Farcical Case Concludes

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The conclusion of the hearing into the disputed estate of late tycoon Nina Wang comes as a relief to Hongkongers, who no longer have to be confronted, on a daily basis, with even more tales of baseness, superstition and venality than already fill our lives. Those unfamiliar with the story—it is hard to think who they might be, given that the proceedings have been the stuff of sniggering news briefs and lurid dispatches worldwide—can make use of the following précis: eccentric billionairess with infantile streak (wore pigtails, bobby socks, and answered to the nickname “Little Sweetie”), dies at 70. Two wills are produced. One instructs that her fortune be given to her family run Chinachem Charitable Foundation; the other bestows everything upon a grinning feng-shui “master” Tony Chan who claimed to have been her lover. Cue court case of the decade.

Chan already made an astonishing $250mn out of Wang in payments for his asinine voodoo. But he nonetheless has no problems with publicly squabbling with a charity for the rest of the loot and in the process subjecting his wretched wife with the testified banalities of his relationship with Wang (building model aircraft was apparently one of the activities enjoyed by the dowager and the eunuch, as Wang’s sister contemptuously described the couple).

Justice Johnson Lam will bang the gavel on the case in September, after hearing closing arguments. Let’s hope he makes the right call.