My attempt at becoming a Trading Tsar.

You may know that I have spent much of my working life as a Building Contractor specializing in Artificial Rocks. My company, Asia Rock Art Ltd, made rocks for Hotels, Casinos, Theme Parks, Aquariums, Zoos and Museums. We were the Rocks ‘R Us of Asia. However, Hong Kong tends to lend itself to entrepreneurship and my wife developed  a Company called OzzieCozzie, to import and retail Swimwear and I had an offer to expand my field of expertise into the Chinese Medical market, which I hoped, would see me retiring by the age of 50.

The Chinese will proudly tell you that they will eat anything with its back to the sun, anything with four legs except the table, pretty much anything in the vegetable kingdom, the contents of the Oceans and even the right kind of dirt. Normal dirt is used as a condiment. Their passion for food even exceeds their passion for gambling but, they do not always eat for the joys of flavor and texture, almost all food is considered to be part of the great lexicon of Chinese Medicine. As an instance, in Hong Kong at Chinese New Year, it is common to serve a Banquet dish made from re-constituted dried oysters on a bed of black seaweed covered in goop. I have never been able to determine the constituent ingredients of ‘Goop’, suffice it to say that this is one of the slimiest, stinkiest, most execrable dishes known to Man. It has the texture of snot and the flavor of harbour sludge but, its name in Cantonese sounds like ‘Kung Hey Fat Choi’ which is the traditional blessing, roughly translated as, “I hope you will make money this year.” Thus, you are required to serve it, even though any Western guests will be heaving into the tureen by the time it has reached the table.

And for any ailment you have, there is a food, or a combination of foods, sticks, offal and dirt that will put you right. Chinese Medicine Practitioners know all about the various combinations and their shops are a cornucopia of twigs, bugs, fungus and dehydrated animal parts, those from the sea being particularly efficacious. My office was located in a district called Sheung Wan, renowned throughout Asia for dried sea products. Every day as I walked to work, these emporiums of the Ocean would be rolling back their shutters and releasing the stink of the sea beds into the street. You could almost see the miasma as waves of it crashed through the narrow alleyways. Sharks’ fin, Fish Maw (The inflated and dried swim bladder), Abalone, Oyster, Cockles, Winkles, Limpets, Sea Horses (Nooooo!), Clams, Scallops, Shrimps and Seaweed, the list was/is endless.

One year, an early typhoon coincided with an extraordinary neap tide and this low lying area of shops and warehouses was flooded, deep enough to get into many premises and reconstitute a great quantity of stock. The Owners were outraged, how could Government allow this to happen? They were small businesses and were being bankrupted by the loss of valuable goods. Flood water in Hong Kong is a vile combination of sewage and polluted sea water with a dash of diesel oil for piquancy. The Government, being responsible for the drainage system, gave in and paid out millions of dollars and, on the first day that the sunshine returned, the streets of Sheung Wan were carpeted with newspaper and wicker baskets. Pedestrians and cars had to pick their way through piles of seafood being put back in the sun to dry again, so that it could be put back on sale and advertised as ‘Coated in Secret Recipe”.

What was even more galling was the fact that the cause of the flooding had not actually been any failure on behalf of the Government. The real culprit was a Feng Shui Master, who had passed through the district to advise, for a fee, on how to improve business. Any Owner whose premises had a road drain located close to them, was advised that (As water is symbolic of Money), the drain was drawing money out of the business. Fortunately, he had in his possession a Feng Shui carpet tile, similar in almost every way to a normal rubber backed carpet tile, except that if purchased and placed over the drainage grate, it would prevent the money from flowing away. Thus, systematically, every road grate within Sheung Wan, was sealed off so that some other poor bugger could suffer the consequences. What’s more it had worked! When the flood came, the Government paid out for their losses, but then their losses were reclaimed and sold at a higher price due to ‘Secret Sauce’.

My own foray into this netherworld of food as medicine came about because I have a brother who lives in Canada on a Prairie farm South of Calgary. This is Beef country and so, in a typically intransigent familial manner, he grows Sheep and has endured the enmity of all his neighbours except the one who grows Deer. One day, standing on their own at the local abattoir, shunned by everybody else in town, my brother enquired where his neighbor sold his meat. To which he was told that the venison went to Germany and the leftovers went to dog food. “Ah.” Replied Roger, “But what about the good stuff?”

“Good stuff?”

“Yeah. The Penis and the Antlers and the Musk Gland!”

“People would want that?”

“Sure! Chinese will pay big bucks for that sort of thing! My kid brother lives in Hong Kong, let me have a sample of each, once they have dressed the venison and I will get it over to him and see if he can set up a regular trading partner.”

They shook hands and I was subsequently informed that I was going into the Deer Dick trading business. Well I knew nothing about the Deer Dick trading business but, given the clean arid winds that scour the Canadian Prairie, there was a sample flying my way within a couple of weeks. It would appear that there is a significant portion of the Chinese population that suffers from erectile dysfunction and thus Tiger bone, Rhino horn, Deer penis and Antler and Sea Cucumber, have long been used in an attempt to get wood. Most of this has been illegal for some time but, as it happens, Sea Cucumbers are abundantly represented in the Sheung Wan seafood emporiums and just round the corner from my office is a shop that specializes in Deer parts.

I entered this shop with a dessicated Deer pizzle in my rucksack and asked for the Manager. A young entrepreneur like myself but Oriental, asked how he might help me and I asked if he did indeed retail Deer Penis? He replied affirmatively and I asked if he would be interested in viewing a sample of finest Canadian prairie raised schlong for sale. He viewed me somewhat warily, but I assured him of my best intents and drew forth said schlong from my rucksack. He was suitably impressed, asked if he could pick it up and handled it like a pro. I was asked to take a seat and provided with tea while he weighed and measured it and discussed its finer points with his colleagues.  Finally, he sat down and commenced negotiations. He advised me that it was an excellent sample, that there were a couple of mistakes in the presentation of the gonads but that they could show me other samples and provide details as to how this should be rectified. His Company would be very interested in doing business, if this quality was sustainable, however, the price would depend on quantity. How many items could I guarantee each year? I had already pre-empted this question with a little research as to my Brother’s Neighbour’s herd and annual cull and confidently stated that we could provide twenty. His brow furrowed and he enquired as to whether I was referring to 20 dozen or 20 hundred or twenty gross or, were we intending to sell them by the tonne (metric or imperial).

I smiled and replied that we could provide 20 number.

He smiled and removed my teacup.

“Ah” he said. “I’m afraid that we are only interested in the bigger numbers. You see, there is actually a Canadian Board of Deer Dicks, responsible for the fixing of trading prices for this very valuable commodity. I had thought you were offering a clandestine export opportunity that would have been mutually profitable, however, at such meager volumes I’m afraid that it’s just not worth our time, or the risk involved. For example, at the present time, we are investing in a South African processing plant capable of processing 200 Seal penis per week. Now that’s a lot of Dicks, but thank you for your time.

Thus my new career was nipped in the bud and I was heartbroken, not the least because I had already designed my new Business Card which read simply;

John Dainton

Rocks & Cocks.

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