White Tiger

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Opulence.

There was no other way to describe the Taipan Suite at the Mandarin Oriental in San Francisco. Almost two thousand square feet of room, lavishly furnished and appointed, with accents that could lead one to believe he might be staying in its namesake in Hong Kong. But one look through the broad windows would have confirmed otherwise; barely half a mile away, the Transamerica building soared into the night sky, a stiletto of brilliance in the darkness. Further out was San Francisco Bay, still busy with ships of various sizes and shapes, either being nudged to their slips by tugboats or steaming underway for destinations unknown. The entire tableau was a lovely sight; San Francisco was, after all, the most beautiful of American cities.

Opulence. Lin Dan let the word roll off his mental tongue. It was such a strange word to him, a string of heavy vowels and sharp consonants that he could never hope to pronounce with the fluid grace of a native English-speaker. The word even maintained life and poise when pronounced by an American, though for true aural pleasure, one had to hear it spoken aloud by a Briton. A British tongue bestowed the word with the nobility it deserved, the promise of never-ending power; the words caifu, fuyu, and even fengfu, all had the same meaning, but none approached the sheer descriptive power of the single English word.

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