He began calling early Thursday, trying to get a telephone consultation appointment, but I was booked solid. Since we were working this weekend, Gretchen finally managed to fit him in on Saturday afternoon.
Bo: Hello? Tom Collins?
Tom: Yes.
Bo: This is Bo Guagua. How are you?
Tom: Fine, thanks. And you?
Bo: I’ve been better, actually. That’s why I called.
Tom: Sure, I understand.
Bo: My Dad’s innocent.
Tom: Of threatening to kill Wang Lijun?
Bo: He never did that – Wang Lijun had no reason to hide from my father at the United States consulate. Wang must have had a psychotic break or something.
Tom: And your father didn’t poison Neil Heywood?
Bo: That’s right; and neither did my mother.
Tom: And your mother, Gu Kailai, she never ordered your fathers’s houseboy, Zhang Xiaojun, to slip Heywood the Mickey Finn?
Bo: Zhang Xiaojun has never even met anyone named Mickey Finn. I bet Heywood’s wife, Wang Lulu, did it. That’s what I think.
Tom: And your father wasn’t in cahoots with Neil Heywood?
Bo: No, absolutely not.
Tom: Neil Heywood wasn’t your family bai shou-tao, your mother and father’s surrogate for shady business deals?
Bo: No. That’s nothing but another malicious rumor.
Tom: So – it wasn’t, in fact, the case that any foreign company which wanted to do business where your father was in charge had to hire your mother’s law firm?
Bo: My Mom’s a really good lawyer, that’s all. Everybody came to her because she was so brilliant.
Tom: How do you know that?
Bo: She told me so.
Tom: So the foreign businessmen were all lying when they complained that if they didn’t hire your mother’s law firm to represent them, your father would make sure their companies never got the required permits and licenses?
Bo: That’s a lie. Can my mother help it if her competition was just plain stupid? Because the real reason was, none of the other lawyers knew how to fill out those applications right.
Tom: How do you know that?
Bo: That’s what my father told me.
Tom: And you believed him?
Bo: I’m Chinese.
Tom: So?
Bo: So Chinese children are taught to believe whatever our parents tell us.
Tom: And you do?
Bo: In China, respect for your parents is everything. Let me tell you a famous ancient Confucian Chinese story, maybe then you will understand. Father, son and grandfather go out into the forest to chop firewood. The father tells the little son, “Watch carefully, and we will show you how to chop fire wood.” Then the father holds up a tree branch while the grandfather wields the axe. Down it comes – chop! Off flies the father’s finger. “You [expletive] old piece of [expletive],” the father says, “are you [expletive] senile or have you gone [expletive] blind?” “You [expletive] son of a [expletive],” the son shouts, “how dare you curse your own father?”
Tom: Okay, I understand what you’re saying – you couldn’t question your parents’ explanations for all their shenanigans, no matter what they did. It was a cultural thing, which I, as an American, could never fully comprehend.
Bo: Exactly.
Tom: So, when your mother denied that her law firm charged exorbitant fees – bills that amounted to extortion and/or bribery, you had to accept that as the truth?
Bo: I had no other choice.
Tom: And when your father insisted that Neil Heywood never received any kickbacks for his part in these… activities… you were also bound, by traditional Chinese filial obligation, to unquestioningly accept his assertions at face value?
Bo: That’s how it’s done in China, Mr. Collins.
Tom: Interesting – because that’s also how it’s done somewhere else where filial duty trumps everything else.
Bo: Where’s that?
Tom: Sicily.
Bo: You mean that island in Italy where the Mafia comes from?
Tom: Yeah.
Bo: I understand. In China, we have the Snakeheads. But my parents had nothing to do with them. My father fought against them, very hard.
Tom: I know – in his famous “war on crime” in Chongqing, which culminated in the arrest of the Snakeheads’ lawyers.
Bo: Hey, look at this way – those guys were guilty anyway, so what did they need lawyers for?
Tom: Interesting logic, no doubt about it. Your paternal grandfather was one of the Honorable Eight Elders of the Communist Party, and Mao Zedong’s Minister of Finance, correct?
Bo: Yeah, until he got purged in the Cultural Revolution.
Tom: And your maternal grandfather was General Gu Jingsheng, who became a Chinese Communist in 1932, worked his way up to become the Political Commissar of the People’s Second Field Army, and fought alongside Mao at Huaihai and Guangdong, right?
Bo: Uh-huh.
Tom: That’s quite a pedigree. So, obviously, your parents didn’t need to have anything to do with the Snakeheads in order to make a lot of money. Not when they had the Communist Party. Both of them were descendents of very prominent founding members.
Bo: Well… somebody had to be.
Tom: Tell me, do you seriously think Neil Heywood might have bothered pulling all of the strings necessary to get you into Papplewick, Harrow, Oxford and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard if your parents hadn’t been the descendants of highly influential Chinese Communists?
Bo: Um… I don’t know.
Tom: Oh, come on – in addition to having been governor of Liaoning, mayor of Dalian, and Minister of Commerce, your dad was head of the Communist Party of Chongqing, and a member of the Politburo.
Bo: My father and mother worked very hard.
Tom: I’m sure they did. You, on the other hand… not so much, I hear.
Bo: Math is hard. If there wasn’t any math, my grades would be fine.
Tom: You are hardly the first student to say that. You sure it’s just the math?
Bo: Well, I guess the essay questions, too.
Tom: I see – if it weren’t for the math and the verbal, you’d be a top student.
Bo: Uh-huh. Life’s unfair.
Tom: All the time. Like when your father got caught wiretapping President Hu Jintao’s confidential telephone calls. You know, even in America, if somebody got caught wiretapping our president’s secret telephone calls, they’d be in quite a bit of trouble.
Bo: That’s all made up, too. My father never did that. He’s the victim of a political conspiracy. What the big guys in Beijing are afraid of is how much the people love and support him. He got the Snakeheads off the streets. He built apartments for the old folks. He made the trains run on time. He…
Tom: Handed out moon cakes on street corners during Chinese New Year?
Bo: Uh, yeah, that too. And he got them all to sing the old Red Songs, like “It is Right to Rebel Against Bourgeois Oppressors,” “Without the Communist Party There Would be No New China,” “Ode to the Communist Chinese Motherland,” “Workers Unite to Resolutely Oppose Running Dog Western Imperialists,” “Hail the Inspirational Teachings of Chairman Mao Zedong,” “Greater Factory Production Through Politically Correct Application of Dialectical Materialism…”
Tom: “All the Big Red Hits, All the Time.”
Bo: Um… yeah. That’s what he made them say on the radio.
Tom: Well, golly, between that and his wife’s business deals with Neil Heywood, I can’t possibly imagine why anyone in China would want to get rid of the guy.
Bo: Me neither.
Tom: Right. So what can I do for you?
Bo: Well, first of all, there’s all these untrue rumors about me and I need some advice on what to do about them.
Tom: You mean, like the story about you showing up at the United States ambassadorial residence to pick up John Huntsman’s daughter in a red Ferrari?
Bo: It was not a Ferrari!
Tom: A Lamborghini?
Bo: You see? That’s it right there – the very idea that I would be seen driving around in Italian trash like that! It was a Porsche!
Tom: No kidding?
Bo: Damn straight! I was driving a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, not some crappy Ferrari!
Tom: Oh, yeah, come to think of it, the 911 GT3 RS does look a lot like the Ferrari 458.
Bo: To fools who don’t know anything about sports cars, maybe!
Tom: In that case, it’s easy to see how various eyewitnesses could have become confused.
Bo: At least my friends at Harvard got it right – at least they’re saying I drive a Porsche.
Tom: Yes, it must be very difficult for you to cope with misunderstandings of that magnitude.
Bo: It’s absolute hell! What should I do?
Tom: I’d suggest, to avoid further such misunderstanding in the future, that you acquire an extensive set of Porsche accessories – windbreaker, key holder, USB stick, watch, twenty-two carat gold Porsche crest medallion with matching neck chain, alarm clock, wall clock, desktop pen and pencil set, Porsche affinity Black American Express, Titanium Visa and Platinum Master cards…
Bo: Wait, wait… you’re going to fast… slow down so I can get all this.
Tom: Sure. Espresso cup set… coffee mug… thermal travel cup… computer mouse… lapel pin… tie… LED flashlight… umbrella… daybook… golf bag… golf balls… golf towel… polo shirt… polo mallet… polo saddle… tennis racket… tennis balls… tennis shorts… sport jacket blazer… ball cap… gym bag… beach towel… bath robe… athletic socks… sunglasses… throw pillows… and… bed spread.
Bo: …throw pillows and bed spread. Okay, got it.
Tom: With all that Porsche-branded swag, apparel and bling lying around, you’ll never again be mistaken for some clueless moron who drives a Ferrari.
Bo: Whew! That’s sure going to be a relief. Okay, then there’s these [expletive] here at Harvard who are gossiping behind my back, telling the press that I never got any scholarships and all of my education was paid for with tainted, crooked money.
Tom: They’re saying that? At Harvard? Well, any time you’re confronted with such guff, you just point to the name on building there at the Kennedy School of Government and say, “Joe Kennedy made his fortune in bootlegging and not only was that money good enough to put his sons Jack, Bobby and Ted through Harvard, the university named this school after one of them.”
Bo: Sorry, I only got the first half. Could you repeat it?
Tom: Sure. “Joe Kennedy made his fortune in bootlegging and not only was that money good enough to put his sons Jack, Bobby and Ted through Harvard, the university named this school after one of them.”
Bo: … the university… named this school… after one of them. Good. Got it. All right, then, there’s one more thing.
Tom: Which is?
Bo: Um, well, ah… it doesn’t look too good for Mom and Dad. And also, the important people in Beijing are now saying I am to blame, too, for disgracing China in the eyes of the world, and so forth. So I was thinking, maybe I better figure out how to avoid going back to China; maybe stay here in the United States?
Tom: I would suggest Canada or England, actually.
Bo: Not America?
Tom: No.
Bo: Why not?
Tom: Number One, Apple Computer Corporation is the most successful business in America today. Number Two, virtually every Apple Computer Corporation product is made in China.
Bo: And that means?
Tom: And that means, if you ask to stay here, the government of the United States is going to have to decide between America having you and America having iPhones.
Bo: Oh.
Tom: And, at the moment, even Jesus Christ Almighty couldn’t win that one. Sorry.
Bo: Uh… okay… I’ll… um… I’ll call back later, then.
Tom: Of course. Anytime. ‘Bye!