The Wong Way

Solicitor Wong’s wife, Judy, was a person that had never been afraid to state what she thought when she thought it. Which was not very often, however. This was unlike Solicitor Wong, who said that which he thought other people, wanted to hear – in order to water his own garden in order to add colour to his otherwise mundane trinkets so that people should recognise his status in Hongkong’s elite society. Which, also, did not make too much sense, actually. To Solicitor Wong, suits and shoes, produced in Italy, were the best in the world. Wrist watches, produced in Switzerland, were unbeatable. Motor cars, made in Great Britain – especially the Rolls-Royce and the Bentley – were the mark of a discriminating gentleman. And so it went on. For Judy, however, she drove a relatively inexpensive Japanese motor car, refusing to be driven in her husband’s 20-year-old, second-hand, Rolls-Royce, but, at the same time, she did appreciate the workmanship of Italian couturiers, such as Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Pierre Balmain, Yves St Laurent, and Chanel. What irked this gentle lady, however, was listening to the hogwash that, only too often, poured out of her husband’s hypocritical mouth whenever he was attempting to persuade a potential client to be that person’s sole legal adviser. Judy would never have known of her husband’s propensity to bend the truth had it not been for the fact that, late one afternoon, while having tea at the coffee shop of a 5-star hotel, she could not help but overhear him, talking to a European businessman who, clearly, was having a little trouble with a supplier of garments, many of which had major flaws. Too embarrassed to say anything in front of her friends, Judy heard part of the following conversation: 

(At this point, Judy was fuming because she knew that the associate solicitor, named Vanessa Wong, had resigned from her husband’s firm, after having had a terrible  argument with her husband.) 

(Then, both men giggled the laugh of salacious idiots, in Judy’s rendition of the conversation, conveyed to Solicitor Wong, that very evening.) 

(The 2 men, then, went back to talking about women and which ones were the best as girl friends, lovers, wives, etc, punctuating the exchange of opinions with raucous guffaws.)  

With that, the 2 men parted company, with Solicitor Wong, telling Peter that he had another engagement and that his client could wait no longer. 

That evening, once Nicholas, the teenaged son of Solicitor Wong and Judy, had gone to bed, Judy started in on her husband, having admitted, openly, of hearing the conversation between Peter and her husband. ‘But that meeting constituted a solicitor-client confidential conversation! You were not supposed to hear it and, as my spouse, you must never repeat it to anybody.’  Judy laughed and used a word that Solicitor Wong had not heard her use, ever before: ‘Crap!!!’ Listen to me!’ Judy continued her attack. ‘You lied to your new client when you said that Vanessa Wong was still an Associate Solicitor. You know that she left in a huff more than a fortnight ago.’ Solicitor Wong corrected his wife: ‘He is not a client, yet, because I have yet to receive a retainer from him. So, there, you are wrong!’ ‘Then,’ said Judy, ‘if Peter does give your firm $HK500,000, you have obtained that retainer by deception, haven’t you?’ Solicitor Wong tried to defend himself, but the onslaught from his wife was overpowering. He could only keep repeating: ‘Peter is only a prospective client of the firm. He has not sent me any money as a retainer and, even if he does, it does not follow that I shall accept the commission.’ Having put his head into a ringer, Judy was quick to jump, saying: ‘Then, if Peter does send you the $HK500,000,  you will refuse to accept it? Is that correct? After all, you would not breach the high standards of the ethical conduct of a Hongkong solicitor, would you?’ 

In bed, that evening, Solicitor Wong took Judy’s hand and said, gently: ‘You should have been a solicitor, you know. I cannot, ever, beat you in an argument. But I still love you, dearly, nevertheless.’ To which, Judy countered: ‘Then, I take it that, if you could beat me in an argument you would not love me, dearly?’ And so, in closing, Solicitor Wong was beaten even in the closing arguments of his summation. 

And the moral to this story is that one should think many times before taking on a woman in a verbal battle because it is well known that an intelligent woman will, invariably, cut an intelligent man down to size. After all, the female of the species, homo sapiens, has a weapon against which no male member has the ability to defend himself.