Power of Luck.

My grandfather was an orphan; by the time he was eight years old, the famine in China had claimed both his parents. An only child, he wandered alone from village to village begging for food. Eventually, a family in a neighbouring village adopted him, having recently lost their son. Back in those days, everyone in the village had the same last name; the families were all loosely related, so the village accepted the adoption.  Being the only son of this new family who already had an older daughter, he was in charge of carrying the family name forward.  My grandfather was a smart fellow; over time, he built credibility in the village, took a wife, had six children, and lived in a house that was big by village standards.  Unfortunately, he had the bad luck of becoming a member of the Nationalist party in China; shortly after the Communists took power, they started rounding up Nationalists.  My grandfather had to flee or face an uncertain future, and likely death.  At the time, he had enough influence in the village that a man who’d lost his university student son in Hong Kong due to illness advised my grandfather to take his deceased son's identity and start fresh in Hong Kong.  Thus, my grandfather became Hui, Fook Cum.  He stole away on a boat, crossing the river at night to live in Hong Kong, leaving the family behind.

Arriving in Hong Kong, he took on a few odd jobs before finally landing in a Chinese medicine practice.  He succeeded in becoming well known at the time, and later went on to help found Canada’s Chinese medicine association.

Grandfather took a second wife in Hong Kong. Though he did not fully forget about his family in China, he left them behind to suffer the wrath of the Communists, being a Nationalist household.

In China were his first wife, my grandma, and six children: three sons and three daughters.  The custom for referring to aunts and uncles in my village was to list them in order of their birth, with respect to your parent and their gender.  The older they were along with their gender dictated the respect they were due.  I have a big uncle (Dai Bak) David, two older aunts, a second-biggest aunt (Yee Di Goo), and third-biggest aunt (San Di Goo); then, a younger aunt, my fourth-youngest aunt, (Shi Goo Jeah), and a third-youngest uncle (San Sook).  My dad is the second-oldest male in his family, but fourth oldest overall.

Big Uncle David was away at school and managed to escape to live in Hong Kong with my grandfather; he went on to be one of the first Chinese to graduate from the University of Toronto.