Noble House by James Clavell
Most of the crowd were simple fisherfolk and locals, Haklos and Cantonese. Perhaps one in ten was born in Hong Kong. The rest were recent migrants from the People’s Republic of China, the Middle Kingdom, as they called their land. They had poured into the Hong Kong sanctuary fleeing the Communists or fleeing the Nationalists, or famine, or just simple poverty as their forebears had done for more than a century. Ninety-eight of every hundred of Hong Kong’s population were Chinese and this proportion had been the same ever since the Colony began.
Each person who came out of the bank told anyone who asked that they had been paid in full. Even so, the others who waited were sick with apprehension. All were remembering the crash of last year, and a lifetime in their home villages of other crashes and failures, frauds, rapacious money lenders, embezzlements and corruptions and how easy it was for a life’s savings to evaporate through no fault of your own, whatever the government, Communist, Nationalist or warlord. For four thousand years it had always been the same.
And all loathed their dependence on banks—but they had to put their cash somewhere safe, life being what it was and robbers as plentiful as fleas. Dew neh loh moh on all banks, most were thinking, they’re inventions of the devil—of the foreign devils! Yes. Before foreign devils came to the Middle Kingdom there was no paper money, just real money, silver or gold or copper—mostly silver and copper—that they could feel and hide, that would never evaporate. Not like filthy paper. Rats can eat paper, and men. Paper money’s another invention of the foreign devil. Before they came to the Middle Kingdom life was good. Now? Dew neh loh moh on all foreign devils!
At eight o’clock this morning, the anxious bank manager had called Richard Kwang. “But Honored Lord, there must be five hundred people already and the queue goes from here all along the waterfront.”
“Never mind, Honorable Sung! Pay those who want their cash. Don’t worry! Just talk to them, they’re mostly just superstitious fisherfolk. Talk them out of withdrawing. But those who insist—pay! The Ho-Pak’s as strong as Blacs or the Victoria! It’s a malicious lie that we’re overstretched! Pay! Check their savings books carefully and don’t hurry with each client. Be methodical.”
So the bank manager and the tellers had tried to persuade their clients that there was really no need for any anxiety, that false rumors were being spread by malicious people.
“Of course you can have your money, but don’t you think …”
“Ayeeyah, give her the money,” the next in line said irritably, “she wants her money, I want mine, and there’s my wife’s brother behind me who wants his and my auntie’s somewhere outside. Ayeeyah, I haven’t got all day! I’ve got to put to sea. With this wind there’ll be a storm in a few days and I have to make a catch….”
And the bank had begun to pay out. In full.
Like all banks, the Ho-Pak used its deposits to service loans to others—all sorts of loans. In Hong Kong there were few regulations and few laws. Some banks lent as much as 80 percent of their cash assets because they were sure their clients would never require back all their money at the same time.
Except today at Aberdeen. But, fortunately, this was only one of eighteen branches throughout the Colony. The Ho-Pak was not yet threatened.
Three times during the day the manager had had to call for extra cash from Head Office in Central. And twice for advice.
At one minute past ten this morning Four Finger Wu was grimly sitting beside the manager’s desk with Paul Choy, and Two Hatchet Tok standing behind him.
“You want to close all your Ho-Pak accounts?” Mr. Sung gasped shakily.
“Yes. Now,” Wu said and Paul Choy nodded.
The manager said weakly, “But we haven’t en—”
Wu hissed, “I want all my money now. Cash or bullion. Now! Don’t you understand?”
Mr. Sung winced. He dialed Richard Kwang and explained quickly. “Yes, yes, Lord.” He offered the phone. “Honorable Kwang wants to speak to you, Honorable Wu.”
But no amount of persuasion would sway the old seaman. “No. Now. My money, and the money of my people now. And also from those other accounts, the, er, those special ones wherever they are.”
“But there isn’t that amount of cash in that branch, Honored Uncle,” Richard Kwang said soothingly. “I’d be glad to give you a cashier’s check.”
Wu exploded. “I don’t want checks, I want money! Don’t you understand? Money!” He did not understand what a cashier’s check was so the frightened Mr. Sung began to explain. Paul Choy brightened. “That’ll be all right, Honored Uncle,” he said. “A cashier’s check’s …”
The old man roared, “How can a piece of paper be like cash money? I want money, my money now!”
“Please let me talk to the Honorable Kwang, Great Uncle,” Paul Choy said placatingly, understanding the dilemma. “Perhaps I can help.”
Wu nodded sourly. “All right, talk, but get my cash money.”
Paul Choy introduced himself on the telephone and said, “Perhaps it’d be easier in English, sir.” He talked a few moments then nodded, satisfied. “Just a moment, sir.” Then in Haklo, “Great Uncle,” he said, explaining, “the Honorable Kwang will give you payment in full in government securities, gold or silver at his Head Office, and a piece of paper which you can take to Blacs, or the Victoria for the remainder. But, if I may suggest, because you’ve no safe to put all that bullion in, perhaps you’ll accept Honorable Kwang’s cashier’s check—with which I can open accounts at either bank for you. Immediately.”
“Banks! Banks are foreign devil lobster-pot traps for civilized lobsters!”
It had taken Paul Choy half an hour to convince him. Then they had gone to the Ho-Pak’s Head Office but Wu had left Two Hatchet Tok with the quaking Mr. Sung. “You stay here, Tok. If I don’t get my money you will take it out of this branch!”
“Yes, Lord.”
So they had gone to Central and by noon Four Finger Wu had new accounts, half at Blacs, half at the Victoria. Paul Choy had been staggered by the number of separate accounts that had had to be closed and opened afresh. And the amount of cash.
Twenty-odd million HK.
In spite of all his pleading and explaining the old seaman had refused to invest some of his money in selling Ho-Pak short, saying that that was a game for quai loh thieves. So Paul had slipped away and gone to every stockbroker he could find, trying to sell short on his own account. “But, my dear fellow, you’ve no credit. Of course, if you’ll give me your uncle’s chop, or assurance in writing, of course….”
He discovered that stockbrokering firms were European, almost exclusively, the vast majority British. Not one was Chinese. All the seats on the stock exchange were European held, again the vast majority British. “That just doesn’t seem right, Mr. Smith,” Paul Choy said.
“Oh, I’m afraid our locals, Mr., Mr.… Mr. Chee was it?”
“Choy, Paul Choy.”
“Ah yes. I’m afraid all our locals aren’t really interested in complicated, modern practices like broking and stock markets—of course you know our locals are all immigrants? When we came here Hong Kong was just a barren rock.”
“Yes. But I’m interested, Mr. Smith. In the States a stockbr—”
“Ah yes, America! I’m sure they do things differently in America, Mr. Chee. Now if you’ll excuse me … good afternoon.”
Seething, Paul Choy had gone from broker to broker but it was always the same. No one would back him without his father’s chop.
Now he sat on a bench in Memorial Square near the Law Courts and the Struan’s high-rise and Rothwell-Gornt’s, and looked out at the harbor, and thought. Then he went to the Law Court library and talked his way past the pedantic librarian. “I’m from Sims, Dawson and Dick,” he said airily. “I’m their new attorney from the States. They want some quick information on stock markets and stockbroking.”
“Government regulations, sir?” the elderly Eurasian asked helpfully.
“Yes.”
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“Eh?”
“Well, practically none.” The librarian went to the shelves. The requisite section was just a few paragraphs in a giant tome.
Paul Choy gaped at him. “This’s all of it?”
“Yes sir.”
Paul Choy’s head reeled. “But then it’s wide open, the market’s wide open!”
The librarian was gently amused. “Yes, compared to London, or New York. As to stockbroking, well, anyone can set up as a broker, sir, providing someone wants them to sell shares and there’s someone who wants them to buy and both are prepared to pay commission. The problem is that the, er, the existing firms control the market completely.”
“How do you bust this monopoly?”
“Oh I wouldn’t want to, sir. We’re really for the status quo in Hong Kong.”
“How do you break in then? Get a piece of the action?”
“I doubt if you could, sir. The, the British control everything very carefully,” he said delicately.
“That doesn’t seem right.”
The elderly man shook his head and smiled gently. He steepled his fingers, liking the young Chinese he saw in front of him, envying him his purity—and his American education. “I presume you want to play the market on your own account?” he asked softly.
“Yeah …” Paul Choy tried to cover his mistake and stuttered, “At least … Dawson said for me—”
“Come now, Mr. Choy, you’re not from Sims, Dawson and Dick,” he said, chiding him politely. “If they’d hired an American—an unheard-of innovation—oh I would have heard of it along with a hundred others, long before you even arrived here. You must be Mr. Paul Choy, the great Wu Sang Fang’s nephew, who has just come back from Harvard in America.”
Paul Choy gaped at him. “How’d you know?”
“This is Hong Kong, Mr. Choy. It’s a very tiny place. We have to know what’s going on. That’s how we survive. You do want to play the market?”
“Yes. Mr.…?”
“Manuel Perriera. I’m Portuguese from Macao.” The librarian took out a fountain pen and wrote in beautiful copybook writing an introduction on the back of one of his visiting cards. “Here. Ishwar Soorjani’s an old friend. His place of business is just off the Nathan Road in Kowloon. He’s a Parsee from India and deals in money and foreign exchange and buys and sells stocks from time to time. He might help you—but remember if he loans money, or credit, it will be expensive so you should not make any mistakes.”
“Gee thanks, Mr. Perriera.” Paul Choy stuck out his hand. Surprised, Perriera took it. Paul Choy shook warmly then began to rush off but stopped. “Say, Mr. Perriera … the stock market. Is there a long shot? Anything? Any way to get a piece of the action?”
Manuel Perriera had silver-gray hair and long, beautiful hands, and pronounced Chinese features. He considered the youth in front of him. Then he said softly, “There’s nothing to prevent you from forming a company to set up your own stock market, a Chinese stock market. That’s quite within Hong Kong law—or lack of it.” The old eyes glittered. “All you need is money, contacts, knowledge and telephones….”
“My money please,” the old amah whispered hoarsely. “Here’s my savings book.” Her face was flushed from the heat within the Ho-Pak branch at Aberdeen. It was ten minutes to three now and she had been waiting since dawn. Sweat streaked her old white blouse and black pants. A long graying ratty queue hung down her back. “Ayeeyah, don’t shove,” she called out to those behind her. “You’ll get your turn soon!”
Wearily the young teller took the book and glanced again at the clock. Ayeeyah! Thank all gods we close at three, she thought, and wondered anxiously through her grinding headache how they were going to close the doors with so many irritable people crammed in front of the grilles, pressed forward by those outside.
The amount in the savings book was 323.42 HK. Following Mr. Sung’s instructions to take time and be accurate she went to the files trying to shut her ears to the stream of impatient, muttered obscenities that had gone on for hours. She made sure the amount was correct, then checked the clock again as she came back to her high stool and unlocked her cash drawer and opened it. There was not enough money in her till so she locked the drawer again and went to the manager’s office. An undercurrent of rage went through the waiting people. She was a short clumsy woman. Eyes followed her, then went anxiously to the clock and back to her again.
She knocked on his door and closed it after her. “I can’t pay Old Ah Tam,” she said helplessly. “I’ve only 100 HK, I’ve delayed as much …”
Manager Sung wiped the sweat off his upper lip. “It’s almost three so make her your last customer, Miss Cho.” He took her through a side door to the vault. The safe door was ponderous. She gasped as she saw the empty shelves. At this time of the day usually the shelves were filled with neat stacks of notes and paper tubes of silver, the notes clipped together in their hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands. Sorting the money after closing was the job she liked best, that and touching the sensuous bundles of new, crisp, fresh bills.
“Oh this is terrible, Honorable Sung,” she said near to tears. Her thick glasses were misted and her hair askew.
“It’s just temporary, just temporary, Miss Cho. Remember what the Honorable Haply wrote in today’s Guardian!” He cleared the last shelf, committing his final reserves, cursing the consignment that had not yet arrived. “Here.” He gave her 15,000 for show, made her sign for it, and took 15 for each of the other two tellers. Now the vault was empty.
When he came into the main room there was a sudden electric, exciting hush at the apparently large amount of money, cash money.
He gave the money to the other two tellers, then vanished into his office again.
Miss Cho was stacking the money neatly in her drawer, all eyes watching her and the other tellers. One packet of 1,000 she left on the desk. She broke the seal and methodically counted out 320, and three ones and the change, recounted it and slid it across the counter. The old woman stuffed it into a paper bag, and the next in line irritably shoved forward and thrust his savings book into Miss Cho’s face. “Here, by all the gods. I want seven thous—”
At that moment, the three o’clock bell went and Mr. Sung appeared instantly and said in a loud voice, “Sorry, we have to close now. All tellers close your—” The rest of his words were drowned by the angry roar.
“By all gods I’ve waited since dawn …”
“Dew neh loh moh but I’ve been here eight hours….”
“Ayeeyah, just pay me, you’ve enough …”
“Oh please please please please …”
Normally the bank would just have shut its doors and served those within, but this time, obediently, the three frightened tellers locked their tills in the uproar, put up their CLOSED signs and backed away from the outstretched hands.
Suddenly the crowd within the bank became a mob.
Those in front were shoved against the counter as others fought to get into the bank. A girl shrieked as she was slammed against the counter. Hands reached out for the grilles that were more for decoration than protection. Everyone was enraged now. One old seaman who had been next in line reached over to try to jerk the till drawer open. The old amah was jammed in the seething mass of a hundred or more people and she fought to get to one side, her money clasped tightly in her scrawny hands. A young woman lost her footing and was trampled on. She tried to get up but the milling legs defied her so, in desperation, she bit into one leg and got enough respite to scramble up, stockings ripped, chong-sam torn and now in panic. Her panic whipped the mob further then someone shouted, “Kill the motherless whore’s son…” and the shout was taken up, “Killllllll!”
There was a split second of hesitation, then, as one, they surged forward.
“Stop!”
The word blasted through the atmosphere in English and then in Haklo and then in Cantonese and then in English again.
The silence w
The uniformed chief inspector stood before them, unarmed and calm, an electric megaphone in his hand. He had come through the back door into an inner office and now he was looking at them.
“It’s three o’clock,” he said softly in Haklo. “The law says banks close at three o’clock. This bank is now closed. Please turn around and go home! Quietly!”
Another silence, angrier this time, then the beginning of a violent swell and one man muttered sullenly, “What about my fornicating money …” and others almost took up the shout but the police officer moved fast, very fast, directly at the man, fearlessly lifted the countertop and went straight at him into the mob. The mob backed off.
“Tomorrow,” the police officer said gently, towering over him. “You’ll get all your money tomorrow.” The man dropped his eyes, hating the cold blue fish-eyes and the nearness of a foreign devil. Sullenly he moved back a pace.
The policeman looked at the rest of them, into their eyes. “You at the back,” he ordered, instantly selecting the man with unerring care, his voice commanding yet with the same quiet confidence, “Turn around and make way for the others.”
Obediently the man did as he was ordered. The mob became a crowd again. A moment’s hesitation then another turned and began to push for the door. “Dew neh loh moh I haven’t got all day, hurry up,” he said sourly.
They all began to leave, muttering, furious—but individually, not as a mob. Sung and the tellers wiped the sweat off their brows, then sat trembling behind the safety of the counter.
The chief inspector helped the old amah up. A fleck of blood was at the corner of her mouth. “Are you all right, Old Lady?” he asked in Haklo.
She stared at him without understanding. He repeated it in Cantonese.