Chapter 31

My grandma liked me a lot when I was young. She was also incredibly generous with giving her wealth to the family. This all led to her investing and starting 10 trust funds under my name. They were all for pretty decent amounts of money too. I never got an exact number for all of them but the amount from the only one that went to maturity was approximately $6, 500 CAD when I finally cashed it in 23 years later. While that may seem like a large amount of money, might I remind you that, I wouldn’t know this number until a very long time from now. In the current situation of being in the same living space as dad for the first time in my life, I wasn’t really thinking about it much. Also, you heard me right. “The Only One That Went to Maturity”. Out of the 10, I only got to cash in on one of them. I think with the fund the initial requirements for the funds was that I graduate from high school though I am unsure how finances in China really operate. Since you know that I did graduate from high school, you may be thinking: “where did the others go?” 

This was the conversation my grandma wanted to tell me when she came to my room in the middle of the night while mom and dad slept in their separate rooms. The answer was not good either. My grandma is usually feisty and demanding and although I haven’t seen her in a few months since she left Canada due to an expired VISA, I still expected that demeanor to persist. It didn’t. For the first time in forever, my grandma genuinely looked sad as she told me what happened to all my trust funds that she bought when I was born. The consistent look of sadness was only broken by a look of disappointment every time she mentioned my mom and dad’s name. The simple answer to the story? My dad stole all of my trust funds. 

Just as a quick recap, my mom was living with my dad back when she was completing her Ph D in Chinese. They were also living in a condo that my mom bought and had under her name. While there, they had me and soon after I was born, my mom and dad split up. After the divorce, Dad had already decided to go to New Zealand to be an unskilled laborer and cut all ties with mom and I. I knew the story as such but never really pondered too much about where he got the funds to start off in New Zealand. The thing was, he was a bum when he left. He had no skills nor a solid resume. The only thing on there was a military service complete for the Chinese Communist Party and to be frank, it never really outweighed the fact that he didn’t speak a lick of English. He was also only a high school graduate and still disowned by my paternal grandparents. So the question is, where did he get the money to start up in New Zealand? His labor jobs while my mom was working for her PhD barely paid for anything so where did the money come from? That’s right. He stole it from my trust funds. 

***Editor’s note: I realized until editing that the question most people come up with first isn’t where did the money come from but rather, why move to New Zealand? That’s fair, and in truth I will come to the answer of this question later on in life. Unlike with the money thing though. if you want to know the answer to this question you’ll just have to wait a few chapters***

Banking in China is kind of shady but the gist of it was this: Since my dad married my mom and was registered as one of my parents. He got access to my trust funds. Then, on one fateful day, he simply decided to withdraw all of this. Since the divorce was messy and timeline-wise very close to when he left the country, I would also assume he withdrew all the money either right before the divorce finalized or just a little bit beforehand. How much money did he steal? Unsure! But remember how I had around 10 of those and was able to actually withdraw one of them? Using this information, we can do some math. 

The one that matured around the year 2020 was around $6500 CAD. Let’s assume the others were of similar value. Just to lowball it a little bit on estimation I’ll even be generous and calculate them at less value. Let’s say at around $6000 CAD. 

Now, assuming I had exactly 10 and he took out money from 9 at around $6000 CAD each, a general estimate of $54,000 CAD would be the number he took from my funds in terms of money in 2020. Adjusted for inflation between 1994 and around 2020 and you’d get somewhere around $31,000 CAD back then. This would have easily been enough for him to start himself off in New Zealand.

My mom never told me about this before. My grandma had to be the one to drop this bombshell on me. Now, just for clarity sake, my grandma never told me an exact number about anything. She gave me an estimate. While I do recall it being close to the $6,500 I would eventually withdraw later on in life, I don’t think it was totally accurate. In my mind, I was just given a hint at a large sum of money that was taken from me from birth. Although there wasn’t an exact number in my mind, I still thought about it quite a bit and worked on the math even here and there in my occasional daydream. During that dreamless night though, I was a bit taken back. I didn’t know what to do with the information. After telling me the truthbomb, my grandma left me with a final piece of advice. 

“Don’t think too highly of dad.”

I clearly wasn’t thinking straight after this truthbomb because my first thought was “he must have been doing it for a good reason right? There must be more to the story!”. I think I broke away from reality with a lot of assumptions. The thinking I had was if he really stole that much money from me, surely he would never show his face around me again. Since he was sleeping in the other room and had spent all afternoon talking with mom, he must have redeemed himself already right? Otherwise, why would mom even let him in the door? I really wanted the answers to this question although in truth, I was scared of the answer. My answer to the question of why, despite dad stealing from me, mom was still letting him speak with me, was that she was still in love with him. Did I care about this? Yes. I’ve never imagined what my mom was like when she was in love. But consider how low I was on her value system. If now she had another thing added to her tier system, how low would I sink? Who would take care of me? 

This is selfish thinking and to be honest, it was thinking in regards to self preservation. However, the sleepless nights and anxiety ridden conversations had led to this train of thought going non-stop. I didn’t care about mom’s happiness. Why? I had a firm image in my head that mom’s happiness didn’t involve me at all. She and dad had spent most of the vacation talking with each other and not really paying that much attention to me, I clearly wasn’t a priority nor thought of a lot. If anything, dad was the one holding all the cards. If he could steal from me and still have the attention of my mom, what else was he capable of? I shuddered at the thought that this stranger, who had been absent my entire life, had so much say in my current life. I also hated the fact that mom allowed him to do this. Why wasn’t she angry? Why was she having casual conversations with him? What was wrong with her? I knew that he had betrayed her in the past and she forgave him. But now that I know he betrayed me also, why does she still continue on as if there’s nothing wrong? Why would she let him get away with that? Am I that low on her value system that dad stealing money from me does even phase her? 

For the first time in my life I felt confused about everything. I didn’t care about pleasing or showing gratitude towards dad nor mom anymore. Screw impressions. As the rest of the trip kept continuing on, I simply spoke the truth about everything. What’s the point of a filter when there’s no impressing anyone and no one speaks true? Grandma’s truthbomb did make me less nervous around dad though it did also have the collateral damage of ruining his image in my eyes. For the next few days, we went around to different attractions in China. Acting life a family. Eventually, I figured that I probably won’t get to see much of dad after this vacation so, why confuse myself and just pretend like nothing really happened in the past. What’s past is in the past. All I can do about it now is move on, it’s not like my life will change much upon the revelation anyhow. Though, I will keep my wallet and personal items close at hand. Don’t want anymore things going to him after what he did. I chose to simply forgive him for a majority of his robbery of my birthright and tried to enjoy the time for what it was.

In the middle of the week, my mom had to run some errands regarding the apartment my grandma owned and I was left with dad to be alone for a bit. He took me to play billiards and shop around. We ended up not buying anything. At billiards, he won most of our rounds and showed me no mercy. It was fine though, I did want to just hang out with him for a bit. However, we ended up having pretty much null in conversation though. Nothing was really exchanged. I mean, what did you expect when the guy had missed all my birthdays and holidays for my entire conscious life? To be honest, the encounter had been much more disappointing than I had hoped it to be. 

Following that very forgettable encounter, we went on a string of seemingly weirder and weirder visits. Our first stop was in ShangHai. I had never been there before and clearly no one else had either. Which meant there was a huge surprise to everyone when our first stop was at the 5 Star Hyatt hotel. I was a bit stunned. Dad did the planning for this dad and now I was left wondering. Did my dad know some powerful people? Why were we staying here? Everything went perfectly smooth with check in and we got settled in quite easily. I got my own room with a large plasma screen and black out curtains that were remote control activated (pretty extravagant for 2012). After that, my dad then invited me to dinner on their top floor and we ate a pretty nice meal. I didn’t know it at the time but I enjoyed a black goo thingy that turned out to be caviar, something I didn’t even know existed until that meal.

After dinner, the extravagance died off. How? Well, dad left me there while he made a phone call and my selfish only child instincts kicked in. My anxiety was telling me to be nervous. Why? I assessed the situation, we were at a really fancy restaurant at a really fancy hotel and I had barely enough Chinese proficiency to get by. If dad leaves me here, what would even happen to me? Dad was on the phone for a while. After getting the call, he even had to step out a bit to take it. It was then that my anxiety was at a peak. I felt like I didn’t trust the guy. I didn’t even have my wallet with me but even then I doubt I would be able to afford anything in my general vicinity. Just as I was thinking about this, I got the bill. The number was large. I unfortunately didn’t have photos of this encounter so I can’t recall the exact numbers but I was freaked out. How am I going to pay for this? A very realistic thought came to mind that maybe dad booked this for us and was gonna leave me and mom with a really bad hotel bill. Just as I was thinking about the bill, things got worse. The waitress came to me and asked me to pay soon as my time on the table was causing a long wait. I told her that my dad would come back and that I literally did not possess any form of money on me. The only thing on me was a phone that didn’t get service since the SIM was Canadian and a hotel key. The waitress didn’t care much, she told me that it was fine, just sign a tablet to bill the room for the meal instead. I perked up a bit and then realized, I didn’t know dad’s signature at all. I think at this point the waitress picked up on what was going on. She told me to just give her the key I had on me. 

The waitress took the key and went over to her check out desk. I then saw her take out a tablet and scribble something on it. I was out of my depth here. A random 17 year old with street clothes sitting at the lounge on the top floor of a 5 star hotel by himself in the middle of downtown ShangHai. What am I even doing here? A few scribbles later she started to trace something from the screen onto the tablet. Soon, she got back to me and said, don’t worry about it and handed my card back to me. I think I understood what she did. I had a card and that card linked it to my room and my dad’s ID at the front desk. In truth, I think what she may have done is forged my dad’s signature to sign for the meal to be billed to our room. I didn’t ask anymore questions and thought, you know what? F*ck it, if dad were to abandon me here, he should deserve what was coming to him. I knew for certain that it was his ID that we checked in and not my mom’s and that was enough for me. As I got ready to leave the restaurant, my dad came back in. I checked my phone and saw that it had been around 35 minutes. He left me alone there for a mere half hour and my instincts told me that something horrible was going to happen. I didn’t know it at the time but thinking back, my body was not trusting this man.

Anyhow, dad was now back and he quickly asked me how the meal was. I said it was fine and that it had already been accounted for by the waitress. She looked over and nodded. Dad said he was good to leave too and said we should go back to our suites. While I did enjoy the atmosphere and being surrounded by people who wore clothes that were more expensive than my entire savings, I was eager to leave. 

After the dinner, we got back to our hotel rooms and my mom and dad dropped by to tell me to not get too comfortable, we were only staying here briefly for 1 night. I didn’t think much about it and decided to make the most of my time there. I played around with the remote for the curtains to check out the view and was stunned. The Hyatt hotel was located in the center of downtown and my room came with a view of the entire city. In 2012, ShangHai was still recovering from the whole recycling plastic industry and the air and water quality was terrible. But even with all the smog, the view of my hotel was magnanimous. I felt like I should take in the views as much as possible because I knew this was not something I could afford. 

I looked around the room for other things to do and found that a bath would probably be a good idea. The sweating from the previous days at grandma’s and from just getting around today had left me and my clothes dirty. Not remembering how ShangHai was a polluted wasteland at this time, I drew myself a bath. I noticed immediately that the water smelled funny. 

I figured that it was all in my imagination. Afterall, this was a 5 star hotel, no way their water was filtered a trillion times for their high end guests. Unfortunately, after soaking for a bit, I felt nauseous. I looked around for some water and then hesitated. Was the water in the hotel room free? I was unsure. I rummaged through my day bag and found a water bottle we bought at the convenience stores and chugged it all down. Water made me feel better, but it wasn’t enough. Thinking about the airplane fiasco and trying not to make any more fuss even if it was with hotel water bottles that may be for purchasing and not for free, I did the stupidest thing I could have done that night. I took one of the plastic cups offered and drank some tap water.

After a few hours I would not recover from the nausea and get much worse. The dinner had happened around 7pm and my bath was around 10pm. It was now around 11:30pm and I was incredibly sick. I did not want to call my mom and dad in the other hotel room though. In an ironic twist of trying to avoid being more of a burden, I had unknowingly become one. I was determined to power through this night even if it killed me. This didn’t play out like I would have thought though, my mom came to my room because she had left something in my suitcase. Then she saw me in my sorry state.She saw my state, called my dad and together, they brought me to the nearest hospital.