Mr Wong Goes West Read Free Page B

and then she sat up straight, making herself considerably taller in her seat than the two Asians. ‘Now let’s get this absolutely straight. Are you telling me that you have made me one hundred and eighty thousand fruit-shaped highlighters filled with black ink?’
    Daswani did not reply.
    Wong felt the world slipping away from him. ‘Black very nice, very elegant colour,’ he said desperately. ‘Fashionable
and
good feng shui. Ha ha.’
    Ms Crumley, her nostrils dilating, turned to the geomancer and spoke to him quietly through tight lips: ‘If you think I am going to buy a single one of these, you are very much mistaken. Goodbye, Mr Wong. Goodbye, Mr Daswani.’
    She neatly snatched the cheque out of Wong’s hands and marched back into the cabin. They heard a door slam.
    There was silence for two seconds and then they heard a door open again. Ms Crumley had accidentally marched into the bedroom.
    ‘Door that way,’ Wong called out helpfully.
    ‘Thanks,’ she muttered before storming through the correct door and slamming it behind her.
    The two men on the balcony stared at each other.
    ‘That did not go so well,’ Wong said.
    ‘She said we could use any other ink colour. She didn’t say we couldn’t use black colour,’ Daswani said in a hurt tone.
    Wong nodded. ‘So what are you going to do with so many highlighter with black ink?’
    The other man shook his head. ‘Not my problem. You are the middle man. Deal is in the name of Harmoney Private Limited. I want my money. I want it now. Question is: What are
you
going to do with so many highlighters in black ink?’
     

     
A travelling feng shui master entered a monastery in Guizhou.
    ‘I have come to award a title,’ he said. ‘One of the monks here is to be called the Master of Humility.’
    The monks went into an uproar. Which of them was the Master of Humility?
    ‘I am the chief abbot. Surely the title must come to me?’ said the chief abbot.
    ‘I am the lowliest novice,’ said the lowliest novice. ‘Should it not come to me?’
    ‘I am neither high nor low,’ said a monk who was neither high nor low. ‘Perhaps I deserve the title, having no other?’
    ‘I deserve nothing,’ said another monk. ‘So you may choose to give it to me if you think it right.’
    The debate raged for many hours. No agreement could be reached.
    The feng shui master picked up his bag and started to leave.
    ‘Which of us gets the title?’ the monks asked.
    ‘No one,’ said the feng shui man. ‘The Master of Humility is no longer here.’
    Blade of Grass, sometimes giving is taking. Sometimes, taking is giving. The man who tries to catch a feather held by a breeze succeeds only in pushing it away, for some feathers cannot be caught.
    From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’
by CF Wong.
     
    Geomancer CF Wong walked morosely along the street, believing that nothing could worsen his mood, which was pitch-black and vivid crimson at the same time. His life had suddenly turned dark with horror and red with drama. Small and round-shouldered, he stooped even further than usual, his eyes fixed on the ground, a puny Atlas carrying an invisible planet on his shoulders. And the burden he was carrying might as well be as large as a world, given the impossibility of his finding any way to lift it from his back.
    What had just happened was so nightmarish to be almost beyond his ken. He had just committed to spending a vast sum of money that he did not have on the purchase of a large number of tiny, ugly, fruit-shaped pens that he could not possibly use. He had experimented with the repulsive plastic bananas after Ms Crumley had left. They produced solid black lines that were too thick to write with, and too black to use for highlighting. Who would want them? They were useless. Harmoney Private Limited of Singapore was set to go bankrupt with its very first deal. Not exactly auspicious. If news of this got round to his rivals…It didn’t bear thinking about. How could