第三章
1989 年 8 月下旬，我在去麦迪逊的路上飞到了洛杉矶国际机场。史蒂文开着他新的浅蓝色宝马 3 系来接我。我们参观了加州大学洛杉矶分校和南加州大学，看了洛杉矶的风景，几天后，他陪我去密尔沃基，他有亲戚在那里。
他的亲戚带我们去了一家日本餐厅。我曾随香港游泳队去过日本，但我第一次尝到寿司是在中西部的中心地带。我把一大团芥末（火热的日本辣根）塞进嘴里，为这顿美味佳肴画上了句号。我不知道是什么让我更难受，是尴尬还是我的鼻窦爆裂。
从密尔沃基出发，我们乘坐水坑跳车前往麦迪逊。窗外，我看到的都是绿色。我的一生都生活在上海和香港的水泥森林中。在这里，我想知道我是否会在一片森林中上大学。史蒂芬帮我在宿舍里安顿下来。我们见到了我的室友，一个来自明尼阿波利斯的几乎不能交流的摔跤手。一天之后，史蒂文回到了南加州大学。
在威斯康星州，我第一个学期的日程安排给了我很多自由时间。一开始没有朋友，我下午就在宿舍对面的健身房里举重。大学的游泳队在体育馆旁边的游泳池里锻炼。有一天，我查看了训练情况并找到了教练。我不知道十大游泳队的竞争有多激烈。我问他，我是否可以加入这个团队。他告诉我第二天再来参加试训。第二天下午，我回来了，潜入水中，开始做爬行动作。几圈过后，他叫道："你加入了。"我想那些冬天的早晨在上海的游泳池里破冰是有意义的。
游泳队让我在第一年就有了感情基础。我是一群白人游泳运动员中唯一的亚洲人，但我觉得自己是他们团体中的一员，被接受了。我们举办聚会，喝了很多酒。教练是一个五十出头的中西部人，名叫杰克 - 佩廷格，他很照顾我，在感恩节时邀请我过去，当时大多数国际学生都是自力更生。佩廷格教练到我的宿舍来接我。我对美国的汽车礼节没有概念。在香港，我的父母从来没有一辆车。所以当他开车来的时候，我坐到了后座上。"呵，你以为我是你的司机吗？"他叫道。"跟我进来吧。"在中国，你不会坐在资深人士的旁边，所以我想在美国你也会这样做。我是想表现得尊重他人。结果发现，我有很多东西要学。
因为我在香港读完了七年级，所以我以大二的身份进入威斯康星州。在南加州大学，史蒂芬在院长名单上，所以我在威斯康星州的目标是这个。第一年我勉强错过了，但我再也没有接近过。我被邀请参加一些兄弟会的聚会，但每次我去的时候都像个大拇指一样引人注目--或者，至少我是这么觉得的。中国孩子只有在 2000 年后才开始大量来到威斯康星州。而这是 1989 年。
刚到美国时，我对那些似乎总是成为话题中心的最新电视节目一无所知。我很难理解，更不用说开任何玩笑了。我注意到，许多美国人对友谊的看法似乎与亚洲人不同。美国人的关系有一种松散的感觉。在威斯康星州的熟人会热情地和我打招呼，表现得好像我们是最好的朋友。但如果我想找人更多地参与到我的生活中，我有一种唠叨的感觉，他们不会在那里。
不过，在我的第一个学期里，我还是避免了来自香港的人。住在宿舍里，和团队一起工作，我没有接触到很多人。当我接触到时，我倾向于不交朋友。有一次，我去参加一个由香港学生组织的舞蹈聚会。我开始和每个人说英语，而不是我们的母语广东话。人们认为我在炫耀，我没有被邀请回来。实际上，我只是想融入其中，因为我穿梭于宿舍、教室、食堂和游泳池之间。
第二年，我搬到校外，退出了游泳队。教练希望我继续参加，因为我的存在提高了团队的累积 GPA，但我需要学习。我选择了金融和会计的双专业，这增加了一年的时间，也增加了我的工作量。我结识了来自亚洲的同学。我的室友来自印度尼西亚，通过他我认识了一大批日本、台湾和韩国学生。我与美国和亚洲的女性都约会过。在去芝加哥的旅行中，我发现了一些我一直缺少的大城市的感觉。即使在我有限的预算下，我也培养了对美食和美酒的品味。在我大四的时候，有一天，我看到了一篇关于芝加哥一家名为 Everest 的餐厅的评论，它吹嘘有 17 道菜的品尝菜单。我的好奇心被激起了，于是我立即和一个女朋友订了一张桌子。吃饭那天，我们禁食，饥肠辘辘地出现了。侍酒师耐心地给我们讲解了葡萄酒的搭配清单。吃饭快结束时，我问服务员什么时候上主菜。所有的份量都是在巨大的盘子里的小份量。我对新派美食的介绍就这样结束了。
在中国六四镇压之后，我立即来到美国，作为一个来自大中华区的学生，我有资格获得绿卡，这要感谢乔治 - 布什总统签署的行政命令。我放弃了这个机会。我觉得自己在美国太不一样了，并且怀疑如果我继续留在美国，会遇到玻璃天花板。兄弟会文化渗透到商业世界中，从我参加的那些聚会中，我感觉到我在美国的老板和同行中没有什么吸引力。在威斯康辛大学学习了四年后，我于 1993 年 5 月毕业并飞回了家。
我在美国的经历深刻地改变了我。在香港和中国，我已经因为我的身高和穿着方式而脱颖而出。但在美国的生活使我更加有个性，更愿意做自己。我的父母并不喜欢这样。他们为我没有留在香港而感到遗憾。"你会变得更好，"我的母亲在我回来后宣布。"你就不会变得如此有主见了。你就不会和我们争吵了。"他们都告诉我，把我送到美国是他们所做过的最糟糕的决定。
但对我来说，住在威斯康星州是一种解放。它使我走上了成为全球公民的道路。我结识了来自全国各地和世界各地的朋友，不同肤色、宗教和信仰的人。如果没有第一次美国之行，我就不会像现在这样成功。甚至我的英语也被改变了。经过中西部人和外国人的调教，我的口音最终更像阿诺德 - 施瓦辛格，而不是香港的中国人。
回到家后，我急忙找工作，向投资银行发出了 20 份申请。几天之内，我就得到了摩根斯坦利和高盛的面试机会，但我都失败了。当摩根斯坦利的面试官让我回家等他的电话时，我无知地建议他在我的答录机上留个言，并宣布无论如何我打算在开始工作前休假。在高盛的面试中，我就种族主义问题发生了争执，并提高了声音。两人都没有给我回电话。
我确定了一个在花旗银行维克斯公司担任股票经纪人的职位。我以为这份工作会是世界上最令人兴奋的。我们那一代人都看过迈克尔 - 道格拉斯在《华尔街》这部大片中扮演的戈登 - 盖克令人难忘地宣称："贪婪是好事。"但我很快发现，做经纪人并不是传说中的那样。至少在香港，关键在于你认识谁，而不是认识什么。如果你有很好的关系，你就能成功。但作为一个社交圈有限的初级经纪人，我总是在等待我的老板把那些对他来说太小或太乏味的交易扔给我执行。客户给我打电话是为了闲聊，而不是为了买或卖。我很快意识到，我或我旁边的人卖出香港上海汇丰银行的股票或任何其他股票并不重要。我问自己，这和卖鞋有什么区别？
不过，我和我的同事们还是模仿了我们在电影中看到的那种夸张的聚会文化。香港证券交易所每天 4 点关门，健身后我们会去兰桂坊，这是一条弯曲的街道，靠近香港的中央区有一连串的酒吧。这就是文化。作为一个新晋的经纪人，我告诉自己，聚会是有职业目的的。一个好的联系人名单是成功的关键。正如中国人所说的那样，我像一只无头苍蝇一样四处游荡，在酒吧里打转，寻找商业联系。实际上，我最终并没有结识很多人。
我遇到了信用卡问题，不得不让我的父母来保释我。有时我直到天亮后才回家。我搬回了我的父母家，他们乘着香港房地产市场的东风，又升级到了另一个位于更好的社区的公寓。在多次深夜发作后，我的父母把我赶了出来。我搬进了离皇后学院两个街区的天后社区的一个 500 平方英尺的出租房。我熟悉这个地区，感觉就像家一样。
在做了九个月的股票经纪人后，我开始寻找另一份工作。我想找一份可以应用我所受教育的工作--一个可以提供职业道路的职位。1994 年 6 月，我参加了一家名为 ChinaVest 的私募股权公司的面试。该公司占据了中环一栋办公楼的整个顶楼。我想，这是很独特的。他们问我对私募股权的理解。我在前一天查了一下这个词，我的大学金融课本上只有三行。私募股权是一个新概念。我复述了我所背诵的内容并得到了这份工作。
ChinaVest 于 1981 年由 Bob Theleen（一位口齿伶俐的前中央情报局官员）、他的妻子 Jenny（在新加坡长大，在法国接受教育）和另外两名美国人创立。我的聘用与中国国内正在发生的变化直接相关。1989 年至 1992 年之间的几年对中国来说是糟糕的几年。1989 年天安门广场镇压事件后，以李鹏总理为首的中国共产党反动派倒退了以市场为导向的改革，打击私营企业，并将资金注入效率低下的国有部门。中国的经济急剧放缓。但在 1992 年，中国的最高领导人邓小平对保守派不耐烦，离开北京，前往香港边境的南方城市深圳，敦促恢复市场导向的改革。邓小平的 "南行 "释放了新一轮的资本主义热情。香港是主要的受益者。1993 年，华尔街的远见卓识者巴顿 - 比格斯在中国呆了 6 天后来到香港，宣布他对中国的看法是："调整好了，吃饱了，最大限度地看涨"。在比格斯发表声明后，超过 20 亿美元的资金涌入香港证券交易所的股票，追逐在中国有业务的公司。
Theleen 和他的团队利用这股热潮，以他们在中国经商方式方面的专业知识为交换条件，在寻求在大陆建立业务的公司中持有股权。他们投资了食品连锁店 TGI Fridays 和 Domino's，以及台湾的电子公司。他们获得了泰特亚洲的控股权，泰特亚洲是该地区最古老的贸易公司的子公司，是包括啤酒和香烟在内的快速消费品的专家。
我在 ChinaVest 为我的第一个老板 Alex Ngan 工作了几年，创建电子表格，在会议上做记录，并撰写投资备忘录。他是一个任务主管，但工作很吸引人。来自各行各业的高级管理人员会来到我们的办公室，提出他们的想法。这是一种教育，是我年轻时与父母一起吃点心时偷听到的对话的更深版本。更妙的是，我是拿钱来偷听的，而且我是房间里最年轻的人。
我成为公司在泰特亚洲的代表，该公司拥有喜力啤酒和万宝路香烟的账户。在中国，人们对这些商品的胃口是非常大的。在几年的时间里，喜力在中国的销售额从零增加到 4000 万美元，而泰特亚洲拥有分销权。
中国对进口啤酒征收重税--超过 40%，以保护中国的啤酒厂。泰特亚洲将啤酒带入香港，并将其转售给那些想出办法将其免税运入中国的公司。只要销售额和利润增加，我们就不想知道这是怎么发生的。当然，这不仅仅是 ChinaVest。任何在中国做生意的人都是这样做的，规避规则以寻求利润。我很快了解到，在中国，只要你有我们中国人所说的"关系"，或与系统的联系，所有规则都是可以弯曲的。鉴于国家一直在改变规则，没有人重视这些规则。
有一次，一位中国海军军官向泰特亚洲提供了一艘中国军舰来走私啤酒。我被吓了一跳。我在中国长大，对中国人民解放军有一种美化的印象，并被告知这支军队在二战期间与日本作战，将中国从蒋介石的腐败政权中解放出来，并在朝鲜与美军作战，使之陷入僵局。而现在，中国海军却在贩卖啤酒？
我当时在公司的资历很浅，对一切都很陌生。但我发现，ChinaVest 对其投资的泰特亚洲如何将啤酒引入中国的问题完全不关心，这让我感到很困惑。我们有意创造了一个黑匣子，里面有大量的钱在转手。由于美国的规定，ChinaVest 的领导层需要装作不知道。很多在中国的西方企业都采用了类似的不问不说的商业模式。生产高端运动鞋的工厂的工作条件糟糕透顶？"谁知道呢？"制造蓝色牛仔裤的监狱劳工？"一定是搞错了。"与军队或警察做生意？"我们并不知道。"
我当时刚开始做生意，正在学习如何做人。我并没有真正处于做出判断的位置。如果我的老板认为它是好的，我认为它是好的。我越是进入中国业务，我就越是看到每个人，美国企业、香港企业、欧洲企业，当然还有中国企业，都在规则上弯曲和弯曲。我当时正处于职业生涯的起步阶段，这是我在中国贸易中最早的一课。它为我今后的工作定下了基调，为我指明了在中国的发展道路。
Theleen 是一位以其对亚洲的了解让西方人惊叹的大师。1994 年秋天，ChinaVest 在北京举行了一次与主要投资者的会议，其中包括来自中西部的家族办公室以及福特基金会和加州公共雇员退休系统等大型投资者的代表。鲍勃想做一场秀，派我去中国帮助组织这次活动。在机场，我用三辆红旗轿车迎接客人，这是中国笨重的林肯大陆的版本。我们把客人安置在钓鱼台国宾馆，1972 年尼克松和亨利 - 基辛格在著名的第一次中国之行中曾住在这里。每次我们上路的时候，我们的司机都会打开他们的警笛来清理路线。我们的客人对这种经历感到震惊。许多人是第一次来中国，不习惯这种类型的待遇，他们的目的是用奉承来炫耀。其中一位来自俄亥俄州的富家子弟转身对我说："这是另一个世界"。Theleen 从中国人那里学到了这一招，中国人是震慑性接待的高手。这样一来，鲍勃实现了他的目标，使中国看起来像一个只有 ChinaVest 才能解决的谜。
当团队退房时，宾馆给我出示了一张大账单。我们的一些投资者利用 1970 年代的中国复古钢笔、写字板、玻璃器皿和烟灰缸来装饰他们的房间。这是为这些公司的持续业务付出的一个小代价。
我开始返回中国，为公司寻找投资机会。我去了河南省的洛阳，那里以牡丹和龙门石窟闻名，但当我在 1995 年夏天到达时，那里已经是一个肮脏的后共产主义垃圾场。我在那里参观了一家摩托车厂；随着中国人把脚踏车换成踏板车，这个行业刚刚开始起飞。在福建省沿海地区，我顺便参观了一家电视显示器工厂，它将发展成为世界上最大的电脑屏幕制造商。在安徽省中部的贫民区，长期以来被称为中国最贫穷的地区之一，我唯一能找到的像样的地方就是警察宿舍。回到省会合肥时，合肥绝不是一个花园，我在一家破旧的四星级酒店庆祝我回归文明。
中国是如此贫穷，以至于其新生的私营企业都没有足够高的收入来作为投资目标。但是，我仍然可以感受到被共产主义压制了几十年的能量，等待着被释放出来。有抱负的企业家需要的只是政府给他们一个机会。
我也觉得我终于参与了比自己更重要的事情。我很早就喜欢上了中国。因此，我自然想成为这个新中国故事的一部分。没有人知道结果会如何，在回到我的祖国时，我当然不知道我是否能实现我的目标，使自己有所作为。但我觉得这样做是对的。
ChinaVest 参股的第一家中国大陆私营科技公司是亚信，一家正在建设中国互联网骨干网的公司。两位中国学生，拥有德州理工学院自然资源管理博士学位的田爱华，以及拥有加州大学洛杉矶分校信息科学硕士学位和加州伯克利分校 MBA 学位的丁健，于 1993 年在德州创立了这家公司。亚信的卖点是它能够将戴尔、思科和其他公司的软件和设备结合起来，建立一个系统，将中国人与中国人之间以及中国与世界其他地区连接起来。互联网于 1994 年进入中国。到该年年底，有三万人上网。今天，中国有近 10 亿人可以使用互联网连接，占世界用户的 20%。
田晓辉不是一个技术人员，但他是一个有天赋的推销员。当我听完他的介绍后，我被他帮助中国拥抱席卷全球的电信革命的热情所感动。Tian 把他的回国归来看作是一个世纪以来爱国的中国人在海外接受教育后回国建设祖国的潮流中的一部分。
田溯宁说，他是在 1991 年看到参议员（也是未来的副总统）阿尔 - 戈尔的一次演讲后，受到启发而成立亚信的，戈尔在演讲中把互联网描述为 "信息高速公路"。就在两年前，田溯宁在美国看着 1989 年学生抗议者在中国各城市聚集，并像我一样，看着人民解放军在北京杀害数百人而哭泣。像许多中国人一样，田晓光的反应是拥抱资本主义、信息自由流动和创业精神，以建设中国。田晓光将新技术的承诺与一个更自由的中国的承诺相结合。"有了我们的技术，"Tian 发誓，"启蒙可以像水一样从水龙头里流出来。"当他谈到爱国的中国学生回国实现祖国的现代化时，我把自己看作是一个更大故事的一部分。现在回想起来，我意识到这是一个经过深思熟虑的演说，旨在打动西方投资者和吸引中国官员。田溯宁知道如何制作一个能够吸引这两类受众的故事。不过，他在中国的成功将成为成千上万像他和我一样的归国人员的灯塔。
我是这笔交易的分析员。田溯宁要求得到我在 ChinaVest 的老板认为是不合理的金额。他声称亚信有 1 亿美元的估值，尽管其收入几乎没有达到 1500 万美元。该公司发展迅速，但它是由一群没有起草电子表格经验的技术人员管理的。田溯宁预测，在三年内，亚信的收入将增长 600%。
除了 ChinaVest，其他公司也很感兴趣。最后，华平投资公司投资了 1200 万美元，我们投入了 700 万美元，富达投资公司投入了大约 100 万美元，打破了当时中国最大的私募股权投资的记录。当亚信于 2000 年 3 月 3 日在纳斯达克上市时，其股票从 24 美元飙升至 110 美元以上，最后定格在 75 美元，涨幅为 314%。ChinaVest 的每个合伙人在纸面上的财富都增加了 800 万美元。而中国的疯狂之旅才刚刚开始。
结识亚信的一些参与者，让我领略到了中国在迈向未来的过程中所遵循的秘诀--以企业家才能与政治关系的结合为中心。田溯宁是一个关键因素。甚至在亚信在纽约上市之前，一家由中国共产党老大江泽民的儿子江绵恒创立的中国国有公司就已经把他吸引到了一家名为网通的公司，该公司的任务是通过在全国铺设光缆，使中国一跃成为信息技术的前沿。网通公司为一些城市铺设了宽带，这些城市以前从未有电话服务。在 21 世纪初的十个月里，网通公司的工人铺设了六千英里的光缆，将中国十七个最大的城市与万维网连接起来。
田溯宁管理电信公司和阐述愿景的能力对这项艰巨任务的成功至关重要。但是，如果没有江绵恒，田汉的网通努力也不会成功。正是田溯宁的能干精神和江绵恒的政治背景的结合，推动了中国的崛起。技术与政治支持的结合成为中国迈向未来的模板，也是像我这样有雄心壮志的男人和女人成就自己人生的途径。
亚信的交易也表明，外国公司也可以玩这个游戏。他们同样有兴趣利用中国高级官员的儿子和女儿在体制内讨好。
亚信带来的从事这项交易的银行家之一是一个名叫冯波的年轻人。冯的父亲是一位名叫冯志军的作家和编辑，他在 1950 年代的一次政治运动中被打成 "右派"，并被送往劳改营。1976 年，随着四人帮（聚集在毛泽东身边的极左派）的被捕，冯志军获得了自由，并成为中国民主同盟的领导成员，中国民主同盟是中国共产党在 1949 年革命后保留的八个政党之一，是一个多元化制度的门面。冯志军在全国人民代表大会常务委员会（中国的橡皮图章立法机构）任职十年，并有机会接触到影响外国公司的政策变化的内部信息。
冯的儿子冯波，一直是个一般的学生。1987 年，冯波在中国的大学入学考试中表现不佳，他的父亲把这个 18 岁的孩子送到美国，住在一个美国朋友家里，希望他能获得一些方向。冯波来到加州马林县，在马林学院上了英语补习班，并在斯坦森海滩学习冲浪。为了维持生计，他做过杂工、服务员、寿司厨师和中国厨师。他涉足前卫摄影，并梦想着执导艺术电影。
在北加州，冯波遇到了罗伯逊（Robertson Stephens）公司的负责人桑迪 - 罗伯逊（Sandy Robertson），这是一家旧金山的精品投资银行，在互联网泡沫中起了作用并最终崩溃。罗伯逊了解到冯波的政治血统，对他进行了培训，让他成为公司的执行副总裁，并鼓励他利用他的家庭关系在中国寻找与互联网有关的投资。据报道，在 1994 年 4 月写给当时担任克林顿政府商务部长的罗伯逊的一封信中，罗伯逊夸耀了冯波的家庭关系。一路走来，冯波娶了一个美国女人，他们有两个孩子。
对我来说，罗伯逊对冯波的培养剥开了一个政治系统内部运作的帷幕，这个政治系统口口声声喊着共产主义口号，而高级官员的家人却在经济改革的低谷中大吃一顿。这些儿子和女儿像贵族一样运作；他们通婚，过着与普通中国人脱节的生活，并通过出售与父母的联系、内部信息和作为财富关键的监管批准而发财。
在亚信的交易之后，华维聘请了冯波作为我们在北京的第一个代表。1997 年秋天，在 ChinaVest 工作仅一年后，冯波就离开了，去追求他自己的投资。冯波最终与他的美国妻子离婚，与邓小平的孙女卓悦结婚。在我看来，冯波利用他与邓家的关系获得了大量财富。他也成为一个炫耀者，用他的前卫电影梦想换取巨大财富的装饰品。有一段时间，他开着一辆挂着军牌的红色劳斯莱斯敞篷车在北京巡游。即使是他圈子里的人也认为这有点过分。中国的红色贵族一般比较低调。
冯波离开 ChinaVest 后不久，该公司举行了一次管理层聚会。就在会议开始前，创始人鲍勃 - 塞莱恩的妻子珍妮把我拉到一边。"嘿，Desmond，搬到北京来怎么样？"她随意地问道。"你可以成为我们新的中国代表。"我以为她在开玩笑，但她脸上的表情是认真的。我跳上了它。二十九岁的我在中国出生，在香港和美国接受教育，现在回到大陆，我的人生已经绕了一圈。几分钟后，鲍勃向大家宣布了我的晋升。
IN LATE AUGUST 1989, I flew to Los Angeles International Airport on my way to Madison. Steven picked me up in his new light blue BMW 3 Series. We visited UCLA and USC, saw the sights in Los Angeles, and, after a couple of days, he accompanied me to Milwaukee, where he had relatives.
His relatives took us out to a Japanese restaurant. I’d been to Japan with the Hong Kong swim team, but it was in the midwestern heartland where I first tasted sushi. I capped off the delicious meal by popping a massive blob of wasabi, fiery Japanese horseradish, into my mouth. I don’t know what made me more distressed, the embarrassment or my exploding sinuses.
From Milwaukee, we took a puddle jumper to Madison. Out the window, all I saw was green. I’d lived my entire life in concrete jungles in Shanghai and in Hong Kong. Here I was, wondering if I’d be attending college in a forest. Steven helped me settle into my dorm room. We met my roommate, a barely communicative wrestler from Minneapolis. After a day, Steven went back to USC.
At Wisconsin, my schedule that first semester afforded me a lot of free time. With no friends in the beginning, I spent the afternoons lifting weights in a gym across from my dorm. The university’s swim team worked out in a pool next to the gym. One day, I checked out the practice and approached the coach. I had no idea how competitive Big Ten swimming was. I asked him if I could join the team. He told me to come back the next day for a tryout. The next afternoon, I returned, dove in, and started doing the crawl. After a few laps, he barked, “You’re in.” I guess those winter mornings breaking ice in the Shanghai pool had served a purpose.
The swim team kept me emotionally grounded my first year. I was the only Asian among a group of white swimmers, but I felt accepted as part of their group. We threw parties and drank plentifully. The coach, a barrel-chested midwesterner in his early fifties named Jack Pettinger, looked out for me, inviting me over for Thanksgiving when most of the international students were left to fend for themselves. Coach Pettinger came to my dorm to pick me up. I had no concept of automobile etiquette in America. In Hong Kong, my parents never had a car. So when he drove up, I got into the backseat. “Heh, do you think I’m your chauffeur?” he barked. “Get in here with me.” In China, you don’t sit next to the senior guy, so I thought in America you did the same. I was trying to be respectful. Turns out, I had a lot to learn.
Because I’d completed the seventh form in Hong Kong, I entered Wisconsin as a sophomore. At USC, Steven was on the dean’s list, so I aimed for that at Wisconsin. My first year I barely missed it, but I never got close again. I was invited to a few frat parties, but each time I went I stuck out like a sore thumb—or, at least, I felt that way. Chinese kids would only begin coming to Wisconsin in big numbers after 2000. And this was 1989.
New to America, I was pretty clueless when it came to the latest TV shows that always seemed to be the center of conversation. I had trouble getting—much less cracking—any jokes. I noticed that many Americans seemed to have a different view of friendship than people did in Asia. There was a fluffiness to American relations. Acquaintances at Wisconsin would greet me enthusiastically and act like we were best buddies. But if I was looking for someone to be more substantially involved in my life, I had a nagging sense that they wouldn’t be there.
Still, throughout my first semester I avoided people from Hong Kong. Living in the dormitory and working out with the team, I didn’t come into contact with many. When I did, I tended not to make friends. Once I went to a dance party organized by students from Hong Kong. I started speaking English with everyone, not our native Cantonese. People thought that I was showing off and I didn’t get invited back. In reality, I was just trying to fit in as I shuttled between the dorm, the classroom, the cafeteria, and the pool.
My second year, I moved off campus and quit the swim team. The coach wanted me to keep at it because my presence upped the team’s cumulative GPA, but I needed to study. I’d chosen to double major in finance and accounting, which added a year and increased my workload. I befriended classmates from Asia. My roommate was from Indonesia and through him I met a large circle of Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean students. I dated both American and Asian women. And I discovered on trips to Chicago some of the big-city feel that I’d been missing. Even on my limited budget, I developed a taste for fine food and wine. One day during my senior year, I spotted a review of a Chicago restaurant called Everest, which touted a seventeen-course tasting menu. My curiosity was piqued, and I immediately booked a table with a girlfriend. On the day of our meal, we fasted and showed up famished. The sommelier patiently walked us through the wine-pairing list. Near the end of the meal, I asked our waiter when the main course was coming. All of the portions had been tiny servings on enormous plates. So went my introduction to nouvelle cuisine.
Having arrived in the United States immediately after the June 4 crackdown in China, as a student from Greater China I was eligible, thanks to an Executive Order signed by President George H. W. Bush, for a green card. I passed on the chance. I felt too different in America and suspected I’d hit a glass ceiling if I remained. Frat culture permeated the business world, and from those parties I’d attended I sensed that I’d have little traction with my American bosses and peers. After four years at Wisconsin, I graduated in May of 1993 and flew home.
My experience in the United States changed me profoundly. In Hong Kong and China, I already stood out because of my height and the way I dressed. But time in America made me even more individualistic and more comfortable being me. My parents didn’t like that. They regretted that I hadn’t stayed in Hong Kong. “You would’ve turned out better,” my mother announced after I returned. “You wouldn’t have gotten so opinionated. You would’ve fought with us less.” They both told me that sending me to America was the worst decision they’d ever made.
But for me, living in Wisconsin was liberating. It set me on the path to becoming a global citizen. I made friends with people from all over the country and all over the world, people of different colors, religions, and beliefs. Without that first journey to the States, I wouldn’t have succeeded like I have. Even my English was transformed. Seasoned by midwesterners and foreigners alike, my accent ended up more like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s than a Hong Kong Chinese.
Back home, I hustled to get a job, sending out twenty applications to investment banks. Within days I had interviews with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, but I botched both. When the Morgan Stanley interviewer told me to return home and wait for his call, I ignorantly suggested that he just leave a message on my answering machine and announced that anyway I was planning on a vacation before I started work. At the Goldman interview, I got into an argument about racism and raised my voice. Neither called me back.
I settled on a position as a stockbroker with the brokerage firm Citibank Vickers. I thought the job would be the most exciting in the world. All of us in that generation had watched Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in the blockbuster Wall Street memorably declare, “Greed is good.” But I soon discovered that being a broker wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. In Hong Kong, at least, it was about who, not what, you knew. If you had well-heeled contacts, you could make it. But as a junior broker with a limited social circle, I was always waiting for my boss to toss me trades that were too small or too tedious for him to execute. Clients called me to gossip, not to buy or sell. I soon realized that it didn’t matter whether I or the guy next to me sold a share of Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation or any other stock. What is the difference, I asked myself, between this and selling shoes?
Still, my colleagues and I mimicked the over-the-top, partying culture that we’d seen in the movie. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange closed every day at 4:00, and after the gym we’d head out to Lan Kwai Fong, a curved street featuring a string of bars near Hong Kong’s Central District. That was the culture. As a newly minted broker, I told myself that partying served a professional purpose. A good contact list was a key to success. I buzzed around, as the Chinese said, like a headless fly, hitting the bars and looking for business connections. I didn’t actually end up making many.
I ran into credit card problems and had to ask my parents to bail me out. Sometimes I didn’t get home until after dawn. I’d moved back in with my folks, who, riding Hong Kong’s real estate market, had upgraded again to another apartment in a better neighborhood. After multiple late-night episodes, my parents threw me out. I moved into a five-hundred-square-foot rental in the Tianhou neighborhood two blocks from Queen’s College. I knew the area and it felt like home.
After nine months as a stockbroker, I started looking for another job. I wanted something where I could apply my education—a position that offered a career path. In June 1994, I interviewed at a private equity firm called ChinaVest. The firm took up the entire penthouse of an office building in Central. Very exclusive, I thought. They asked me my understanding of private equity. I’d looked up the term the previous day and my college finance textbook only had three lines on it. Private equity was a new concept. I regurgitated what I’d memorized and got the job.
ChinaVest had been founded in 1981 by Bob Theleen, a smooth-talking former CIA officer; his wife, Jenny, who was raised in Singapore and educated in France; and two other Americans. My hiring was directly connected to changes unfolding inside China. The years between 1989 and 1992 had been bad ones for China. Following the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, a reactionary wing of the Chinese Communist Party, led by Premier Li Peng, had rolled back market-oriented reforms, cracked down on private businesses, and poured money into the inefficient state-owned sector. China’s economy slowed dramatically. But in 1992, China’s paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, impatient with the conservatives, left Beijing and traveled to the southern city of Shenzhen on Hong Kong’s border to urge a resumption of market-oriented changes. Deng’s “southern journey” unleashed a new round of capitalist zeal. Hong Kong was the prime beneficiary. In 1993, Wall Street visionary Barton Biggs came to the territory after six days in China and pronounced himself, “tuned in, overfed, and maximum bullish” on China. After Biggs’s declaration, more than $2 billion roared into stocks on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, chasing companies with business in China.
Theleen and his team capitalized on this boom, bartering their expertise on the Chinese way of doing business for equity stakes in firms seeking to establish a presence on the mainland. They invested in food chains TGI Fridays and Domino’s, along with electronics companies from Taiwan. They took a controlling stake in Tait Asia, a subsidiary of the oldest trading company in the region and a specialist in fast-moving consumer goods, including beer and cigarettes.
I worked for my first boss, Alex Ngan, at ChinaVest for a few years, creating spreadsheets, taking notes in meetings, and writing investment memos. He was a taskmaster, but the work was fascinating. Senior executives from a wide array of industries would come to our office and pitch their ideas. It was an education, a deeper version of the conversations I’d overheard as a youth with my parents over dim sum. Even better, I was getting paid to eavesdrop and I was the youngest person in the room.
I became the firm’s representative to Tait Asia, which held the accounts for Heineken beer and Marlboro cigarettes. The appetite for these goods in China was extraordinary. In the space of a few years, Heineken’s sales in China went from zero to $40 million, and Tait Asia had the distribution rights.
China had enacted heavy duties on imported beer—upward of 40 percent—to protect Chinese breweries. Tait Asia brought beer into Hong Kong and resold it to companies that figured out a way to move it into China duty-free. We didn’t want to know how that happened as long as sales and profits increased. It wasn’t just ChinaVest, of course. Anyone doing business in China did it this way, circumventing the rules in search of profit. I quickly learned that in China all rules were bendable as long as you had what we Chinese called guanxi, or a connection into the system. And given that the state changed the rules all the time, no one gave the rules much weight.
At one point, a Chinese naval officer offered Tait Asia a Chinese warship to smuggle the beer. I was floored. I’d grown up in China with a glorified image of the People’s Liberation Army and had been taught that the army had battled Japan during World War II, freed China from the corrupt regime of Chiang Kai-shek, and fought US forces to a standstill in Korea. And now the Chinese navy was trafficking in beer?
I was very junior at the firm and new to everything. But I found it perplexing to see ChinaVest so thoroughly unconcerned by how Tait Asia, which it had invested in, was getting beer into China. We’d intentionally created a black box inside of which a lot of money was changing hands. Because of US regulations, ChinaVest’s leadership needed to pretend not to know. A lot of Western businesses in China adopted a similar, don’t-ask-don’t-tell business model. Abysmal working conditions in factories making high-end sneakers? “Who knew?” Prison labor making blue jeans? “There must be a mistake.” In business with the army or the police? “We weren’t aware.”
I was just starting out in business and learning the ropes. I wasn’t really in a position to make judgments. If my bosses thought it was okay, I thought it was okay. And the more I got into the China business, the more I saw everyone, American businesses, Hong Kong businesses, European businesses, and, of course, Chinese businesses, bending and curving around the rules. I was at the start of my career and this was my earliest lesson in the China trade. It set the tone for my future work and showed me the path forward in China.
Theleen was a master at wowing Westerners with his knowledge of Asia. In the fall of 1994, ChinaVest held a meeting with its key investors in Beijing, including representatives from family offices from the Midwest and large investors such as the Ford Foundation and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. Bob wanted to put on a show and sent me to China to help organize the affair. At the airport, I greeted the guests in three Red Flag limos, China’s clunky version of the Lincoln Continental. We put our visitors up in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse where Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger had stayed during Nixon’s famous first trip to China in 1972. Each time we hit the road, our drivers would switch on their sirens to clear the route. Our guests were floored by the experience. Many were on their first trip to China and weren’t accustomed to this type of treatment, where the intent was to dazzle with flattery. One, the scion of a wealthy family from Ohio, turned to me and declared, “This is another world.” Theleen had learned this trick from the Chinese, who are masters at shock-and-awe hospitality. In so doing, Bob achieved his goal of making China seem like a riddle that only ChinaVest could solve.
When the group checked out, the guesthouse presented me with a big bill. Some of our investors had availed themselves of the retro 1970s-era Chinese pens, writing pads, glassware, and ashtrays decorating their rooms. It was a small price to pay for these firms’ continuing business.
I began returning to China looking for investment opportunities for the firm. I went to Luoyang in Henan Province, famed for peonies and the Longmen Buddhist grottoes, but by the time I arrived in the summer of 1995 it was a grimy post-Communist dump. There I visited a motorcycle factory; the industry was just beginning to take off as Chinese swapped pedal bikes for scooters. In coastal Fujian Province, I dropped by a TV monitor factory that would grow into the biggest manufacturer of computer screens in the world. In the boondocks of central Anhui Province, long known as one of China’s poorest, the only decent place I could find to sleep was a police dormitory. Arriving back in the provincial capital of Hefei, by no means a garden spot, I celebrated my return to civilization in a shabby four-star hotel.
China was so poor that none of its nascent private businesses had high-enough revenue to be investment targets. Still, I could feel the energy, suppressed for decades by Communism, waiting to be unleashed. All that aspiring entrepreneurs needed was for the government to give them a chance.
I also felt that I was finally participating in something bigger than myself. I’d come to a love of China early. So, naturally, I wanted to be a part of this new China story. No one knew how it was going to turn out and, in returning to my homeland, I certainly didn’t know whether I was going to accomplish my goal of making something of myself. But it felt like the right thing to do.
The first private mainland Chinese technology company ChinaVest took a stake in was AsiaInfo, a firm that was building the backbone of China’s Internet. Two Chinese students, Edward Tian, who had a PhD in natural resource management from Texas Tech, and Ding Jian, who had a master’s degree in information sciences from UCLA and an MBA from Cal Berkeley, founded the firm in Texas in 1993. AsiaInfo’s selling point was its ability to marry software and equipment from Dell, Cisco, and other firms to build a system that would connect Chinese to one another and China to the rest of the world. The Internet came to China in 1994. By the end of that year, thirty thousand people were online. Today almost 1 billion people have access to an Internet connection there, accounting for 20 percent of the world’s users.
Tian wasn’t a tech guy, but he was a gifted salesman. As I listened to his pitch, I was moved by his passion to help China embrace the telecommunications revolution that was sweeping the globe. Tian framed his return to China as part of the century-old flow of patriotic Chinese journeying home to build the motherland after their education overseas.
Tian said he’d been inspired to found AsiaInfo after he saw a speech by senator (and future vice president) Al Gore in 1991 during which Gore described the Internet as an “information superhighway.” Just two years earlier, Tian had watched from the United States as student protesters had massed in cities across China in 1989 and, like me, had wept as the People’s Liberation Army had killed hundreds in Beijing. Tian’s response, like that of many Chinese, was to embrace capitalism, the free flow of information, and entrepreneurship to build China. Tian combined the promise of new technology with the promise of a freer China. “With our technology,” Tian vowed, “enlightenment can flow through the taps like water.” When he spoke about patriotic Chinese students returning home to modernize the motherland, I saw myself as part of a bigger story. In retrospect, I now realize that this was a calculated spiel, designed to impress Western investors and charm Chinese officials. Tian knew how to craft a story that could appeal to both audiences. Still, his success in China would become a beacon to tens of thousands of returnees like him, and me.
I was the analyst on the deal. Tian demanded what my bosses at ChinaVest thought of as an unreasonable amount of money. He claimed that AsiaInfo had a valuation of $100 million even though its revenues barely touched $15 million. The company was growing fast, but it was managed by a bunch of techies with no experience drawing up a spreadsheet. In three years, Tian predicted, AsiaInfo would grow its revenues by 600 percent.
Other firms were interested besides ChinaVest. In the end, the investment firm Warburg Pincus invested $12 million, we put in $7 million, and Fidelity Ventures about $1 million, breaking the record for the biggest private equity investment in China at the time. When AsiaInfo listed its shares on Nasdaq on March 3, 2000, they rocketed from $24 to more than $110 before settling at $75, a gain of 314 percent. Each of ChinaVest’s partners on paper was richer by $8 million. And China’s wild ride had only just begun.
Getting to know some of the participants in the AsiaInfo deal gave me a taste of the recipe China would follow as it powered its way into the future—one centered on marrying entrepreneurial talent with political connections. Edward Tian was a key ingredient. Even before AsiaInfo listed in New York, a Chinese state-owned company founded by Jiang Mianheng, the son of China’s Communist Party boss, Jiang Zemin, had lured him away to join a firm called Netcom that had been given the mission of leapfrogging China into the forefront of information technology by laying fiber-optic cable throughout the country. Some of the cities Netcom wired with broadband had never had phone service before. Over a ten-month period in the early 2000s, Netcom workers laid six thousand miles of fiber-optic cable and connected China’s seventeen largest cities to the World Wide Web.
Tian’s ability to manage a telecommunications firm and articulate a vision was essential to the success of this staggering task. But Tian’s efforts with Netcom wouldn’t have succeeded without Jiang Mianheng. It was this combination of Tian’s can-do spirit and Jiang’s political pedigree that would drive China’s rise. The marriage of know-how with political backing became a template for China’s march into the future and a way for ambitious men and women like me to make something of our lives.
The AsiaInfo deal also showed that foreign firms could play this game as well. They were just as interested in using the sons and daughters of high-ranking Chinese officials to curry favor inside the system.
One of the bankers brought in by AsiaInfo to work on the transaction was a young man named Feng Bo. Feng’s father was a writer and editor named Feng Zhijun, who’d been labeled a “rightist” in a political campaign in the 1950s and sent to a labor camp. In 1976 with the arrest of the Gang of Four, the ultra-leftists who’d gathered around Mao, Feng Zhijun was freed and became a leading member of the China Democratic League, one of the eight political parties that the Chinese Communist Party had maintained after the 1949 revolution as the window dressing of a pluralistic system. Feng Zhijun served on the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp legislature, for ten years and had access to inside information about policy changes that impacted foreign firms.
Feng’s son, Feng Bo, had been a so-so student. In 1987, after Feng Bo performed poorly on the college entrance examination in China, his father sent the eighteen-year-old to the United States to stay with an American friend, hoping he’d gain some direction. Feng Bo landed in Marin County, California, took remedial English classes at the College of Marin, and learned to surf at Stinson Beach. To make ends meet, he worked as a busboy, waiter, sushi chef, and Chinese cook. He dabbled in avant-garde photography and dreamed of directing art house films.
In Northern California, Feng Bo met Sandy Robertson, the head of Robertson Stephens, a boutique San Francisco investment bank that rode—and eventually crashed in—the dot-com bubble. Robertson learned of Feng Bo’s political pedigree, trained him, made him an executive vice-president in his firm, and encouraged him to use his family connections to find Internet-related investments in China. In an April 1994 letter to Ron Brown, who was then serving as the secretary of commerce for the Clinton administration, Robertson reportedly boasted about Feng Bo’s family ties. Along the way, Feng Bo married an American woman and they had two children.
For me, Robertson’s cultivation of Feng Bo peeled back the curtain on the inner workings of a political system that mouthed Communist slogans while the families of senior officials gorged themselves at the trough of economic reforms. These sons and daughters functioned like an aristocracy; they intermarried, lived lives disconnected from those of average Chinese, and made fortunes selling access to their parents, inside information, and regulatory approvals that were keys to wealth.
Following the AsiaInfo deal, ChinaVest hired Feng Bo as our first Beijing-based rep. In the fall of 1997, after only a year at ChinaVest, Feng Bo left to pursue his own investments. Feng Bo ultimately divorced his American wife and married Zhuo Yue, a granddaughter of Deng Xiaoping. It seemed to me that Feng Bo leveraged his connections to the Deng family into substantial wealth. He also became a show-off, exchanging his dream of avant-garde filmmaking for the trappings of immense wealth. For a time, he cruised Beijing in a red Rolls-Royce convertible with military plates. Even people in his circle thought that was a bit much. China’s red aristocracy was generally more subdued.
Soon after Feng Bo left ChinaVest, the firm held a management gathering. Right before the meeting, founder Bob Theleen’s wife, Jenny, pulled me aside. “Hey, Desmond, how about moving to Beijing?” she asked casually. “You could be our new China rep.” I thought she was joking, but the look on her face was serious. I jumped on it. At twenty-nine my life—born in China, educated in Hong Kong and the United States, and now heading back to the mainland—had come full circle. A few minutes later, Bob announced my promotion to the group.