Italian Born Chinese

[ This is part of a multi-post series about our little legal problem in Shanghai. To read previous installments go here
]

Wednesday morning, 2010/01/06, Dad called Lawyer Tang on his mobile phone number telling him that some documents were to be sent to him at his office’s address as publicized on their website. Lawyer Tang finally gave his full name, said that his office was undergoing renovation, and told Dad to send the documents to his home address which he provided. This sounded fishy, but as we had Huang on tape that this lawyer represented Li et al from a few days ago, we decided to go ahead.

Dad first went out to the ICBC bank. After queuing for a long time, he tried to deposit the money into Li’s account only to find out that Li had closed her account on 2010/01/03. Dad called me. Needless to say, I was shocked because when we paid her the down payment on 2009/11/28, we found out that she had had this account for years. I then remembered that she had another account, as part of the down payment was made by my mom through PuFa Bank. I text messaged Dad her account number, and he went to PuFa only to find that Li’s account in PuFa Bank was also closed on 2010/01/03.

I had no idea what games Li et al were playing. They wanted the RMB20.000 and threatened in the letter that they would sue us if they didn’t receive the money, but they closed both of the accounts that we knew about. And they didn’t put their address on the letter/envelope that they sent us.

Dad called Lawyer Sun, as Lawyer Sui was in court working on a case outside of Shanghai that day. Lawyer Sun told us to wire the money through China Post. Dad went to the postal office; wired the money to “Li”; photocopied all the documents and slips; sent a copy to Lawyer Tang, a copy to property agent Wang, and kept the originals; scanned all the documents, had me e-mail them to Lawyer Sui which were forwarded to Lawyer Tang by e-mail.

It was a long day for Dad running all over Shanghai, and a very cold winter day for everyone in Shanghai. I was so worried about my old father who is so afraid of cold weathers.

All this time, my mom had been on a cruise in South Africa since 2009/12/26. She finally returned to my aunt’s house in Durban that Wednesday afternoon, Shanghai time. I called her on Skype and told her everything. She was so worried about Dad’s health conditions from all this running around, the stress, and the freezing weather.

I felt awful and wanted to sell this apartment as it had brought me no joy at all. I felt angered by how we’ve been treated as a customer and the buyer. I felt disgusted by the ugliness and dishonesty that we had seen up to this day.

Dad was exhausted; I was relieved when he finally came home that evening.

I wondered what other tricks Li et al were going to play after they received our documents. I so wanted to rest and return my body, my soul, and my mind to my kids and my husband. I missed them terribly. This had been so time and energy consuming to say the least. I felt spent.

At least, once the money was out, I felt lighter. I thanked our Lawyers Sui and Sun in a text message that night, for their guidance and patience on such a small case unworthy of their time.

Our lawyers could not believe that we really did wire the money out to Li, as they felt that we had every right to keep the money by the document that we signed on new year’s day which stated that all moneys were paid and cleared as well as by the fact that Li closed her accounts. They told Dad that if everyone did things as how we do things, they would make no money as lawyers because no one would sue anyone. Lawyer Sun text messaged me “In the fidgeting world that we are in, I am glad to have met people with a conscience/morals such as you. To this, I bow and salute you.”

I kept wondering if we deserved such compliments and the meaning behind them with regards to this society. I felt that we did try to do things according to rules; but isn’t it our duty to do things this way anyway? In the course of this case, did I do anything wrong? Were there times or situations when I should have done something or said some things? How could I have prevented this from growing into what it had become today?

The agent, Wang, called the next day…