Flower Lounge -- Epilogue

The Court of Appeal made a long story very short on the 9th of May, 2012. 

In about fifteen minutes, His Lordship agreed that John and I had reasonable grounds to appeal. The Company put up a hefty bail to purchase our provisional and conditional freedom. Towards the end of the same year, we won the appeal. Incredibly, the Department of Justice took the case to the Court of Final Appeal. Our lawyers were astonished, and smiled. We won the final appeal in the summer of 2013 after another brief hearing. That was it. I never returned to Tong Fuk.

The DOJ spent a lot of tax money in vain to keep another jurisdiction ‘clean’. Ironically, more than a decade on, the Company is still operating in Macau with the same joint venture partner, servicing the same government contract which has been successfully renewed competitively several times in the interim. The Macau government has found nothing untoward in their own investigations.

Some say imprisonment enriches one’s life. I suspect that to be the blurry vision of romanticists or idiots who have never even visited a jail. True, there are surprisingly positive lessons one could take away from any experience if it’s embraced with an open mind. But not everyone is in a position to deal with trying circumstances, open-minded or not. In my own case, support from my family, friends and colleagues made a pivotal difference. The luminary counsel the Company recruited from London for the appeal was also a persuasive factor in our tug of war for favourable justice.

Duration could have made a difference also. 

I spent a total of seventy days in jail, approximately the length of time I whimsically told Fai that I would like to get a taste of the Flower Lounge. I wonder how I may look back on my time behind bars now if I had to serve out the original sentence in full. Time could have intensified the experience, or numbed the senses, and changed my perspective accordingly. Well, every turn in life leaves behind a similarly futile wonderment. The unknowable is best left to unfold in one of the infinite multiverses, staging a different outcome unbeknown to us.

Things often appear very different in retrospect. Before this fiasco, I had never considered the possibility of something like that happening to me. When going through it, I wanted it to go away at all costs. Looking back more than a decade later, I actually value the unforgettable experience highly, and am glad to have met the See Hings and guards whose names I should not mention. They confirmed that the paranoid Guardian Angel was but a shadow in my heart. I have since exorcised it, and feel lighter.

Coincidentally, as I write this epilogue, the calendar says 29 February 2024, exactly twelve years since Day One in Flower Lounge. It has taken much longer than expected to finish this story. Being autobiographical in nature heightens self-consciousness. And unexpectedly, instead of facilitating accurate recollection, the three books of diaries made me uptight about every incomplete detail and delusive ‘fact’, until it dawned on me that the only place in life where absolute clarity exists is fiction. In Midlife Triad, Gollum’s Demon, and Beyond Reasonable Doubt, I let fiction fill in the gaps of a tattered reality. Why not here?

Finally, it’s time to give my warmest heartfelt thanks to my wife Satu and daughters Claire (who’s bald spot closed up beautifully after the appeal) and Saara, who never managed to visit the work-camp. They helped me lull yet another tempest into a gentle breeze by being their usual selves — strong, calm, supportive, and loving. I’m also grateful for the unwavering support from my buddy Fai, and the Company. Without them, Flower Lounge could have been unnecessarily stressful.

29th February 2024, Hong Kong

End of Flower Lounge

Thanks for reading!