The Versatile Master Artist

The Uber taxi drove up the embankment of the Yangon River, honking a few times, weaving between two stalls selling tropical fruits on the street, and entered the commercial street on the left.

In the passenger seat,

the translator quietly turned his head, sizing up the somewhat thin blond man with rimmed glasses in the back seat.

For the next seven days, the man would be his main client.

A professional business translator in Yangon isn’t in high demand; during relatively peaceful times, Yangon is actually a laid-back tourist city.

During Europe’s cold winter, Southeast Asia is a traditional retreat from the heat.

This place might not be as bustling as Bangkok, and the cost of living is accordingly one-third to two-thirds lower.

A large number of nearly retired elderly white men would flood into this city through international flights.

They would take steamboats along the sprawling network of river channels deep into the jungles surrounding Yangon and Mandalay, or be carried by local laborers on bamboo chairs to tour the ancient city, sipping a fresh mango slush through a straw.

If safety concerns are set aside,

this is a Southeast Asian traditional tourist destination where quality service can be acquired cheaply.

The official languages here include English, though not everyone speaks it, but just spending a couple hundred thousand Myanmar Kyat can get you a ”companion translator” with an attractive figure.

Secretly slip a few green US Dollar bills as a tip.

The daytime female translator would climb into your bed at night.

Compared to cities like Thailand or Myanmar, which have been crafted into city-name-like considerate services,

his kind of serious business translation service is expensive, not to mention lacking the ability to offer companionship, rarely securing personal business.

The translator was very curious,

from the moment he picked up the customer outside Yangon International Airport, the client did not head to a hotel nor a tourist destination but instead directly handed over a small note.

He checked on Google Maps.

The address on the note seemed to be an obscure little gallery?

”How much longer?”

”Five or six minutes, the store on the map is in the tourist area along the Yangon River, if the location is correct, we’ll be there soon.”

Hanks Ma Shi nodded.

His gaze carried a hint of vigilance as it passed through the vendors who remained noisy and busy in the twilight, reaching to the briefcase on the seat beside him.

The solid and heavy feel instantly came through, as if there was a gym cast-iron dumbbell stuffed in the leather briefcase.

Hanks gently placed the briefcase between his legs and zipped open a corner.

Brand new blue and green banknotes, with the Central Bank of Myanmar’s golden lion emblem printed at the top, and the corner printed with the words ”TEN THOUSAND KYATS” in English and the Myanmar Kyat script for 10,000.

The largest denomination ever issued by this country.

A hundred notes per bundle, the medium-sized briefcase held a total of twenty-five bundles, which is twenty-five million Myanmar Kyat in total.

The first thing Hanks did when he got off the plane was to exchange a large amount of Kyat cash at the airport’s foreign exchange counter.

He realized after walking out that he probably got ripped off.

In Yangon,

the US Dollar and Euro are actually akin to gold, capable of normal circulation without needing to be specifically exchanged into the local currency.

Furthermore, the black market exchange rate here is much more valuable than the official rate, he exchanged millions of Kyat less than he could have.

But it didn’t matter.

A little less is just a little less; this large briefcase full of money should be sufficient at critical moments.

How to maintain relationships with the gallery’s manager and agents of artists has some intricacies of its own.

The trick to gifting is to pierce through the psychological bottom line of the other party while not spending too much money on insignificant artists.

Everyone has their price.

Giving Professor Yajima a Richard Miller watch that costs as much as a Porsche 911 without batting an eyelid, because what such an artist could bring to Ma Shi Gallery can’t be measured by tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But giving every small-time artist a Richard Miller would be absurd.

Even if the sponsor’s goods were free, it’s not how they should be used.

Cash has always been the proven method for traveling, hiring assassins, bribing, gifting, and winning hearts.

Twenty-five million Kyat amounts to less than twenty thousand US Dollars but weighs heavily in hand.

This is the signing fee Hanks prepared for the likely inexperienced Gu Weijing kid, specially using all cash instead of electronic payment.

Many people underestimate the impact of a pile of cash laid out in front of them on the internal mind of an individual.

The willpower needed to refuse a weightless check with a string of zeros and refusing a pile of tangible cash is completely different.

Tangible wealth has immense impact.

Seeing so much money really laid out in front of them, most people’s legs would go weak.

If it weren’t for the fear of robbery due to lack of safety and the sheer weight of such enormous cash, he would have considered using the 1000 and 5000 Kyat bills more commonly used by locals.

With tens of thousands of banknotes sprawling like a sea, the other party certainly would be too ecstatic to find their bearings.

”Hehe, Brother Gu, you’ll soon be my man!” Hanks happily calculated the details of the contract in his mind.

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