07.06.2008 / EP. 20
America on the Half-Shell
Rao began his training in western customs the next day. It was whirlwind and intense. GQ would have loved him. In fact, the magazine was key to his understanding of American culture. How casually Americans treat their possessions. Women reject last year’s fashion. Men toss clothes on the floor and expect them to reappear like magic, cleaned and pressed. People, however, were venerated. Fame appeared the highest goal. People fought for glory, struggled to emerge from the mass and become idolized. There was the cult of the individual: free speech, right to bear arms, one man one vote. And still, beneath the glitter, everyone seemed alike. Tedious, it all was. The unique individual, sanctimoniously worshiped, was a cog in a machine. The human being at the core of civil liberties was no more richly endowed than a computer part, to be replaced when a new model appeared. The subtext of this strange culture seemed to be the elevation of anxiety to an art form. If everyone was interchangeable, then no one had value. People were as unique as flickering shadows, as treasured as a hanged man twisting in the breeze. Everything was bought. Everything was for sale and might disappear in a moment. Rao’s tutor didn’t disagree.
Rao learned quickly. Because of his accent, he couldn’t claim to be born in America. Hong Kong would do. Why Rao didn’t write traditional Hong Kong calligraphy was a thornier problem. He ran up the explanation himself. It was powerfully convincing. Rao had grown up on the mainland, he would say, and joined an auntie in Hong Kong at 18.
He’d act mysterious, as though his family owned forbidden wealth in the People’s Republic. Plenty of people did. Their money came from bribery and nepotism, public factories sold into private hands to produce T-shirts at a nickel apiece that sold overseas for $20, rake-offs from oil and gas refining, a percentage of everything from computer software to dog food. The new elite lived in grand style and Rao’s family, he’d say, controlled part of the gateway foreigners must open if they wanted to make fortunes in the new mass market.
Rao gave himself a new identity, in fact more than one. He received new clothes and adopted a flamboyant style. He looked and acted like a warlord, a Chinese free-market success story. In this guise, he travelled to Hong Kong, where he caroused for six months. Rao created for himself a history of night clubs, drug connections and reliable cash flow. He fit right in. By the time, flight 704 carried a Chinese businessman in an Armani suit to Los Angeles, Rao had a long list of connections and deals to pursue in America. Los Angeles, however, lay under a police microscope. Two weeks and many airports later, Rao and a copy of Forbes landed in Albany, New York. He had metamorphosed into Steven Lin, a distinguished Asian gentleman with a penchant for sunglasses and a wry smile that announced there was, perhaps, more to him than greed. Rao, or Lin as he called himself now, seemed about 35, in robust health, equipped with a shock of raven black hair. Thanks to a cooperative human relations director, he could boast a distinguished career in sales for Litton Barr Pharmaceuticals. Lin had grown accustomed to first class travel. He hated inactivity. He was ready.
