of the Guangze, or from a religious brotherhood in the mountains of far-off Qing Gaoyuan - descendants, it was said, of
a people in the distant Himalayas - they were always quite ostentatious and generally to be feared the most, for few
understood their obscure teachings. Teachings that were couched in gentleness, but with subtle hints of indescribable
agony should their lessons go unheeded. There was too much agony on the land and the water. Who needed more?
So give to the spirits, to the eyes of fire. Perhaps it would be recorded somewhere.
The white-robed figure walked slowly through the parting crowds on the wharf, past the congested Star Ferry pier,
and disappeared into the growing pandemonium of the Tsim Sha
Tsui. The moment had passed; the stalls returned to their hysteria.
The priest headed east on Salisbury Road until he reached the Peninsula Hotel, whose subdued elegance was losing
the battle with its surroundings. He then turned north into Nathan Road, to the base of the glittering Golden Mile, that
strip of strips where opposing multitudes shrieked for attention. Both natives and tourists alike took notice of the
stately holy man as he passed crowded shop fronts and alleys bulging with merchandise, three-story discos and
topless cafes where huge, amateurish billboards hawked Oriental charms above stalls offering the steamed delicacies
of the noonday dim sum. He walked for nearly ten minutes through the garish carnival, now and then acknowledging
glances with a slight bow of his head, and twice shaking it while issuing commands to the same short muscular
Zhongguo ren, who alternately followed him then passed him with quick, dance-like steps, turning to search the
intense eyes for a sign.
The sign came - two abrupt nods - as the priest turned and walked through the beaded entrance of a raucous cabaret.
The Zhongguo ren remained outside, his hand unobtrusively under his loose tunic, his own eyes darting about the
crazy street, a thoroughfare he could not understand. It was insane! Such outrageousness! But he was the tudi; he
would protect the holy man with his life, no matter the assault on his own sensibilities.
Inside the cabaret the heavy layers of smoke were slashed by roving coloured lights, most whirling in circles and
directed towards a platform stage where a rock group ululated in deafening frenzy, a frantic admixture of punk and Far
East. Shiny black tight-fitting, ill-fitting trousers quivered maniacally on spindly legs below black leather jackets over
soiled white silk shirts open to the waist, while each head was shaved around its skull at the temple line, each face
grotesque, heavily made up to accentuate its essentially passive Oriental character. And as if to emphasize the conflict
between East and West, the jarring music would occasionally, startlingly, come to a stop, as the plaintive strains of a
simple Chinese melody emerged from a single instrument,
while the figures remained rigid under the swirling bombardment of the spotlights.
The priest stood still for a moment surveying the huge crowded room. A number of customers in varying stages of
drunkenness looked up at him from the tables. Several rolled coins in his direction as they turned away, while a few got
out of their chairs, dropping Hong Kong dollars beside their drinks and headed for the door. The heshang was having
an effect, but not the effect desired by the obese, tuxedoed man who approached him.
'May I be of assistance, Holy One? asked the cabaret's manager through the sustained crescendos.
The priest leaned forward and spoke into the man's ear. The manager's eyes widened, then he bowed and gestured
towards a small table by the wall. The priest nodded back in appreciation and walked behind the man to his chair as
adjacent customers took uncomfortable notice.
The manager leaned down and spoke with a reverence he did not feel. 'Would you care for refreshment, Holy One?'
'Goat's milk, if it is by chance available. If not, plain water will be more than sufficient. And I thank you.'
'It is the privilege of the establishment,' said the tuxedoed man, bowing and moving away, trying to place a dialect he
could not recognize. It did not matter. This tall, white-robed priest had business with the laoban, and that was all that
mattered. He had actually used the laoban's name, a name seldom spoken in the Golden Mile, and on this particular
evening the powerful taipan was on the premises - in a room he would not publicly acknowledge knowing. But it was
not the province of the manager to tell the laoban that the priest had arrived; the berobed one had made that clear. All
was privacy this night, he had insisted. When the august taipan wished to see him, a man would come out to find him.
So be it; it was the way of the secretive laoban, one of the wealthiest and most illustrious taipans in Hong Kong.
'Send a kitchen boy down the street for some fuck-fuck mother goat's milk,' said the manager harshly to a head boy on
the floor. 'And tell him to be damn-damn quick. The existence of his stinking offspring will depend upon it.'
