The Five Brothers' Dream

Yide later often said that when he entered real estate, he was, in the end, one step too slow.
The words sounded like regret, yet upon closer thought, they were not entirely accurate. What he called being one step too slow was in truth this: his boat was too small, his oars too short. Just as he had pushed his little craft toward the middle of the river, he discovered that at the mouth of the Pearl River, wind and cloud had already begun to surge. Ten-thousand-ton ships, speedboats, fishing boats, sampans—all were fighting for the same channels upon the same stretch of water. It was not that he could not see the opportunity. It was that once opportunity became land, it was no longer something that could be seized merely because one had good eyes. It belonged to whoever had banks, government, capital, relationships, and teams behind him; whoever could smash down money in one breath and support the whole situation.
The Pearl River Delta at that time was like a giant beast just awakened.
Southward from Canton, roads were being built one after another, and bridges were rising one after another. Old villages, fishponds, vegetable plots, wasteland—all suddenly had prices. Mud that in the eyes of rural people had once been worth little became overnight the red lines, blue lines, and yellow lines on planning maps. The measuring tapes village cadres had once used to mark field ridges were replaced by large printed plans from design institutes. In the past, people in teahouses talked of family matters and neighborhood gossip; now, as soon as they opened their mouths, they spoke of land parcels, floor-area ratios, commercial and residential facilities, mortgages, presales, resettlement, approvals. The entire Pearl River Delta seemed to have been set alight by an invisible fire. Everyone heard the metallic sound rising from deep within the land and believed it was gold turning over underground.
The first to smell it were the large state-owned enterprises.
Companies such as Zhujiang Industrial, Urban Investment, and China Real Estate had already taken their seats beside the gaming table early on. They were not like Yide, who had groped his way forward little by little from renovating old houses and managing rental rooms. The moment they entered the field, they brought complete teams with them: planning, design, finance, legal affairs, engineering, sales—every branch and every road fully manned. Behind them stood the trust of state-owned banks, familiarity with power departments, and the confidence that a single approval document could pry open tens of millions, even hundreds of millions, in capital. When others looked at a piece of land, they first thought about how to borrow money. When they looked at a piece of land, they first thought about staging, supporting facilities, planning submissions, and how to turn a stretch of wasteland into an entire sector.
Standing before them, Yide finally understood what disparity meant.
His Runde Real Estate Development Company had handsome business cards, and the office had several impressive leather sofas. But the money that could truly be moved on its books amounted only to around ten million. Ten million, in the old-house market, already counted as generous; enough to buy several buildings, renovate them, rent them out, and roll the business forward, enough for others to call him Boss Ma. But at the card table of real estate development, ten million was only a name card handed over upon entry. Other people’s projects easily required investments of more than a hundred million. Land payments, construction approval fees, engineering costs, supporting infrastructure fees, advertising expenses, sales costs—each item was like an open mouth, swallowing money without even making a sound. Yide’s savings looked like a bucket of water, but once poured into the great cauldron of land, they did not even raise a thread of white steam.
More frightening still, the great private fish had also begun to arrive.
Country Garden, at that time, was already sharpening its blade around Focheng. Others sold houses; it sold the illusion that a village could suddenly open into a city: green trees, lakes, schools, clubhouses, Western-style buildings—as though by buying one apartment, a person could step directly from the soil into a respectable new life. Clifford too had a grand momentum, as though it were building a new city for the middle class and the wealthy on the edge of Canton. Latercomers such as Evergrande had fire in their eyes and wind beneath their feet; they dared to borrow, dared to pressure, dared to gamble, dared to describe one piece of land as a city and one planning map as a golden river for the next ten years.
These people had not come to test the water.
They had come to change the course of the water.
Their methods were harsher. When taking land, they dared raise prices until others’ hearts trembled. When marketing, they dared cover entire newspaper pages with advertisements. When selling, they dared invite celebrities, build exhibition halls, create model apartments, and turn reinforced concrete into a kind of life ideal. In the past, selling houses meant selling bricks. Later, selling houses meant selling a way of life. Later still, selling houses was already selling a person’s imagination of rising into another class. Yide looked at their brochures, and in his heart there was both envy and coldness. He knew he too could build houses, but he did not have that kind of courage, still less that kind of plate beneath him.
There was also capital from Hong Kong.
Companies of the Li family, powerful players such as Hopson, and a group of capable Hong Kong intermediaries, agents, and investors crossed Shenzhen and Canton, extending their gaze toward Panyu, Nanhai, Focheng, Zhongshan, and Dongguan. They wore suits, spoke English, and carried a shrewdness trained in the Hong Kong property market. Their judgment of land was like a surgeon’s eye upon bone. They did not only look at what a piece of land was worth today; they looked to where the subway would be several years later, where bridges would stand, where ports would open, and in which direction industry would move. When they discussed cooperation, they were refined and courteous. When they calculated accounts, they were cold as knives. Village and township cadres felt that they had seen the world. Banks felt their credit was reliable. Local bosses felt their funds were abundant. Sitting beside them, Yide suddenly felt that all his little cleverness, little courage, and little relationships of the past were like glass marbles in a country child’s pocket—bright, yes, but unable to exchange for real chips.
In those years, the flavor of banquets in the Pearl River Delta also changed.
From Canton to Ruizhou, from Panyu to Nanhai, from Focheng to Dongguan, as soon as night came, private rooms in restaurants were brightly lit. On the table were grouper, lobster, roast goose, and XO; beneath the table flowed land parcels, quotas, loans, and promises. A cadre from one town might receive three groups of developers in a single day. A chief engineer from a design institute might be drawing plans for five projects at once. A bank president’s telephone rang from morning until night, and everything he heard was financing, collateral, credit lines, and extensions. Everyone spoke of “supporting development,” and everyone also knew that behind development lay the immense redistribution of interests.
Villagers were no longer as before, merely guarding their fields.
When they heard that the neighboring village had sold land and distributed money, their hearts moved. When they heard that a certain fishpond had become a development project and the boss had earned tens of millions, their hearts became unsettled. Some looked forward to demolition and resettlement; some feared losing land. Some wanted storefronts; some wanted cash. Some became landlords overnight from being farmers; others took compensation and never again found a livelihood. Land made one portion of people rich first, and made another portion feel for the first time that they were being pushed along by the age. When bulldozers entered the village mouth, the rumbling sound was not only the beginning of construction; it was also the widening crack in an old way of life.
Yide squeezed forward within just such a torrent.
He had once thought that, with assets in the tens of millions, he had already seized the hem of the age’s garment. But when he truly stood at the edge of the Pearl River Delta real estate market, he discovered that this was not an ordinary street of business. It was a sea at rising tide. State-owned enterprises were great ships. Hong Kong capital was an ocean liner. Private giants such as Country Garden, Clifford, and Evergrande were speedboats of astonishing velocity. He himself was only a small craft freshly painted. When the wind blew, it could advance several lengths. When the waves rose, it might overturn at any moment.
In his heart, he refused to accept this.
He felt that he was no less intelligent than those people; indeed, he had seen earlier than many that Canton’s southward expansion, Ruizhou’s eastward advance, and the urban-rural fringe would become golden territory. But commerce has never rewarded vision alone. Vision is only a lamp; capital is the road. Courage is only fire; resources are the firewood. Without sufficient funds, one cannot hold land steadily. Without sufficient connections, procedures will not move. Without a sufficient team, projects cannot be pressed forward. Without a sufficient brand, houses will not sell quickly. Real estate is not a business one can do merely by rolling up one’s sleeves. It is a great machine in which money, power, land, people, and momentum turn at the same time.
The deeper Yide walked into it, the more he felt as though he had been drawn into an enormous whirlpool.
By day, he looked at plans beside dusty land parcels. By night, at banquets, he listened to others boast and also listened to them test one another. Deep at night, when he returned to the office and looked at the map on the wall showing the border between southern Canton and Ruizhou, his heart grew suddenly hot and cold at once. Hot, because he knew this place would surely change. Cold, because he did not know whether he could endure until the day when that change truly became real.
Outside the window, the night of the Pearl River Delta was not quiet. In the distance were the lights of construction sites, the lights of trucks, the neon of restaurants, and the dark silhouettes of new cities not yet lit. The great fish had already entered the sea, and the small shrimp refused to retreat with the tide. Everyone believed that he could share a cup of broth from this feast of land, yet few thought that beneath the banquet table, unseen bones had already piled high.
Yide finally understood: what he called being one step too slow was, on the surface, a matter of timing; in its depths, a matter of strength.
The age had not failed to give him a chance. It was only that the chance was too large. Only when he reached out his hand did he discover that his hand was still not long enough.
Ma Yide was not a man who admitted defeat easily.
The fat meat of real estate lay there, gleaming with oil and giving off fragrance. Everyone knew that one bite from it could turn a life around. But when he truly reached out his chopsticks, he discovered that the table was already full of people. State-owned enterprises had their seats. Hong Kong capital had its knives and forks. Large private companies had their courage and appetites. Even those seemingly unremarkable intermediaries, agents, and construction teams each had their own routes. Yide held his own bowl and stood to the side. It was not that there was no fire in his heart, yet he also had to admit that this meal was not one that could be eaten merely by hunger.
He remained shut up in his office for many days.
The map still hung on the wall. Canton, Ruizhou, Nanhai, Panyu—roads were circled one after another in red ink, and beside several land parcels were densely written numbers. In the past, when he looked at these numbers, he felt they were opportunities, the future, the profits that would come after towers rose from the ground. Now, looking again, they seemed like faces demanding payment. Land required money. Construction approvals required money. Engineering required money. Relationships required money. Time required even more money. Others could slowly lay out the plate; he could not. Others could use one project to support three projects; he could not. Others could endure several years of losses to gamble on a great trend; he even less could do so.
Yide suddenly understood that if he continued forcing his way down the same road, he would ultimately be swept onto the shore by the tail of the great fish.
In commerce, the most frightening thing is not having no opportunity. It is seeing an opportunity yet only being able to chase it with old methods. And what were the old methods? Buy land, build houses, sell property; wait for approvals, wait for loans, wait for the market to warm. Every step was heavy. Every step was slow. Every step pressed a person into the mud. In Yide’s heart there was a stubborn refusal: could business only be done this way? Must one always compete over who had more money, whose relationships were harder, who could endure longer? Was there no road by which one did not fight others for the same piece of fat meat, but instead set up a new table somewhere others had not yet noticed?
He began to think of “speed.”
Speed was not recklessness. Speed meant that the eyes saw one step earlier than others, the hand fell one step earlier than others, and the foot crossed the threshold one step earlier than others. Real estate was slow because land could not be moved, approvals could not be skipped, and steel and concrete could not become buildings overnight. But there must be other businesses in the world—businesses where capital turned over faster, where the market responded faster, and where success or failure came faster too. When Yide had rented old houses in the past, the business had been small, yet it had one advantage: repair today, list tomorrow, collect rent at the end of the month. He liked that sound of cash flow, like water seeping from cracks in stone—not large, but real.
He also thought of “newness.”
Most bosses in the Pearl River Delta stared at things they could see: land, factories, goods, shops, machines. Only when something solid was in hand did their hearts feel steady. But Yide gradually felt that the truly new opportunity might not lie where one could see it, but where others for the moment did not yet understand it. Just as someone once carried household appliances back from Japan, dismantled, imitated, improved them, and finally made an industry; just as someone once described remote fishponds as future communities, at first making everyone laugh, and later making everyone rush to buy. Innovation was not creating gold out of nothing. It was first rearranging old things in a new way, letting them shine in a new place.
He further thought of “strangeness.”
When the normal road was too crowded, one had to take a strange road. Others were squeezing toward the center of Canton. Could he look toward farther cities? Others were watching residential housing. Could he watch warehousing, shops, old-building renovation, overseas goods, services for international students? Others relied on great sums of money to dominate the field. Could he win by the difference in information? The strangeness of commerce is not trickery; it is angle. When people stand on the same street, they see the same row of shops. If one climbs upstairs, one may see that behind the street there are lanes, behind the lanes there is open land, and beyond that open land there is another road leading elsewhere.
Just then, news arrived from his younger brother Ma Zhide in the United States.
Zhide was in America studying computer science. In his letters, he spoke of the universities there, the companies, supermarkets, apartments, secondhand cars, Chinese restaurants. He also spoke of how young people in Silicon Valley started businesses, how several people rented one office, and with one computer and one idea dared to ask the world for money. At first, Yide read only casually. But the more he read, the more he could not sit still. From those words, he smelled an entirely different scent. There was real estate there too, and capital, and competition, but there were also technology, information, finance, immigration, education, trade—lines crossing one another like a larger net.
Suddenly, he felt that America was not a distant place.
It was a mirror.
Chinese merchants at this moment were fighting over land, factories, channels, and courage. But over there in America, perhaps what they fought over were rules, technology, models, and stories of capital. Yide did not understand computers, but he understood business. He knew that whoever could make complicated matters simple could earn money; whoever could gather scattered demands together could earn money; whoever could connect resources on two sides one step earlier than others could earn still more. Chinese people wanted to go out; Americans wanted to come in. China had goods; America had markets. Chinese students wanted to study abroad; America had schools and houses. Chinese bosses had money but did not understand overseas systems; American agents understood rules but did not necessarily understand Chinese hearts. In between these, could there be no road?
In those days, Yide seemed to become another person.
He no longer spent all day worrying over those several pieces of land he could not secure. Instead, he began turning through English maps, investigating American cities, asking Zhide about rents near his school, Chinese communities, secondhand housing prices, and the number of international students. He asked people to find newspapers and clipped reports about the tide of going abroad, the tide of studying overseas, and the tide of immigration. He invited friends who understood foreign trade to dinner and asked what American supermarkets sold, how Chinese goods entered them, and what services Chinese people abroad lacked most. The more he asked, the brighter his eyes grew, as though a window had suddenly opened. Outside that window were not the several contested plots of land in southern Canton, but a stranger, wider, boundless sea.
Of course, there was fear in his heart too.
He feared not understanding the language. He feared not understanding the rules. He feared that money sent out would not return. He feared that once he arrived in America, he would be like a countryman entering the city—laughed at, cheated, seen through. But this fear was soon covered by an even stronger impulse. For a person who does business, the greatest fear is to spend an entire life circling only among acquaintances. Familiar places are safe, but they are also crowded. Strange places are dangerous, but they may hide a new continent. Yide remembered the first time he renovated old houses for rent, the first time he negotiated land, the first time he faced villagers blocking the road. Which of those times had not left him uncertain inside? Yet if a person waited until all things were secure before making a move, the meat on the table would already have been taken clean by others.
At last, he made his decision: he would go to America and take a look.
Not as a tourist. Not to visit relatives. But to look with the eyes of a merchant. To see how houses were rented there, how shops were sold, how Chinese people lived, how international students spent money, how companies were registered, how banks made loans, how lawyers charged fees, where opportunities hid, and where risks were buried. He wanted to see whether the America in Zhide’s letters, composed of highways, campuses, garages, computers, capital, and dreams, was in fact the starting point of another road.
On the night before his departure, Yide sat alone in his office. He rolled up the map of southern Canton and placed it inside the cabinet. On the desk, he replaced it with a map of the United States. The paper was broad, the place names unfamiliar, and the coastline curved and bent like an unwritten destiny. Looking at that vast continent, his chest grew warm in a way it had not for a long time.
He knew he was not giving up real estate, nor fleeing the Pearl River Delta.
He was searching for a faster knife, a newer game, a more unexpected way of fighting.
The marketplace is like a battlefield. To clash head-on is the lower strategy; to circle behind the enemy is true ability. To follow the crowd and fight for meat is small cleverness; to find the next dining table before others do is great wisdom. Yide believed that real opportunity never came beating drums and gongs. It was often hidden in a letter, in a journey, in one thought that others had not yet taken seriously.
That night, outside the window, the lights of Canton were deep and heavy. The cranes at construction sites in the distance stood like motionless giant beasts.
But Yide felt that in his own heart, a train had begun to move with a thunderous sound.
It no longer ran only toward Ruizhou, Nanhai, Panyu, or Focheng.
It was bound for the other side of the Pacific.