Source:
https://scmp.com/article/29998/stolen-car-gives-china-visitor-some-extra-drive

Stolen car gives China visitor some extra drive

TO dinner at the Repulse Bay home of Colombian Consul-General Carmenza Maincourt and her Cartier executive husband, Christophe, where they both displayed hidden talents - she as a cook through the luscious fare served up and he as a guitarist providing apres -supper entertainment.

Over the Spanish-style chicken, two of the guests, businessman Nouhad Slim and Cave de France vice-president Cassam Gooljarry - recently returned from China - briefed us on happenings over the border.

For Cassam the trip, although a business one, revolved around trying to spot his stolen Mercedes-Benz - the memorable story of which (involving his wife, Grace, talking to the thief over the car-phone even as he was spiriting it to China) was broken by us and went around the world.

Every time he saw a car that looked like his, Cassam got his bemused host to pull over so he could check it out. ''It's quite amazing the number of Mercedes-Benz on the roads over there,'' he commented. ''But I took my car keys with me and if I saw my one I was determined to drive it back to Hongkong.'' Nouhad, who has been doing business in China for 23 years and goes there every month, was intrigued by a poster he spotted last week in Shanghai which read: ''The people of Shanghai support the people of Beijing for the Year 2000 Olympics.'' With such a bold proclamation of autonomous aspirations, we wonder - could the People's Republic of Shanghai be too far away?