Li Ang - The Lost Garden

With her family connections, Yinghong was able to host banquets that drew important government officials and heads of major enterprises, though she knew that without Lin Xigeng, she alone could not have managed the invitations so easily.

She was particularly adept at mixing politicians with businessmen, knowing that the best way to make connections was to bring people with different needs together so they could exchange interests to achieve mutual benefits. She understood the intricacies of nouveau riche social circles.

“Without concrete interests and real benefits, public relations are a waste,” she said to Lin with a broad smile; he listened attentively, with a degree of indulgence.

Yinghong usually attended lunch and dinner meetings, and told people at the company not to arrange for girls to join them. If they needed the presence of women, she would invite female real estate agents or office staff. Sometimes, she asked guests to bring their wives along, which went against the norm of the husband-only practice, but achieved unexpected results. A few of the more active wives even urged Yinghong to form a lady’s club so they could get together regularly.

She saw, from these wives, a solidifying base for Lin’s election.

In addition to inviting wives to join the men’s banquets, Yinghong also insisted on not joining the men when they went to bars after dinner. Everything was fine at the various Taipei restaurants, where there remained a clear distinction between dinner and men’s entertainment; the line was blurred once the men went to Beitou, particularly because hotels there provided all services, from meals to banquets, to drinking and flirting, to rooms for other activities.

Beitou, located on a small hill on the edge of the Taipei Basin, was developed as early as the colonial era, thanks to its high concentration of sulfur springs. Interspersed in the verdant hill were hot springs hotels in the Japanese style, all with such elegant names as Singing Wind Pavilion, Carefree Garden, and the like. It had been a pleasure den for all sorts of people: poets, literati, wealthy merchants, and entrepreneurs.

When the island’s economy took off, the omnipresent real estate business, the so-called engine of all business, had also spread its tentacles into this beautiful hill. With real estate’s tendency to destroy anything old, the traditional, secluded Japanese hotels were leveled and the greenery on the hill was slowly overwhelmed by high rises in concrete and steel, hotels with up to two hundred rooms, and, as dictated by current style, imported bathroom tiles laid on the outside, the more vulgar the better.

Gaudy new hotels spread Beitou’s reputation as a town that never sleeps. As for the few remaining Japanese-style hotels, a different kind of eroticism and lewd desire were hidden in tatami-filled rooms inside zenlike pavilions and gardens characterized by gray roof tiles. After newly developed real estate razed most of the traditional buildings, nostalgia returned people to these elegant, old-style hotels for pleasure.

Singing Wind Pavilion, situated at mid-hill, had a driveway that led to stone steps framed by nicely maintained Japanese gardens, with small ponds encircled by fine white sand, pine trees, and osmanthus. In the fall and winter, the osmanthus sent its subtle fragrance into the air, giving the illusion that it floated above the damp, heavy smell of sulfur. If you inhaled, you smelled the pleasant fragrance of osmanthus first before the sulfur hit you.

The elaborate Japanese structure had a large entranceway with wind chimes hanging from the outstretched eaves. In the lobby were a reception desk, sofas, and long cabinets for shoes. Middle-aged women came up, bent at the waist to offer slippers, which were laid out in neat rows on a floor made of long strips of dark brown wood. The straw slippers were identical, except for size — larger for men and smaller for women. Some customers considered shared slippers unclean and left them behind.

Guests followed winding hallways to their rooms, where paper doors were opened to reveal a ten-tatami room in which there were low, round tables high enough for the guests to sit with legs crossed or knees bent. One rainy night in early spring Yinghong and Lin arrived to be greeted by more than a dozen people around one of the tables. Unlike chairs at restaurants, tatami floors offered diners the chance to press up against each other. One man was already straddling a bar girl, while they fed each other liquor through their mouths.

The host that night was Mr. Chen, the owner of Big and Wide Construction, and, like Lin, a real estate tycoon with considerable influence. He got up when they entered and greeted them attentively. During the brief pause in the noisy singing, he introduced Lin and Yinghong. Most of the men were too drunk to stop their raucous bantering.

The young woman who opened the paper door and walked in got everyone’s attention after someone welcomed her with cheers and applause. She walked in slowly, in a composed manner. On that early spring night, she was wearing a colorful pullover top over a black patent-leather skirt that wrapped tightly around her full, round behind. The wrinkled leather showed it had been worn many times, which was why it fit so nicely; it was not long enough to cover knees on long legs clad in black fishnet stockings.

Her long, permed hair was a tangled, puffed-up mess that framed a pair of sleepy, limpid eyes offset by rouged cheeks. She zeroed in on her target and slipped in the space beside Lin Xigeng. With a flirtatious glance, she called him Brother Lin in a honeyed voice.

Before she had a chance to say another word, Lin introduced Yinghong to the woman, who lowered her eyes, and, with no perceptible change in demeanor and posture, shifted her body and glued herself to the host, who was seated next to Lin, toasting him and threatening his original companion, a tall girl whose expression changed, though she sat quietly, impassively raising her glass. While fully aware of the intention of the new girl, she could do nothing but look upset.

At that moment, the door that the girl in the leather skirt had pulled shut was opened again, to reveal a tall, potbellied, middle-aged man with an oily sheen on his red face. He swaggered in to sit beside the girl in the leather skirt and blurted out proudly:

“Let me show you the good stuff.”

With a swift movement, he yanked the girl’s top out of the leather skirt, unzipped it and pulled it down the shoulders. Before anyone realized what was going on, the girl’s chest was in full view; a pair of large, natural breasts under a transparent, unpadded lacy bra.

“See. Guaranteed real. There’s no match.”

As the man continued talking, he opened the black bra to expose a pair of fleshy, arching breasts that jiggled in front of the guests.

Everyone’s gaze was fixed on her breasts, which, so rare among Asian girls, projected a degree of self-assurance. Big and full, they looked proud and imposing, with a healthy, pink-tinged paleness. The dark, red nipples were erect, probably from the man’s hands when he pulled her bra open.

With a quiet gasp, Yinghong looked instead at the two canines through the girl’s parted lips. Those were teeth adored by Japanese men, who saw them as standing for the purity and innocence of young girls. But this girl wore a smug smile. The other girls looked at her with disdain, but the knowledge that they could not match what she had added unhappiness to their faces.

The man reached out and pushed the girl’s head toward his chest. She then stuck out her pink tongue to slowly and carefully lick every inch of his exposed chest.

Saliva oozed from the corners of her slightly opened mouth; she had no chance to swallow, for her mouth was all over his chest, smearing her lipstick at the corners and staining the edges of her lips with thick, irregular bloodlike smudges. The man’s chest was also covered in red spots, like bloodied wounds, as if he’d just been bitten.