Rainbow
Black Sea caviar and Matsutake mushroom were served along with a platter of Dragon chicken at Nanaowan Bay. A neon blue hue on the distant waters silhouetted the multi-million dollar renminbi yachts docked along the marina of Neo-Shanghai. I met Ana from Barcelona here who was introduced to me by Yi, a biochemist with over a thousand references in studies.
The party opened a new world for a young genomic such as myself. One of the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie, who during a two-decade period when traveling abroad was largely exclusive to the elite, built a charade of opportunities way beyond the common folk. I really thought this would give me a platform to capitalize on my dream, but I learned first-hand that success doesn’t come without privilege.
I was invited exclusively by Ana into an argent room with golden ornaments decorated with rare tropical woods one would pay thousands of dollars for.
I have the faint memory — that feels as little my own as the palm of somebody else’s hand — of waking up the next morning with the charming Ana in my bed, who left swiftly after breakfast, that I realized scavenging through my notes in my office that my magnum opus was lost. A piece of my mind that had been my obsession for the last twenty years and I had given up friends for, girls, family. The intricacies of a normal life. Thousands of hours of my life were gone as I sat in the limelight of my suede chair that same day to the blood-red sun of Shanghai. But I couldn’t reconstruct the pieces. It was gone forever, like mist or a rainbow. In the minds of people who had better use for it— or to pluck the fruits. That wasn’t set away for me.
Super Wok Explosion is a unique animated web-series about Chinese organized crime. The project is funded entirely by its audience. On this website, animator Tony Cheuk likes to share information about Asian organized crime—and world-building of the universe of the series, Chinese tongs and triads. If you're interested in learning more about the project, you can click here.