Sir David Tang has, over the past three decades, garnered both fame, and notorious infamy as entrepreneur, restauranteur, impresario, playboy, socialite and cigar connoisseur.Above all, perhaps, he has come to represent a bridge between East and West, a position of increasing prestige given the indefatigable rise of China.
‘Tango’, as he is affectionately referred to, does indeed present a somewhat confounding wealth of contradictions, reflected in his flamboyantly enigmatic appearance.
Reclining in his characteristic Mao suit in his London home he pontificates in the arched tones of his perfect Oxbridge English, exhaling a fatalistic plume of Fidelista cigar smoke from that ultimate symbol of capitalism, the Cohiba.
How is it that a veritable Chinaman who came to England at the age of 15 speaking only Cantonese can now seem more English than the English? At this Tang laughs: ‘I am the token Chinese for a great number of English people, so I end up spending a lot of time with them! And I adore the English sang froid and litotes.’
Indeed, Tang is certainly Hong Kong’s most unabashed Chinese anglophile. Nevertheless, while boasting of personal friendship with Margaret Thatcher and Chris Patten and being a member of Whites, the Tory London gentleman’s club he maintains that ‘I have always felt 100% Chinese.’
His latest addition to the Tang dynasty, his restaurant, China Tang is a perfect testament to this seamless blend of East and West, which Tang has come to embody. It is an opulent mix of 1930s Shanghai art deco with contemporary art and chinoiserie, which does not shirk from the ubiquitous influences of pop culture and commercialisation.
This fusion is also reflected in his business ventures, most notably the department store, Shanghai Tang. This is the ultimate in Mao-chic. Aside from the self-christened ‘Tang suits’ modelled by the grand proprietor himself, Shanghai Tang offers a Day Glo hued plethora of lime green and bright red velvet Mao jackets, People’s Liberation Army knives, and of course, Mao and Whitney Houston place mats.
Tang glances disapprovingly at our waiter’s mutant form of Mao suit and whispers: ‘I’d dress them much more outrageously, but you know I’m always walking a fine line with the Chinese.’ His wicked sense of humour has landed him in trouble before. He tells me of a recent trip to Nairobi: ‘I was asked if I had had the yellow fever injection. I hadn’t, but I joked that I didn’t need to because I was yellow. The pun was not appreciated, and I was bunged into a cell for a couple of hours. Rather unpleasant, I have to admit.’
Aside from his notable business acumen Tang has also acquired a reputation for being a merciless socialite with a penchant for ‘celebrity’. His disarmingly easygoing manner have won him many influential friends; Kate Moss addresses him affectionately as ‘Uncle David.’
China Tang has become the haunt of every London socialite, drawing a regular clientele as diverse as Fergie, Pete Doherty, Joan Rivers, Jung Chang and Jimmy Goldsmith over whom Tang presides: a whirlwind of networking energy.
Tang certainly does have a Falstaffian decadence, but when so wholly unrepentant it becomes his most endearing characteristic: ‘Actually in my view what we need is more decadence, because decadence allows for diversity.’
His advice on travel is particularly revealing: ‘The best advice I can give on travel is to avoid airports at all costs – unless you go private. The commercial airport is now so utterly ghastly with unimaginably rude people who pass themselves off as ‘security officers.’ As is his confession to his cinema antics: ‘I used to buy the two seats in front of us so no big head got in the way.’ Nevertheless, his admission to his most extravagant action is getting married twice!
The sumptuous interior of China Tang is vintage Tang; indeed, it would not look out of place in Dictator’s Homes, Peter York’s coffee table book. It is an opulent showcase for Tang’s renowned impeccable taste and meticulous to the point of obsessive attention to detail. He proudly shows me how he chose every shiny objet d’art, punctiliously designed the panelling, commissioned the intricate weave of the carpet. He even facetiously boasts that the ordered a mild breeze to bow from a westerly direction, fulfilling the ever-important feng shui credentials.
However, what he is most excited to show me in China Tang is, surprisingly, the lavatories. I start as I enter, met with a booming disembodied voice proclaiming Noyes’ The Highwayman. Indeed, as Andrew Higgins of the Guardian has joked: ‘Tang is much more interesting than he pretends to be.’
He is exceedingly well read, a consummate writer and regular contributor to the Spectator and South China Morning Post. ‘A bit of culture,’ Tang pronounces with a regal wave of his Cohiba. ‘Somebody has to keep a little culture going around here, don’t you know.’
His comments on his recent book, An Apple a Day, are endearingly self-deprecating. On the foreword written by his friend Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong and current Chancellor or Oxford, he snorts in surprise: ‘he wrote so generous a foreword that he might have committed perjury.’
He admonishes the Hong Kong attitude to art in which, he sniffs dismissively, ‘the art of making money seems to remain the favourite pastime by far.’ In addition to art, Tang is a classical music aficionado who claims that his greatest regret is ‘not to have practiced more on the piano and play another musical instrument.’
And what of the China of the future? Tang relates his recent trip to the Beijing Olympics with characteristic facetiousness. On the intense heat he claims that ‘for once in my life, I became conscious of what it must be like to be a piece of Peking crispy duck.’
Nevertheless, he describes the opening ceremony as ‘a phantasmagorical display of brilliance. The extravaganza was a garagantuan success – every aspect of anticipation satisfied and every sceptic and part pooper, not to mention terrorist, entirely frustrated.’
So Tang is decidedly optimistic; when asked for his vision of China for the future, he has just one word, ‘imperial.’
Inside Darfur
What is it really like to be in Darfur? To many, Darfur is just a word with a myriad of terrible connotations. But what is really happening on the ground? The conflict there has been an undercurrent bubbling consistently in the news and in our consciences for five years now, so that it has almost become a permanent embodiment of the African stereotype – war, poverty, and turmoil. Paddy Drain has recently returned from a nine-month mission in the region as a flying nurse with Médecins Sans Frontières. I had a chance to talk to her about her experience and to discuss what lies ahead for Darfur’s besieged people.
The turmoil in Darfur, a region in western Sudan, was initially caused by a lack of resources. Since the early eighties, recurring drought has forced nomadic Arabs in northern Darfur to move south into the territory of African farmers to search for water. The farmers began to fence off their land, and conflict between the groups ensued in 2003, with the Arab-dominated Sudanese government supporting the nomads’ militant faction, the Janjaweed, in its attacks against the southern rebels. Ethnic tension and overpopulation then exacerbated the war, now in its fifth year.
Drain was based in southern Darfur, in the heart of the crisis zone. As a flying nurse, she was flown all over the region to whichever place needed her most, enabling her to gain a rare overview of the area. A common misperception of the conflict, she said, is that it is a clearly defined war between the Janjaweed and a few rebel groups. She was keen to emphasise that there was a lot more to it than that. “There are many forms of violence – tribal clashes, rebel and government clashes, nomadic militia clashes, cattle raids, personal violence, domestic and sexual violence; there are so many different factions and parties in Darfur who make and break alliances so fast, one cannot keep up.”
She tells of an attack on the village of Muhajariha. “There had been an Antanov aeroplane flying over the village a couple of days prior to the violence. The only force in Darfur with aerial capability is the government.” Whilst it’s impossible to confirm government responsibility for attacks, it does seem likely that they are behind at least some, directly or indirectly. Drain says, “the government appear to have a divide and conquer approach – arming one group and then pointing them towards another group they want removed'” However the government cannot be blamed entirely for the region’s instability; rather, it is not making a concerted effort to combat the turmoil.
There is an African Union (AU) peace-keeping force in Darfur, and a UN force arrived recently. But of the 26,000 troops promised, fewer than half have been deployed. Drain has doubts regarding their impact. “From my experience, when there was any violence, the AU would stay in their compound, close their doors and wait for the trouble to pass”. She was no more enthusiastic about the prospects of the joint AU-UN force. Although expectation amongst the people was “formidable”, all that had really happened was that, “the African Union troops now just wore blue helmets and berets. They were all African, no Europeans.”
There are a number of camps for internally displaced people in southern Darfur, some home to over 100,000 people. Drain explained that the camp she worked in appeared to be controlled by two groups: the sheikhs – leaders of the various tribes “who try to bring order” – and “gangs of youths using bullying tactics to get what they want”. Life is particularly hard for the women. “In this society, it really is a man’s world; women are very much third-class citizens and are often attacked”.
You would wonder how anyone could find solace in such grim circumstances, but Drain can recall uplifting experiences. “This woman who had no pain relief barely even squeaked as she gave birth in this little hut; you could tell she was in excruciating pain but she really made hardly any sound. It was humbling, and made me smile for the rest of the day.” But naturally there were some very tough times. One particular story of Drain’s stands out. “A small child was with us for 6 weeks on our nutritional programme,” she said. “He was discharged and ordered to return once a week, which he did for a while. Then he disappeared for many weeks and the next time his mother brought him in, he’d lost the health we’d worked to build up in him. It transpired that his grandmother had taken him to a traditional healer and the inside of his mouth had been burnt and his tongue cut, so he wasn’t feeding; by the time he came to us he was in a bad way. The mother herself was about 15 years old and just sat on the edge of the bed with these huge tears rolling down her face. My heart just went out to her”. The child died that night.
The situation in Sudan is dire and unacceptable; it is estimated to have displaced 2.5 million and killed between 200,000 and 400,000. Asked if she could see any hope of a resolution to the conflict, Drain replied, “No – on so many levels…The current NGO activity is miniscule in comparison to what is needed.” On his inception as UN Secretary-General, Ban-Ki-Moon said he planned to be “directly and personally engaged” in the search for a Darfur settlement. Paddy says that the international community must band together to resolve the situation – “but due to the natural resources that Sudan has, this is unlikely.” It is a depressing summation, but a realistic one. The problem is that Sudan looks to China, not to the West. If China can be pressured into intervening politically, then there is hope. But with the USA fast losing influence in the world, that is difficult to achieve. That does not mean, though, that we can allow ourselves stop trying.