“Finance”
David Do
I met Finance on my first night out in Shanghai with seven other students from Carleton. We were sitting at the outdoor patio of a pub, and seated two tables next to us were an attractive blond woman and two men, one white and one Middle Eastern. After a few pitchers of beer and rounds of Chinese dice game whose rules I never managed to understand, we agreed that whoever lost the next round of the game would go over and invite the woman and the two men over to our table. And of course it was me who lost. With the help of a beer-induced buzz I walked across the patio and asked the strangers to join us, and to my surprise they stood up without hesitation.
As soon as joining our table, the Middle Eastern man began to talk about finance, and I zoned out instantly, finance being a field I am completely ignorant in. I was a few seats away from him anyway, and it was hard to hear what he was saying over the din of the pub. I returned to playing with dice in order to figure out the rules of the game, when Alex—one of the students from Carleton—nudged me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear.
“Yo, apparently this guy is a complete fraud.”
I looked at him with my eyebrows raised.
“The guy talking about finance—Phillip thinks he is making everything up.”
I looked over to the finance guy, and he was chatting and gesturing with Phillip, who was most knowledgeable about financial matters among our group. I strained my ear and caught bits and pieces of the conversation.
“So what exactly is it that you do?” Phillip was asking.
“Portfolios, man. Big portfolios. We are looking to expand. I could hook you guys up, if anyone is interested.”
“Oh yeah?” Phillip nudged him on, grinning.
“Yeah man. I can put a word in for you guys, for something like an entry level position. Good way to get real work experience in finance—”
“Where did you say you worked at, exactly?”
“The deVere Group. Yeah we are expanding—” He was shooting out words like a Gatling gun, eyes glinting with excitement and enthusiasm. Next to Phillip, Jason was googling the deVere Group on his phone (which was in fact a real company) while Phillip was asking the finance guy what I presumed to be a series of cleverly designed questions to ascertain the truth of his excited statements, all of which he answered incorrectly, or at least according to the message passed down the table through whispers and giggles.
This went on for a while when Phillip and Jason suddenly announced that all of us were having a really good time, but sadly had to leave. Jason exchanged numbers with the blond girl, whose name we later learned was Louisa. Some handshakes, goodbyes, and we were off. It was only the morning after that we realized we never bothered to find out the finance guy’s name.
***
Louisa became our guide to the local expat nightlife. Russians, Spanish, Germans, Canadians, French, Americans; people of all imaginable white nationalities lined the streets in front of clubs and filled the outdoor patios of bars. What were they all doing in Shanghai? What were they all doing to make a living in that city, earning enough to afford weekly clubbing and pub crawls? What life circumstances led them to 3:00 AM cheap wine and canned beer in front of convenience stores, halfway across the world from their home, in a city with unfamiliar language? Who were they in their own eyes?
In my mind, Finance—that is what we decided to call him—represented this nightly melting pot of nebulous life stories and new-found identities, an association which only grew stronger when I heard about how Finance told Seth, another one of my Carleton friends, that he was a music producer the second time he showed up with Louisa. A pattern emerged: Finance lied to impress whoever he was interacting with, completely reinventing himself in order to do so. With Phillip, who was interested in finance, he was a mid-level manager at deVere Group. With Seth, who had distinct taste in music, he was a producer at a record label. It must have been something he could not control, since he hadn’t even bothered to keep to his already-established identity as a portfolio manager.
I wondered what his past life had been like. Where was he from? How did he manage to have a normal life while constantly lying? Did his compulsory need to lie and impress people somehow drive him all the way to Shanghai? And what was his day job here in Shanghai? Who was he, really? I couldn’t picture him clearly in my mind. I was curious, but I knew that I would not get an honest answer if I asked.
***
In my last weekend in Shanghai, I decided to take in what I could of Finance while we were waiting in front of a bar for some of our other expat acquaintances. If Finance wasn’t going to reveal any of his inner self, I would have to do with his outward appearances. Dark skin, hooked nose, a short cropped goatee to go with short unkempt hair. About a head shorter than me. Now that I really began to listen carefully, no accent in his English I could discern, to my surprised realization. Was he an American, then? A green tattoo on his wrist whose shape I couldn’t quite make out under the dim street light. Plain blue jeans and a dark brown flannel shirt. Very plain clothing, really.
Finance sensed my gaze, and came up next to me.
“Hey man, I never caught your name.”
“It’s David.” I was flustered, like a boy caught stealing something. Maybe I had been staring too much. Before I got a chance to ask him his name, he cut me off.
“He-ey! David! So where are you from, David?”
“Korea. What’s your na—”
“Korea! I love Korea!” He shouted. As a pretty quiet and shy person, I found it hard to stand my ground against Finance’s rapid fire words. So I let him talk.
“I’ve been in Korea, man. Like for five months! I was a video game developer. You Koreans rock at video games. Had a blast in Korea.”
“Really? Do a lot of foreigners work on video games in Korea?” I managed to ask.
“Of course man. I was translating, you know, in the video game company.”
Translating what? I was about to say. Did he mean to tell me that he spoke Korean? Just then the half-French, half-Chinese guy we were waiting for finally showed up, and Finance, likely sensing his blunder, promptly turned his back on me to greet the new arrival. I stared at this backside, and never got another chance to speak to him through all that dancing and drinking that melted all of us expats into one, sweaty, semi-conscious living thing. And as I melted away, I knew exactly who Finance was. And my curiosity was sated at least for that night.
