Tash Aw

Five Star Billionaire


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      TASH AW

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       Five Star Billionaire

       A Novel

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       For Aw Tee Min and Yap Chee Chun

       Suppose one can live without outside pressure, suppose one can create one’s own inner tension – then it is not true that there is nothing in man.

      CZESŁAW MIŁOSZ, The Captive Mind

      Table of Contents

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Epigraph

       Foreword: How to be a Billionaire

       1. Move to Where the Money Is

       2. Choose the Right Moment to Launch Yourself

       3. Bravely Set the World on Fire

       4. Forget the Past, Look Only to the Future

       5. Reinvent Yourself

       6. Perform All Obligations and Duties with Joy

       7. Calmly Negotiate Difficult Situations

       8. Always Rebound After Each Failure

       9. Pursue Gains, Forget Righteousness

       10. Never Lapse into Despair or Apathy

       11. Inquire Deeply into Every Problem

       12. Work with a Soulmate, Someone Who Understands You

       13. Luxuriate in Serendipitous Events

       14. Even Beautiful Things Will Fade

       15. A Strong Fighting Spirit Swallows Mountains and Rivers

       16. Beware of Storms Arising from Clear Skies

       17. Cultivate an Urbane, Humorous Personality

       18. Be Prepared to Sacrifice Everything

       19. There Can Be No Turning Back

       20. Anticipate Danger in Times of Peace

       21. Adopt Others’ Thoughts as Though They Were Your Own

       22. Boundaries Change with the Passing of Time

       23. Nothing Remains Good or Bad Forever

       24. Embrace Your Bright Future

       25. Know When to Cut Your Losses

       26. Strive to Understand the Big Picture

       27. Nothing in Life Lasts Forever

       28. Travel Far, Keep Searching

       29. Life is a Floating Dream

       30. The Journey is Long

       Acknowledgements

       By the Same Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Foreword: How to be a Billionaire

      Some time ago – I forget exactly when – I decided that I would one day be very rich. By this I mean not just comfortably well off but superabundantly, incalculably wealthy, the way only children imagine wealth to be. Indeed, nowadays, whenever I am pressed to pinpoint the time in my life when these notions of great fortune formed in my head, I always answer that it must have been sometime in my adolescence, when I was conscious of the price of life’s treasures but not yet fully aware of their many limitations, for there has always been something inherently childlike in my pursuit of money – that much I admit.

      When I was growing up in rural Malaysia, one of my favourite TV programmes was a drama series set in a legal practice somewhere in America. All the details – the actors, the plots, the setting – are lost to me now, blurred not just by the passage of time but by a haze of bad subtitles and interrupted transmissions (the power generator and the aerial took it in turns to malfunction with crushing predictability, though in those days it seemed perfectly normal). I am not certain I could tell you what happened in a single episode of that soap opera, and besides, I did not care for the artificial little conflicts that took place all the time, the emotional ups and downs, men and women crying because they were falling in love, or out of love; the arguing, making up, making love, etc. I had a sensation that they were wasting time, that their days and nights could have been spent more profitably; I think I probably felt some degree of frustration at this. But even these are fleeting impressions, and the only thing I really remember is the opening sequence, a sweeping panorama of metal-and-glass skyscrapers glinting in the sun, people in sharp suits carrying briefcases as they vanished into revolving doors, the endless rush of traffic on sunlit freeways. And every time I sat down in front of the TV I would think: One day, I will own a building like that, a whole tower block filled with industrious,