Index | Suzuki's Guangdong | Yasuda Crisis | Sony's Guangdong | Matsushita's Guangdong | Fujitsu's Guangdong | Lam Haau-cyun's Flashbacks | Opium Trade War | Hitachi Coup | Hitachi's Guangdong | Flavor Events | General Oil Crisis and Guangdong Riots | Imperial Japanese Army's Guangdong
Born in 1924, Lam Haau-cyun lived in a humble village in Chaozhou and Shantou. His clan lived here for centuries, trading silk and preparing the next generation to inherit this business. As Lam grew up, China changed with him: construction crews breached through the earth, steam became the primary mode of transportation, and foreign importers rushed to the country's markets, turning the Shenzhen market into a trade capital by 1931. Though Lam missed the environment that modernization took away, he retained his optimism that he would work in the family business, promising to do so in 1933. Three years later, Lam learned why this vow was important; his disappeared father immigrated to the United States for better opportunities and left Lam's uncle to take over his paternal duties. His current whereabouts are still unknown to Lam's family and they aren't particularly interested in finding out.
Sadly, Lam's quiet life was disrupted in 1938, in the midst of the Second Sino-Japanese War. When the Japanese landed in Guangzhou, they invaded his village, stole their bolts of silk, and shot Lam's uncle in the right foot from a misunderstanding. Fast forward to 1942, the village is in disrepair and lives fearfully under foreign occupation, unable to fish without the thought of a potential Japanese attack. Lam's uncle survived the gunshot, but his injured foot means that he can barely help himself. When Lam asks him if the occupation will ever end, his uncle replies that he doesn't know.
By 1946, they would get their answer as a firm no. With China nearly defeated, a cadre of Japanese businessmen and soldiers reappears in Lam's village to discuss business terms. They offer food and work tools to their "impoverished" village in exchange for some of them leaving and aiding the reconstruction of their province. One villager angrily throws an egg at the interpreter and a fight seems imminent, until Lam moves forward and offers himself to go. His family members are outraged, but the Japanese party accepts the deal and takes him to Hong Kong.
Biding his time as a porter in Shōri, Lam receives disappointing news in 1947, declaring Japan's final victory over China, with the remaining resistance movements scattered to the western regions. On a surprisingly bright side though, Lam's father sends a briefcase of money for his son to start a business in Hong Kong and find some integration in his new home. Renting a small office and starting a silk business in Kowloon, Lam works a modest living for himself, adjusting to his new life by learning Japanese. For the first time in years, Lam feels hopeful, keeping up his family business and indirectly fulfilling the promise he made years ago.
Then, it all goes downhill. In 1949, the Japanese Prime Minister announced that a new country would be carved out of the Republic of China: the State of Guangdong. Much as the press hails this as a triumph for pan-Asianism, Lam can only taste bitter defeat. Just as his firm was getting started, it would now shut down, with Lam forced to declare bankruptcy and find a new job in a sweatshop. Subject to the hardest labor in his life, Lam also does double duty as a nightguard for some Japanese warehouses. Life is tough for Lam and he desperately wants a way out. His only answer: join the Guangdong Police Force.
Lam would earn his badge by 1951 and be transferred to Kōshu. Lam questions if the Kenpeitai, the Police's rivals, had anything to do with this reassignment, his superior chides him for asking questions and leaves the matter unsettled. Spending a year in his new environment, Lam realizes how different Kōshu is. Whereas poverty permeated throughout Kowloon, Kōshu was a neon-lit city, boasting glamor to hide the labor abuses and crime going on in its streets. At one point, Lam has to give chase to a petty thief, showcasing how seedy the whole place is. Eventually, Lam's service pays off with a promotion to sergeant and his new job is to present the Police's duties of the day, from handling squatters to gathering evidence from crime scenes. He becomes so ingrained in his new home that he adopts a Japanese name: Hayashi Kōsen.
One year later, Lam quickly proves himself to be a rising star in the Force. When the Police uncover a Triad warehouse of illegal drugs and firearms, Lam tries to keep the arrests by-the-book and incidentally trumps the inspector's investigation by suggesting that they identify the warehouse's regular deliverers. Thanks to his suggestion, the Police find the Triads' next base in downtown Chaozhou. Lam goes into the warehouse without backup and orders a lone man inside to put his hands above their head and turn around.
To his shock, the lone figure is Ah Tan, Lam's old friend. Now, Ah bitterly comments on his collaboration with the Japanese and calls himself the better man because his Triad employers aren't oppressing their fellow countrymen. Lam offers to testify for him in court if he comes quietly, but Ah defiantly refuses. Before the conversation can continue, the rest of the Guangdong Police burst in and a bullet snaps the threads of a silk-spinning machine, causing the wheel to knock out Lam. Upon regaining consciousness, Lam finds himself in a hospital room and celebrated as an exemplary Zhujin. By leading the charge, Lam helped wipe out the Triads in Chōshū. Overwhelmed by the praise of his boss and the media, Lam accepts the commendation, sealing his allegiance to Japan.
Another year passes and Lam revisits his old village, but nothing is the same. Where there were once dirt roads, a highway cuts through the region and exemplifies how far modernization has come to this region. When he arrives, Lam is embraced by most of his family, though his uncle has mixed feelings on his new occupation. While his uncle is sympathetic that Lam needs to make a living, he's disappointed that his nephew sacrificed his dignity and Chinese identity to do so, a far cry from his anticipated future of working with silk.
The conflict between Lam Haau-cyun and Hayashi Kōsen aches Lam for years. Standing by a train station in 1955, Lam concludes that he must become Hayashi, especially ever since his father mysteriously stopped sending him letters and cut another source to his old life. To formalize his new status, Lam turns in a Zhujin Census Form and officially becomes one in 1956. Even so, Lam remains uneasy. In the last flashback to 1957, Lam rides a shuttle to Guanzhou and thinks about how far he's fallen since arriving in Port Shōri. Deep down, Lam knows he's guilty for enforcing the current regime's oppression against the Chinese people and thinks himself a monster for not changing his ways, in spite of his self-awareness. Lam is a man lost in the dizzying streets and skyscrapers of Guangdong. His confused identity is a source of many questions with many more answers. What conclusions he comes to will depend on what future Guangdong finds itself in.
- Armies Are Evil: The Japanese army in the 1938 flashback are merciless invaders who shoot Lam's uncle in the right foot for no other reason than their own amusement.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In the 1931 flashback, Lam's uncle excitedly explains the history of the Shenzhen market and the promise of industrialization and modernization by foreign imports. Come the 1960's, his wish technically came true, but at the insurmountable cost of the Chinese becoming subservient to the Japanese.
- Big Damn Reunion: After seven years of separation, Lam reunites with his family in 1953. His blue uniform takes everyone by surprise, but he is embraced by them before being invited inside and he specifically talks with his uncle about the new work and how the locals now have to go fishing due to declining Republican trade.
- Disappeared Dad: Lam's father abandoned his family to start his own business in the United States, leaving his uncle to take up the paternal role. The most interaction Lam gets from his biological father comes after the Second Sino-Japanese War's conclusion in 1947, sending a letter justifying his presence in the United States and sending money for his son to continue living in Hong Kong.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Lam tries to drink away his sorrows in the 1947 flashback, after receiving news of China[s defeat in the Second Sino-Japanese War, combined with his father's written unwillingness to return to his family.
- Empathic Environment: The news of Guangdong's creation in 1949 is revealed to Lam on a gloomy, stormy day, matching his depressing situation.
- Excuse Me, Coming Through!: The first 1951 flashback establishes that Lam has now been in the police force for two years and quickly escalates when he gives chase to a burglar. The chase goes through the dense slums of Kowloon with their maze of apartments, living areas and stores as Lam has to barge through crowds and counters laden with street food. Eventually the criminal runs into a porter carrying heavy boxes, which allows Lam to apprehend him.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job:
- By 1942 the Japanese have plundered the entire silk business, with even the wooden boards going into disrepair. The village which once sold its silks to the global market now has to send its children to fish in hostile waters for a measly pay.
- After the collapse of his silk firm in 1949, Lam is forced to go back to working in the Hong Kong ports where he guards a warehouse run by the Japanese and involves dirty money.
- Foregone Conclusion:
- In the 1933 flashback, Lam promises his uncle that he will join the family business of silk making and learn to thread patterns in the Chaozhou style. Unfortunately, the audience already knows this will never come to pass, knowing that Lam will grow up to be a police officer instead.
- While meeting his uncle in the 1942 flashback, Lam hopes that the Second Sino-Japanese War can end soon and things can return back to normal in China. Unfortunately, the Axis victory setting of TNO makes this a vain hope that cannot come to fruition in this timeline.
- From Bad to Worse: By 1938 the Second Sino-Japanese War is raging and the Japanese have landed at Guangzhou. Stories of Japanese soldiers pillaging towns make their way to Lam's village and on a walk with his uncle they see smoke on the horizon. They arrive to see the town still intact, but a confrontation is occurring with Japanese soldiers who forcibly take silk from the villagers. Lam's uncle chases after the soldiers and, after two minutes of uncommunicative exchange, the Japanese officer shoots Lam's uncle through the foot and marches off.
- Green Around the Gills: The new Chinese recruits in the 1952 flashback are green from traveling downriver to Guangdong.
- Happy Flashback:
- Lam was born in a house near the Han river owned by the family clan. Lam's first memory is in 1926 of his mother telling him about the history of people of Chaozhou and Shantou, how they had settled here from other regions and have been involved in the silk trade for centuries, and how how he is a descendent of these pioneers.
- A flashback of a family trip in 1931 with his mother and uncle, taking the snaking coastal road from Chaozhou to Shenzhen as construction workers labour away working on the road and only stopping when the car would peter out. Upon arriving they decide to eat chicken rice at a bustling market, where his uncle talks of the history of local Chinese nationalism.
- Hope Spot: By 1949 Lam has used his father's money to set up a silk tailoring firm in Kowloon, which profited from the massive boom of Japanese investments in the post war years and also continued his family's work in the silk industry. However, all this comes crashing down when the Japanese Prime Minister announces "Guangdong to be a new Manchuria" and Lam has to sell all his assets and declare bankruptcy, before going back to working on the port.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Lam wasn't enthused about joining the police force and collaborating with Japan, but he justifies it as the only way to get a stable income in the harsh environment of Guangdong.
- I Don't Pay You to Think: When his unit is going to be transferred to Kōshu in 1951, Lam questions his boss if the Kenpeitai is involved with this initiative. His superior dodges the question by telling him to follow orders rather than ask questions.
- Loss of Identity: The 1955 flashback expands upon this as Lam finishes his shift and mulls over where Officer Hayashi ended and Lam begins. He comes to face that he is - much like the radio playing in dual ballad in Cantonese and Japanese - a being of two natures. The final flashback, in 1957, shows us Lam reflecting upon all the changes he is experiencing such as the new metro line. Reflecting upon Hong Kong and the people who built towers of concrete to escape the busy inferno on the ground, Lam asks himself if he is nothing more than the molded creation of the monstrosity that is Guangdong.
- Push Polling: The 1956 flashback shows Lam answering a "Zhujin Census Form" which skews in favor of the Sphere and Japanization. The first two questions, his background and contributions to the state, are answered honestly enough, but the final question asks for his opinion of the Co-Prosperity Sphere and whether or not it has benefitted Guangdong, to which Lam writes about how the influx of Japanese capitol has raised the standards of living. Throughout all of this, Lam must write in perfect Japanese to show that he's been assimilated in their culture and implicitly prove his loyalty to Japan. By the end it isn't clear where the truths and fictions lie.
- The Promise: At a family reunion in 1933, stories of China's history are being shared, from exploration to the far reaches of China's silk. Lam's uncle then says that he will continue the family business of threading silk in the Chaozhou style, to which Lam nods in agreement. Decades later this promise lies shattered.
- Ranged Emergency Weapon: During the immediate post-war years, Lam carried an army-surplus Nambu which he used to ward off bandits which preyed on the still weakened state of the ROC's poor army. By the time he is forced to go back to working in Hong Kong's ports, he still has this pistol and uses it to send a pack of burglars running from the warehouse he guards.
- Take Me Instead: In 1946, an occupying Japanese platoon visits Lam's village, offering supplies in exchange for a few young men who will be taken to the city and aid in the province's "reconstruction." The village leader defiantly refuses, but before a fight could break out, Lam intervenes and defuses the situation by offering himself to go with them.
- You Are a Credit to Your Race: In the 1952 flashback, Lam gets congratulated by his Japanese inspector for destroying the a Triad ring in Chaozhou, earning him high praise from as up as the Chief Executive. Even so, the media can't help but show some unintentional patronization to their latest hero, calling his achievements "an exemplar for what they call a 'Zhujin.'"
