9. PALM THATCH TO
PACKARD OR A FORMULA FOR SUCCESS
READERS WHO are
all too familiar with popular works on anthropology may be
interested to learn that some recent investigations have involved a
completely novel approach. The ordinary anthropologist is one who
spends six weeks or six months (or even sometimes six years) among,
say, the Boreyu tribe at their settlement on the Upper Teedyas
River, Darndreeryland. He then returns to civilization with his
photographs, tape recorders, and notebooks, eager to write his book
about sex life and superstition. For tribes such as the Boreyu, life
is made intolerable by all this peering and prying. They often
become converts to Presbyterianism in the belief that they will
thereupon cease to be of interest to anthropologists; nor in fact
has this device been known to fail. But enough primitive people
remain for the purposes of science. Books continue to multiply, and
when the last tribe has resorted to the singing of hymns in
self-defense, there are still the poor of the backstreets. These are
perpetually pursued by questionnaire, camera, and phonograph; and
the written results are familiar to us all. What is new about the
approach now being attempted is not the technique of investigation
but the choice of a society in which to work. Anthropologists of
this latest school ignore the primitive and have no time for the
poor. They prefer to do their fieldwork among the rich.
The team whose
work we shall now describe, and to which the present author is
attached, made certain preliminary studies among Greek Shipping
Magnates and went on to deal in greater detail with the Arab
Chieftains of the Pipeline. When this line of investigation had to
be abandoned, for political and other reasons, the team went on to
study the Chinese Millionaires of Singapore. It is there we
encountered the Flunky Puzzle. It is there we first heard of the
Chinese Hound Barrier. During the early stages of our inquiry we did
not know the meaning of either term. We did not even know whether
they were different names for the same thing. What we can claim now
is that we at least followed up the first clue to present itself.
This clue we
obtained in the course of a visit to the Singapore palace of Mr. Hu
Got Dow. Turning to the equerry who had shown him round the
millionaire's collection of jade, Dr. Meddleton exclaimed, "Gee, and
they say he began life as a coolie!" To this the inscrutable Chinese
replied, "Only coolie can become millionaire. Only coolie can look
like coolie. Only velly lich man can afford to look lich."
Upon these few and enigmatic words (of which no further explanation
was offered) we based our whole scheme of research. The detailed
results are comprised in the Meddleton-Snooperage Report (1956) but
there is no reason why they should not be presented in a simplified
form for the general reader. What follows is just such an outline,
with technicalities mostly omitted.
Up to a point, as
we recognized, the problem of the coolie-millionaire offers no real
difficulty. The Chinese coolie lives in a palm-thatched hovel on a
bowl of rice. When he has risen to a higher occupation--hawking
peanuts, for example, from a barrow--he still lives on rice and
still lives in a hovel. When he has risen farther--to the selling,
say, of possibly stolen bicycle parts, he keeps to his hovel and his
rice. The result is that he has money to invest. Of ten coolies in
this situation, nine will lose their money by unwise speculation.
The tenth will be clever or lucky. He will live, nevertheless, in
his hovel. He will eat, as before, his rice. As a success technique
this is well worthy of study.
In the American
log cabin story the point is soon reached at which the future
millionaire must wear a tie. He explains that he cannot otherwise
inspire confidence. He must also acquire a better address, purely
(he says) to gain prestige. In point of fact, the tie is to please
his wife and the address to satisfy his daughter. The Chinese have
their womenfolk under better control. So the prosperous coolie
sticks to his hovel and his rice. This is a known fact and admits of
two explanations. In the first place his home (whatever its other
disadvantages) has undeniably brought him luck. In the second place,
a better house would unquestionably attract the notice of the tax
collector. So he wisely stays where he is. He will often keep the
original hovel--at any rate as an office--for the rest of his life.
He quits it so reluctantly that his decision to move marks a major
crisis in his career.
When he moves it
is primarily to evade the exactions of secret societies,
blackmailers, and gangs. To conceal his growing wealth from the tax
collector is a relatively easy matter; but to conceal it from his
business associates is practically impossible. Once the word goes
round that he is prospering, accurate guesses will be made as to the
sum for which he can be "touched." All this is admittedly well
known, but previous investigators have jumped too readily to the
conclusion that there is only one sum involved. In point of fact
there are three: the sum the victim would pay if kidnaped and held
to ransom; the sum he would pay to keep a defamatory article out of
a Chinese newspaper; the sum he would subscribe to charity rather
than lose face.
Our task was to
ascertain the figure the first sum will have reached (on an average)
at the moment when migration takes place from the original hovel to
a well-fenced house guarded by an Alsatian hound. It is this move
that has been termed "Breaking the Hound Barrier." Social scientists
believe that it will tend to occur as soon as the ransom to be
exacted comes to exceed the overhead costs of the "snatch."
At about the time
a prosperous Chinese changes house he has also to acquire a
Chevrolet or Packard. Such a purchase often, however, antedates the
change of address. So the spectacle of the expensive car outside the
dingy office is too familiar to arouse much comment. No complete
explanation has so far been offered. Conceding, as we may, the need
for a car, we should rather expect it to share the squalor of its
surroundings. For reasons not yet apparent, however, Chinese
prosperity is first and fairly measured in terms of chromium,
upholstery, make, and year. And the Packard will involve, very soon,
a wire fence, barred windows, padlocked garage, and hound. A
revolutionary change has occurred. If the Alsatian-owner does not go
so far as to pay his taxes, he must at least know how to explain why
no taxable income has so far come his way. And supposing he can
avoid paying $100,000 to gangsters, he can hardly avoid payment of
blackmail in some form. He must expect to receive obsequious
journalists who claim credit for refusing to publish hostile
articles about him in dubious journals. He must expect to see the
same journalists a week later, this time collecting funds for some
vaguely described orphanage. He must accustom himself to the visits
of trade union officials offering for a consideration to discourage
the industrial unrest that will otherwise affect his interests. He
must resign himself, in fact, to the loss of a percentage.
One of our
objects was to compile some detailed information about the
Alsatian-owning phase of a Chinese businessman's career. This was,
in some ways, the most difficult part of the whole investigation.
There are types of knowledge only to be gained at the price of torn
trousers and bandaged ankles. We are proud to think, in retrospect,
that where risks were inevitable they were taken unflinchingly. No
fieldwork was needed, however, to discover what actual amounts are
paid in ransom. These figures are in fact generally known and often
quoted in the local press with some pretense at accuracy. What is
significant about these figures is the range between the smallest
and the largest figures quoted. Sums appear to vary from $5000 to
$200,000--never as little as $2000 nor as much as $500,000. Nor can
there be any doubt that the majority of extortions fall within a
narrower range than that. Further research will, no doubt, establish
what the average amount can be taken to be.
If we suppose
that the minimum extortion represents a figure just high enough to
yield a marginal profit, we shall as readily conclude that the
maximum extortion represents all that can be extracted from the
richest men that are ever kidnaped. It is manifest, however, that
the very wealthiest men are never kidnaped at all. There would seem
to be a point beyond which the Chinese gains immunity from
blackmail. In this last phase, moreover, the millionaire seeks to
emphasize rather than conceal his wealth, demonstrating publicly
that the point of immunity has been reached. So far, no social
scientist of our team has been able to discover how this final
immunity is achieved. Several have been thrown out of the
Millionaires' Club when trying to collect evidence on this point.
Concluding that it has something to do with the number of equerries,
aides-de-camp, personal assistants, secretaries, and valets (all
much in evidence at this stage) they have termed the problem "The
Flunky Puzzle" and left it at that.
It is not to be
supposed however that this problem will baffle us for long. Indeed,
we know already that our choice lies, broadly speaking, between two
alternative explanations, with the proviso that we may possibly end
by accepting both. One guess has been that the flunkies are really
gunmen forming an impenetrable bodyguard. The other guess is that
the millionaire has bought up an entire secret society and one
against which no other gang dare act. To test the former theory--by
a carefully staged holdup-- would be relatively simple. At the cost
of a life or two the fact could be established beyond all reasonable
doubt. To test the latter theory would need more brains and possibly
more courage. With several casualties already among the brave
dog-bitten members of our team, we did not feel justified in
pursuing this line of research. We concluded that we had neither the
men nor the funds to complete the investigation. Having since
received timely aid from the Miss Plaste Trust (Far East branch) we
hope to know the answer fairly soon.
A problem that
remains, even after the publication of our interim report, is the
enigma of Chinese tax evasion. All that we could discover about this
was that Western methods are not widely used. As is well known, the
Western technique depends on discovering the standard delay (or
S.D., as we call it among ourselves) in the department with which we
have to deal. That is, of course, the normal lapse of time between
the receipt of a letter and its being dealt with. It is, to be more
exact, the time it takes for a file to rise from the bottom of the
in-tray to the top of the pile. Supposing this to be twenty-seven
days, the Western tax evader begins his campaign by writing to ask
why he has received no notice of assessment. It does not matter,
actually, what he says in the letter. All he wants is to ensure that
his file, with its new enclosure, will be at the bottom of the heap.
Twenty-five days later he will write again, asking why his
first letter has not been answered. This sends his file back to the
bottom again just when it was almost reaching the top. Twenty-five
days later he writes again. ... So his file is never dealt with at
all and never in fact comes into view. This being the method known
to us all, and known to be successful, we naturally concluded that
it was known also to the Chinese. We found, however, that these is
no S.D. in the East. Owing to variations in climate and sobriety,
the government departments lack that ordered rhythm which would make
them predictable. Whatever method the Chinese use, it cannot depend
upon a known S.D.
To this problem
we have, it should be emphasized, no final solution. All we have is
a theory upon the validity of which it would be premature to
comment. It was put forward by one of our most brilliant
investigators and can be described as no more than an inspired
guess. According to this supposition the Chinese millionaire does
not wait for his assessment, but prefers to send the tax collector a
check in advance for, say, $329.83. A covering note refers briefly
to earlier correspondence and a previous sum paid in cash. The
effect of this maneuver is to throw the whole tax-collecting machine
out of gear. Disorganization turns to chaos when a further letter
arrives, apologizing for the error and asking for twenty-three cents
back. Officials are so perturbed and mystified that they produce no
response of any kind for about eighteen months--and another check
reaches them before that period has elapsed, this time for $167.42.
In this way, the theory goes, the millionaire pays virtually nothing
and the inspector of taxes ends in a padded cell. Unproved as this
theory may be, it seems worthy of careful investigation. We might at
least give it a trial.
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