This story begins when my grandfather comes home to Guangzhou to find his brother waiting. It’s 1949, at the climax of the Chinese Civil War, and the Nationalists have just lost their governing hold to the Communists. My grandfather, however, does not care for all that — at least that’s how the story goes, anyway. But as he approaches home, he notices something different since the last time he had seen it, not more than a week ago. He just returned from an extravagant work trip to Hong Kong with his colleagues. He stayed at one of the finest hotels called The Peninsula.