The Wong Way

There was a time that Solicitor Wong had, actually, thought very seriously about divorcing his wife, Judy. Sitting in his former friend’s home (he is not known to be very friendly with people for very long periods of time, due, mainly, to his aloofness and the way in which he views life, being intolerant of other people’s views), he complained that his wife was so ignorant about so many things that he wondered as to the reason that he, ever, courted her while she was attending courses at The University of Hongkong. This was the time before Judy had confirmed that she was pregnant. Solicitor Wong lamented, at this difficult time of his marriage, that he had hired the services of 3 maids and one driver ‘all to take care of Judy and my house’ and she had been almost completely unappreciative of the solicitor’s thoughtfulness that it shocked him, totally, he claimed. He said that he was expecting that Judy would be in charge of his house and, hopefully, his son’s formative education when he was born – 有仔萬事足 – leaving him to get on with the business of carving out his fortune in his Hongkong law practice. But Judy was beyond reason, he claimed as he sipped a cup of tea. He could not understand how this woman, who had obtained a Master of Arts in Education, was unable to comprehend Solicitor Wong’s good intentions. As he lamented, his face grew more and more ashen.  

But Solicitor Wong did not divorce Judy, claiming that he had discovered a compromise solution with her after hours of ‘constructive (but painful) discussion’. What Solicitor Wong had been able to achieve, in those historic discussions with Judy, was a divestiture of accountability with regard to ‘certain selfish aspirations’ of his wife, as well as her duty of fidelity to her husband, and clear guidelines, in the future, as to each party’s responsibility in the marriage. Solicitor Wong, it had been agreed, would be responsible for funding all and every aspect with regard to the marriage, whatever it might be, from the daily costs of running the family home, to the purchases of capital goods, such as a new home, if needs be such, to buying a new motor car for Judy, to supplying holiday money for the couple, and, hopefully, for their child or children if and when they came along. Solicitor Wong’s sole responsibility, in the marriage, included finding ways and means to earn a sufficiency of money to live up to his financial responsibilities (and his own standard of living and his own lifestyle), with Judy, not permitted to interfere in his business, at all. Thus, harmony was restored in the household of Solicitor Wong. He was to be treated, henceforth, he maintained, as a husband should be treated with the utmost respect as the sole breadwinner. 

With the birth of Nickolas, little changed in Solicitor Wong’s home because, when the baby cried in the middle of the night, Judy, as was expected of her, constructively, to do all that was necessary in order to pacify the baby. Judy did not breast-feed Nickolas because she was afraid of the after-effects of such activity on her perfectly formed mammary glands. Also, she, always, maintained that breast-feeding was not hygienic because a bottle of milk could be sterilised in boiling water, but not so for a teat. Thus, much of the midnight work with regard to baby Nickolas was delegated to Letti, the Filipina maid whose main job was to care for the infant. Such duties included bottle feeding Nickolas, when it was time so to do, and changing his diaper whenever he pooped or urinated. Solicitor Wong slept the sleep of the innocent whenever Nickolas cried in the wee hours of the morning; he was impervious of the commotion in the bedroom of Nickolas. Ah! Life was good once again! Only once did Judy complain about Nickolas’s demands on her time, but all that Solicitor Wong said was that raising a child, in the early years, was difficult for the mother, but ‘that is motherhood! And you should be proud to take care of my son.’   

When Nickolas grew up and learned to speak, he was taught that bathing regularly was very important for a child and that he should bathe in the morning, after he had brushed his teeth, bathe after his return from school, prior to his doing his homework in his bedroom, and bathe before retiring for the night so that his sheets would be free of any germs. Judy, personally, supervised his bathing, making certain that each cavity of the boy’s body was free of dirt because, to Judy, dirt is equated with germs – and germs were not permitted to enter the residence on The Peak of Solicitor Wong’s townhouse. When it came to dressing Nickolas, Judy, once again, was in charge of that operation, carefully selecting the boy’s clothing for the day and instructing Louise, the replacement of Letti, to dress him in a certain manner and that Nickolas should, before being placed in the care of the household’s Filipino chauffeur, who transported the boy to and from his private school on the South side of Hongkong Island, be presented to her at the breakfast table in order that the proud mother might view her son at the start of the day. Solicitor Wong, at this time of the morning, about 8 o’clock, was still asleep, his day, beginning at about 10.00 am at his office in the Central Business District of Hongkong Island. Solicitor Wong was well-pleased with his wife’s ministrations in respect of Nickolas although he did complain that the young boy was a little noisy when he was not sleeping. ‘Is there something that we can do about his rowdiness?’ Solicitor Wong asked Judy, one morning after Nickolas had left the house. Judy replied that she would see what could be done about this matter because she, too, liked the home to be quiet. Nickolas was, therefore, encouraged not to make any noise in the house, being offered sweets as a prize for displaying his self control. Thus harmony was restored, the harmony that Solicitor Wong and Judy coveted so much.  

When Solicitor Wong was asked, years after making the suggestion that he was thinking of divorcing his wife, he replied that only fools go to court and, in any event, lawyers, who specialise in Family Law, normally think of splitting the estate of an estranged couple into 3 parts: One part for the wife; one part for the husband; and, one part for the solicitors’ firm, assisting in negotiating the terms and conditions of the divorce. ‘I know how solicitors are thinking,’ he told his former friend, who had dared to broach the subject of Solicitor Wong’s previous deliberations about Judy and her marriage to the socialite lawyer. ‘I am a solicitor, also, you know.’ 

‘Act in haste; repent in leisure.’

This was the sententious axiom,
first recorded in about 50 B.C.

This was the sententious axiom,
first recorded in about 50 B.C.