In all his puff
Peter Hui was born in 1914. He died in 1993. In between, he was the owner of all the opium in Hong Kong, the biggest race horse owner, a collaborator, a spy, a gangster - and a man who could still charm women into his late 70s.
Hui was a spendthrift. His story is peppered with tales of how money would flow through his hands. Not one for hard work, Hui had an aptitude for throwing cash away and being cheated by those he trusted. All that mattered was that he had a good time.
Feckless, flawed, he was known into old age for borrowing money but not always paying it back. Perhaps, feeling death was near, he decided to tell someone about his life, so recruited long-time fellow Cheung Chau resident, writer Jonathan Chamberlain, to tell the tale. The result, King Hui, is a book of stories recounting Hui's adventures, loves, appetite for sex and drinking, influence over triads and a life of fortune and destitution.
'He said, 'Jonathan, you can use my story as a basis for a novel, if you like,'' says Chamberlain. 'As an old man he wanted company. What I gave him for the last two years of his life was that once a week he had that company and knew somebody was going to buy him dinner.'
They would meet in the offices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on Cheung Chau, Hui living in rented rooms in the same building and unlocking the door for the visiting vet once a week. 'Eventually I got to know him very well,' says Chamberlain, 'but initially he was just Mr Charm. He and his friend were often to be seen drinking on the waterfront. When his friend wasn't around he would entertain people with his tales.'
The book is the life of Hui but it is also a story of Hong Kong. Hui's history encompassed pre-war Hong Kong and a life of wives and concubines and female slaves: Hui grew up a pampered youth cared for by his elder, unmarried sister, who agreed to stay single to look after him. Then came the Japanese invasion of 1941 and Hui's collaboration with the enemy, although he described himself as disturbed at witnessing torture at the Supreme Court, now the Legislative Council.