Hong Kong: Starting with 10 billion

Chapter 88 My Lan Kwai Fong (4K)
TVB's artists were still discussing how the richest man in Hong Kong would spend these tens of billions.
Soon after, he became the employee of the richest man.

This unexpected sense of absurdity made many people laugh.

Working for the richest man is also a kind of prestige in Hong Kong.

In the new year, this invisible sense of superiority is enhanced.

This makes many newcomers who have just joined TVB particularly excited.

Fang Hexuan's expansion did not stop.

After the New Year, his attention turned to Lan Kwai Fong, which he had noticed two years ago.

Lan Kwai Fong is said to have got its name from the small shops selling orchids on the street.

It is also said that this is because there are often drunken naval soldiers hanging around there, coming from the "Ran Gui Fang".

There is also a saying that "Lan Kwai Fong" is taken from the meaning of orchid and osmanthus.

In the three words "Lan Kwai Fong", "Lan" and "Gui" are the names of flowers.

"Orchid" is one of the "Four Gentlemen" of flowers highly praised by ancient Chinese literati and poets, symbolizing purity and transcendence.

The "Gui" symbolizes achievement and glory. There is a saying "winning the laurel" in Chinese folk sayings.

"Fang" is a general term for streets and villages in ancient China, and it also means shop.

The three characters “Lan Kwai Fong” have a strong traditional Chinese connotation, which is completely different from most place names in Hong Kong translated into English.

Lan Kwai Fong is called "Lao Lan" by Hong Kong people, which is an affectionate name.

Lan Kwai Fong is located in Central, Central and Western District, Hong Kong, China. It is about 20 meters wide and 300 meters long.
It is a mid- to high-end consumption area consisting of D'Aguilar Street, Wellington Street, Wyndham Street, Wo On Lane, Yan Shou Lane and Rong Hua Lane, where bars and restaurants of all sizes gather.

In the 20s, Hong Kong's economy took off, business developed rapidly, and nightclub culture began to become popular in Hong Kong.

Until the 70s, Hong Kong's nightlife culture was still dominated by Chinese nightclubs and was not so strongly associated with alcohol, sex, money and power.

However, after experiencing economic take-off and rapid commercial development, Japanese nightclubs became popular in Hong Kong from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, and their influence completely overshadowed Chinese nightclubs.

Later, karaoke was introduced to Hong Kong, and the nightlife culture became younger and more popular.

In 1980, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone was formally established, and 300 million mainland workers were employed in factories opened by Hong Kong-funded companies in Shenzhen and its surrounding cities.

The emergence of Shenzhen has caused the light industry and electronic manufacturing industries that once supported the main economy of the Pearl of the Orient to move from Hong Kong to the mainland.

The financial and service industries have quietly poured into Hong Kong from more developed regions, occupying most of the economic structure.

In 1985, the HSBC Head Office was completed in Central. It was the most expensive building in the world at that time.

Two years before that, the Hong Kong dollar began to be pegged to the U.S. dollar, and a large number of new immigrants from the West poured in.

According to statistics from the Hong Kong government, the number of Americans in Hong Kong began to exceed that of the British in the early 20s.

In 1978, Mrs. Monica Marelle opened a fashion jewelry store, "BORSELLI NA", in Lan Kwai Fong.

The opening of this fashion accessories store has transformed Lan Kwai Fong. Bars and discos full of European style are everywhere, and the alleys have gradually become the city's cultural district.

After that, an entertainment venue called DiscoDisco opened on D'Aguilar Street, and the number of consumption venues in Lan Kwai Fong increased rapidly.
In the early days, almost all the shop owners were foreigners, but later two-thirds of them were Chinese. There are more than 50 restaurants and bars of various types.

Allan Zeman, the founder of Lan Kwai Fong, said: "More and more friends complained to me that they could not find a relaxing place to drink in Hong Kong. At that time, the tradition in Hong Kong was to go to the executive lounge of a luxury hotel to drink after get off work and sit upright."

Realizing that there was no place to hang out in Hong Kong, he opened California in 1983 near a flower stall and traditional wet market in Hong Kong.
The restaurant quickly became popular and kicked off the development of the Lan Kwai Fong area.

As the business got better and better, Allan Zeman became more confident after making money, and he spent more than HK$3000 million to buy the entire building where the restaurant was located.

After some renovation, the building was transformed from an office building into an entertainment venue integrating restaurants, KTV, bars and nightclubs.

Later, he continued to invest heavily to transform this ordinary alley in Central into the brand new Lan Kwai Fong.

After more than 40 years of development, this former alley has grown into "Lan Kwai Fong", the most distinctive bar street in Hong Kong.

As a result, Lan Kwai Fong gradually became a cultural and entertainment street famous both inside and outside Hong Kong.

Throughout the 80s, Allan Zeman continued to acquire real estate in the Lan Kwai Fong area and owned more than 70% of the properties in the area.

There are hundreds of bars and restaurants on this street. When night falls, the place is full of lights, wine and women, and people are drinking and chatting.
Among them, C Club nightclub, Faye Bar, etc. are important places for nightlife in Hong Kong.

At the same time, Stone Street and D'Aguilar Street are also important venues for activities such as the Lan Kwai Fong Carnival.

With the construction, operation and promotion of the company by founder Allan Zeman and the Hong Kong Tourism Board,

Lan Kwai Fong has gradually become a fashionable leisure district and tourist destination famous both inside and outside Hong Kong.

Allan Zeman was born in Germany and moved to New York with his parents when he was very young.

When he was 8 years old, his father died and his mother and son moved to Quebec, Canada.

In order to reduce the burden on his family, Allan Zeman started working part-time at the age of 13.

Delivering newspapers in the mornings and doing odd jobs in restaurants on weekends;

At the age of 16, he became the first student in the school to buy his own car;
At the age of 17, Allan Zeman joined a fashion company and was highly appreciated by his boss and was quickly promoted.
At the age of 19, he decided to make a living in Hong Kong, a place that was considered to be a land of gold.

At the age of 20, he had successfully earned his first million.

20世纪70年代初，20出头的盛智文怀揣自己19岁时挣到的第一个100万加元从加拿大来到香港，
He founded Colby Company in Hong Kong, specializing in garment trade, exporting garments from mainland China and Hong Kong to Canada and the United Kingdom.

Due to the large profit margins and good market response, Colby quickly got on the right track.

Thanks to the outstanding performance of this company, Allan Zeman had enough capital to take over the entire Lan Kwai Fong.

Fang Hexuan admired this foreigner very much. If he didn't have the golden finger of rebirth, he would never have been able to earn 19 billion Hong Kong dollars at the age of 230.

But admiration does not mean giving up Lan Kwai Fong to him.

In this time and space, in addition to the title of "Father of Transformers", he doesn't mind being called "Father of Lan Kwai Fong".

With this well-known brand, Allan Zeman later established the Lan Kwai Fong Group, which covers multiple fields including hotels, real estate, cultural and creative industries, and films.

They even expanded into the mainland and made a ton of money.

Fang Hexuan’s plan for Wanda Real Estate is similar to Allan Zeman’s “Lan Kwai Fong Group” and is not just a fight to the end with real estate.

Therefore, we should take Lan Kwai Fong and make it a tourist attraction of Hong Kong.
This was a plan Fang Hexuan had thought of a long time ago.

As for whether he could do it, Fang Hexuan was not worried at all.

Allan Zeman can accomplish all of the things he does by spending money.

Lan Kwai Fong is famous for its bars, Western restaurants and the large number of foreigners.

It also has a complete set of cultural and creative operating mechanisms.

This kind of thing can actually be learned by spending money to send people to Europe and America.
Or you can directly invite European and American designers and creative officers to Lan Kwai Fong to get started.

In the early days, Hong Kong was mainly engaged in re-export trade and manufacturing, and did not attach much importance to tourism.

Later, the tourism and financial industries were incorporated into the Hong Kong government's key planning.

The cultural and creative industry has begun to be taken seriously.

To put it simply, Lan Kwai Fong is Hong Kong's cultural and creative brand.

In later times, many cities in mainland China have been popular with cultural and creative industrial parks.

In essence, it hopes to boost tourism development in its city.

Fang Hexuan does what he says.

He first registered and established "Lan Kwai Fong Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd."

Then let Wanda recruit a large number of real estate agents. The job of these real estate agents is only one thing -

They purchased properties door to door in Wellington Street, Wyndham Street, D'Aguilar Street, Wo On Lane, Yan Shou Lane and Wing Wah Lane.

It is mainly houses on the ground and second floors, and shops are the priority.

In addition, he also asked the Sun Yee On to cooperate with his acquisition.

They didn't beat anyone up, but just let the gang thugs use fatigue tactics against those residents who didn't want to sell their properties.

In simple terms, it is just a dog-skin plaster.
Under the persistent harassment and conservative harassment, I don’t believe these people will not move.

If you really have a tough landlord, you can only spend a little more money.

Fang Hexuan himself estimated that it would cost hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars to acquire the six shops and the second-floor residences.

After the acquisition, he will also ask a designer to make an overall plan.

After that, the decoration and design of each storefront will be completed, and then it will officially open for business.

The time he gave was to complete the reconstruction of Lan Kwai Fong within three years.

In addition, he also recruited a group of experts from abroad who are familiar with nightclub life to run these bars, restaurants and hotels.

Once the infrastructure is in place, the next step is software marketing and global promotion.

This is the operating system that Lan Kwai Fong company needs to learn and build within three years.

Fortunately, Fang Hexuan is rich, so he only needs to publish the information of the signature Lan Kwai Fong executives through headhunters and he will not have trouble finding talents.

Fang Hexuan's big move could not be hidden from the Hong Kong real estate industry insiders.

But most of these people don't understand his operations.

Now everyone is trying hard to develop in Central, near the sea.
Why did you, Fang Hexuan, choose to mess around in a remote and poor place?

It’s simply baffling!
How could they have imagined that
A few years later, when Hong Kong's position as Asia's financial center really began to solidify,
Moreover, world-renowned international financial institutions have established branches in Hong Kong.
Central, which was once just a political center, will become Hong Kong's bustling financial area.

Foreign employees of foreign companies want to relax after get off work.
Just a few steps away you can see a city that never sleeps, full of lights and nights, similar to the West.
How can there not be surprises, how can there not be lingering?

When Lan Kwai Fong becomes a business card of Hong Kong, its value will be truly known.

Fang Hexuan can also make many foreign connections through Lan Kwai Fong.

These connections may benefit his car manufacturing, computer and semiconductor businesses in the future.

It can be said that the development of Lan Kwai Fong was a step in his strategic plan.

This foreigner, Allan Zeman, not only made a lot of money through Lan Kwai Fong, but also became famous in the Chinese world.

In addition, he also reaped great rewards in politics.

Because Lan Kwai Fong directly increased Hong Kong's influence in Europe and the United States,
Therefore, Allan Zeman was highly regarded by the British Hong Kong government and later the SAR government.

He was brought into the government structure and was successively appointed as a member of the Policy Development Committee, a director of the Urban Renewal Authority, and a member of the Tourism Industry Group.

What he is most proud of is that when the SARS epidemic in 2003 brought Hong Kong's tourism industry to its lowest point,
Tung Chee-hwa appointed him as the chairman of Ocean Park, leading the most famous and oldest theme park in Hong Kong.

In 2011, he was also awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal by the Hong Kong government.

Many times, having money doesn’t necessarily mean one can get things done; influence is also needed.

Fang Hexuan is very rich now, but it is not enough.

He needs to continue to expand his network and continue to increase his weight in the hearts of Hong Kong people.

Instead of turning Hong Kong into a fish pond for unlimited expansion of his personal desires like Li Ka-shing did later.

This is also the main reason why he doesn't want to be just a top real estate developer.

Having a bad reputation, no matter how much money he makes, is not his life goal.

He was a Chinese in his previous life, and he only wants to be a Chinese in this life. There is nothing wrong with that.

Therefore, in Chinese society, if you only have money but no fame, you will have no status.

The reason why he wants to build cars and develop semiconductors is not only to accelerate China's development process,

He also wanted to improve his social status. At least, in the eyes of the country, Fang Hexuan was not a capitalist, but a good people's entrepreneur.

People like Li Ka-shing have the sour smell of money in their pores, which Fang Hexuan despises.

Throughout history, there are many people who are richer than cucumbers, including Shen Wansan and Hu Xueyan in the distant past and Sheng Xuanhuai in recent times.

However, they were eventually buried in the dust of history.

Cucumber's historical status and reputation a hundred years later will definitely be far less than those of these people.

Fang Hexuan and Huanggua have different life pursuits.

He doesn't want to be the kind of person who only cares about money, so although he wants to make money, he doesn't love money.

This is also the psychological reason why he doesn't feel any pain at squandering Hong Kong dollars.

In the eyes of ordinary people in mainland China, Lan Kwai Fong in later generations is a place of filth and corruption where easy girls hang out.

In this time and space, it probably won’t be much better.

However, rather than letting the foreigners run it as they please,
It is better to try to be more standardized under your own control.

As for those foreign-worshipping people who want to find foreigners,

It can't be stopped no matter what.

Although Lan Kwai Fong has become a specialized company to operate,
But Fang Hexuan still had some ideas of his own in his mind.

After this place is officially opened,

Fang Hexuan would mobilize celebrity artists from TVB and DreamWorks to come to Lan Kwai Fong to check in and promote the event.

TVB's modern dramas and DreamWorks' movies need bars and other locations for filming.
Lan Kwai Fong is also a must-see.

Also, BYD and BMW will release new models in the future.

We also want to set up a showroom in Lan Kwai Fong.

Because this place is destined to become the place with the largest flow of Chinese and foreign tourists in the future,

It is equivalent to a promotional venue with a lot of traffic.

Fang Hexuan even borrowed from New York's Times Square.

Set up some outdoor LED lights in some traffic-heavy areas of Lan Kwai Fong.

In short, Lan Kwai Fong will not only be a tourist attraction of Hong Kong,
It is not only a place for foreigners and Hong Kong people to relax and have fun.

It will also be a platform for key marketing and promotion of Fang Hexuan’s industries.

It can be said that Fong Hok Hin has endowed Lan Kwai Fong with multiple functions.

This is another reason why he must take over Lan Kwai Fong before Allan Zeman.

······
　Thanks to Banjieyan_BD for the monthly ticket and recommendation ticket!
　　Thanks to Senqiu, book friend 141110113521174, and the monthly ticket from I Love You Before!

　　Thanks to Shark Chili 113, aabb88abc, Lao Tang Suancai TCL, Book Friend 20170110161147033, and Yi Ji Dao for their recommendations!

　　(Today, I had a lot of guests at home and was extremely busy, so I was really in a hurry to write this. I know it's not very good, I'm sorry to everyone, I apologize prostrate myself!)
　　
　
(End of this chapter)