Mr Wong Goes West by Nury Vittachi

Palace, Prince Charles has Highgrove House, they all hang out at Windsor Castle and Balmoral—there are more than enough places for you to feng shui in UK. And you can charge the earth for each one.’
    Wong looked comforted. ‘I need the money quick-quick. You think the Queen pay cash?’
    Sinha thought about this. ‘I should think so. After all, her face is on all the cash. It’s on all the coins, and all the notes. She owns all the cash, in a sense. They are all just portraits of her. I think she probably won’t personally hand you an envelope stuffed with fivers but she can arrange for one of her staff to do just that. She has teams of men and women to do that sort of thing for her.’
    ‘Ladies in waiting, they’re called,’ Joyce put in.
    Chong-li agreed. ‘Yes. They flit around with wads of money in their handbags to hand to people just like you.’
    Wong allowed himself a slight upturn of the lips. It was possible that Arun Daswani may get his money on time after all. And if the Queen was as rich as his fellow members of the Singapore Union of Industrial Mystics believed she was, then there would be lots left over to go into his pocket.
    This was worth celebrating. He held up his hand to get the attention of Ah-Fat, who was walking past with a steaming dish of something that smelled like a small animal marinated in mouth-searing chilli. ‘One more of everything,’ Wong yelled.

 
In the days of the supremacy of the southern kingdom, a man with an iron hammer told the people of north Yunnan that he was stronger than any of their village leaders.
    He approached a village made of wood and smashed it with his hammer.
    He approached a village made of bronze and smashed it with his hammer.
    He approached a village made of stone and smashed it with his hammer.
    Soon, everyone worshipped the man with the hammer.
    But not the hermit who lived in a small bamboo grove.
    ‘Knock down my home, and I will worship you too,’ said the hermit.
    The man swung his hammer at the bamboo grove. But the rods of bamboo bent with the blow and then sprangupright again. Many times, the man with the hammer swung at the bamboo grove. But he could do it no harm.
    Blade of Grass, weakness is a type of strength. When an oxcart passes through a village, everyone sees it coming and gets out of the way. But when a blind man is crossing the road, the oxcart driver has to stop.
    From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’
by CF Wong.
    It was restlessness personified. Hong Kong was a frenetic, shaking, entrancing, annoying, gorgeous, mad city perched on the edge of the South China Sea. Gloriously asymmetrical, it was a splat of angular glass excrescences scattered arbitrarily over a series of giant rocks on the edge of the ocean. Everything in it was a statement, and always a loud one: the harbour was jammed with boats; the waterfront crammed with skyscrapers; the pavements packed with people; the sky chock-a-block with aircraft, helicopters and advertising blimps; the air filled with noise, noise, noise,
noise
. And at the heart of it was the main island, bursting with office buildings, apartment blocks and company headquarters carrying names that were visionary, boastful, grandiloquent and crass: Tycoon Court and Wealthy Mansions and Rich Genius Limited.
    Then there were the hotels. What magnificence. What style. What opulence. What grandiosity. What tastelessness.
    Joyce screamed as soon as she entered the hotel foyer, a short sharp yelp of sound bursting from the fists at her mouth: ‘IIIEEEE!’
    Robbie Manks, the royal consultant, seemed to jump out of his skin and then stared at her. Wong stepped smartly away from his assistant, a much practised manoeuvre on his part. The hum of conversation between hotel guests and staff at thelobby desks instantly vanished. Everyone turned to look at the newcomers.
    Manks, a PR man who clearly loathed attracting attention to himself, was the first to react. He scanned the room. What had she seen