Death of a Diva - One last time

So, Tony Chan lost his attempt to gain control of Nina Wong's ChinaChem fortune. The judge found his will to be fraudulent and awarded the fortune to Nina's late husband's family. This was such a bizarre story. Hong Kong used to be a more interesting place when there were more people like Nina Wong running around.

Just to recap.

Nina Wong, who at the time was just past her prime but still a rather hot-to-trot gold digger, in need of a patron to make her his mistress, struck pay dirt when she was able to actually marry an aging tycoon. Said Tycoon is kidnapped shortly thereafter. Nina pays ransom, or she said. The tycoon is never returned and is presumed dead after several years. During probate, Nina turns up with a slicker-than-grease lawyer from the UK and a handwritten will that is unsigned, not in her husband's handwriting, and before this date not known to exist. This new, somewhat dubious Last Will and Testament revokes the old will, which gave Nina a pension suitable for a high-dollar mistress, and instead gives the entire ChinaChem fortune to Nina. The now presumed to be dead tycoon's family received nothing but the shaft. Nina loses in probate and appeals. She appeals again and has a judge call her a lying, counterfeit will forging scum bag, though not in those precise words. Undeterred, Nina takes her case to the Court of Final Appeal and wins a surprise and final victory. There is no other court higher that the now dispossessed family members can raise an appeal to.

Nina is suddenly the wealthiest woman in Asia as well as the ugliest, as she is now well past her prime. But Nina, undeterred, plaits her hair in pigtails like a little girl and bounces around Asia building up the fortune of her stolen business and breaking camera lenses and mirrors from here to Shanghai. She makes plans to build a 115-story-tall hotel in Tsuen Wan, which can't be done because the area is in the flight path of the airport, and settles for a mere 60- or 80-story-tall corporate HQ instead with a Japanese anime-style cartoon character sculpture of herself in the lobby. Supposedly she also considers producing a children's cartoon series based upon her life. I kid you not!

Several years later, Nina announces that she has cancer. Nobody was surprised because she looked like death on toast anyway, and to see her actually dead would be an improvement.

Shortly thereafter, Nina dies because she refused any treatment except that provided by a Feng Shui Master who was also acting as a Chinese herbalist.

Her will leaves her entire fortune to her late tycoon husband’s family, which has been waiting all these years if not in penury then at least a state of relatively non-super wealthiness.

But wait! In steps the Feng Shui Master cum Chinese herbalist Tony Chan. He appears with the same slicker-than-grease lawyer from the UK and a handwritten, but not in Nina's handwriting, Last Will and Testament that was not known to exist before her death that gives the entire ChinaChem fortune to him, rather than the late tycoon husband's family, because (You couldn't make this stuff up) he was her friend, business advisor, adulterous lover and trusted confidant in all things Fung Shui, business and amourous for nearly two decades. (Fung Shui is a Chinese superstition that makes Astrology look like a real science for those of you not in Asia.) Tony claims that first he helped Nina look for her missing husband, then helped her with her business ventures. He next helped her look for her underwear before he helped her look for her checkbook. Lastly, he provided medical treatment for her cancer. Indeed, he, in his role as Feng Shui Master cum Chinese herbalist, was the only one Nina allowed to treat her cancer. Hmmmmmmmmm, motive, opportunity and access all he needed was a will. Well, he got one!

It gets better.

It seems that over the years Nina had paid said Mr. Chan over 2.3 BILLION Hong Kong dollars in Feng Shui, business consultation, and giggilo fees. Tony's wife, an ever practical and modern Chinese woman, when informed of her grinning husband's two-decade-long affair with an aging gorgon 17 years his senior, said, "I don't care what he does as long as he provides enough money and I like to be wealthy." Nice family!

It now turns out that the Hong Kong Casanova did not declare any of the 2.3 billion Nina gave him as income on his tax returns. If I may say so, Tony, that was a mistake.

I wonder how jail is going to affect his Feng Shui?

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The blogger who reads the society pages in the SCMP rather than watching soap operas