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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Shen Li had a grand celebration for his fortieth birthday. He flew his parents in from Hunan province and treated all of his childhood friends from home to an airplane ticket and a hotel room. Most of them had never been on an airplane, and certainly none of them had ever stayed anywhere as nice as the Beijing Hyatt.

Li’s success story was legendary in his hometown. He had gone to the same rundown school that all of his friends attended, but from early on he showed ability as an organizer. At sixteen he got his prefecture’s president to organize a protest against a factory that was poisoning a local stream. His younger brother, Hue, was diagnosed with cancer at the age of ten, and Shen was sure the stream was the reason, since his brother, more than anyone else in the family, was a swimmer and loved to dive into the water day or night, no matter what the weather.

When his brother died, Shen vowed to teach the factory a lesson. At sixteen, all he could do was protest. But at twenty-five, after graduating law school third in his class, he sued Matchuta Manufacturing and won a rare verdict against a company that fought everything and was always victorious. Shen’s reputation grew, not only as a brilliant litigator but as someone with a future in politics if he wanted it. It was highly unusual for a person to come from his humble background and rise so quickly, but he had a gift.

Shen’s mother, who still did her laundry in that same stream, looked at her son’s birthday party as if she were on Mars. She was so proud of him and occasionally thought, This can’t really be my son; someone must have switched him at birth.

Li’s father was like a kid in a candy store. He had never seen a hotel buffet before and the Hyatt did it up right for the party, with all the delicacies that his parents loved but almost never got a chance to eat. Steamed wax gourd and straw mushrooms. Cheese-baked prawn, and one of his father’s favorites, fish heads with the eyes sautéed in vinegar.

His mother loved frogs. Not the legs, the whole frog, boiled, cut into pieces, and mixed with onions and peppers. And although they were not drinkers by nature, the cocktails were so tasty that both of his parents got tipsy and rambled on about how their son had paid for all of this and how he was famous and beloved in Beijing. He wasn’t really famous, but he certainly was heading in that direction.

Shen Li did not want to stay in law. It was not exciting enough. He felt he could succeed in business in a spectacular way as soon as he found his passion.

While still a lawyer he invested some money in a company that made pencil phones. As the name implied, a communication device, along with a camera, was put into a regular pencil without adding any bulk or noticeable weight. The company made them for a dollar and sold them for seven. It sold ten million in two years, and Shen made a small fortune. But he wasn’t interested in gimmicks. He wanted to make money at something more important. And probably because he always thought of his brother and how someone who was so full of life was deprived of it so early, Li felt that something must be done to get health care to the masses. In 2022 Health Care for All was formed, with Shen Li as its president.

The concept was simple, even though the execution was not. Hundreds of millions of people throughout China would see a doctor, if they were lucky, two or three times in their life. Once, maybe, when they were born; once when they started school; and once if they enlisted in the People’s Army. And decent medical care was still located in just the big cities.

In a rare instance an employer might pay to have a very valuable employee taken to a hospital in Beijing or Shanghai, especially if there was any thought that the company was responsible and could be fined. But mostly the poor got little or no help. Shen was convinced that if enough people paid pennies, small clinics with nurse practitioners who had access to current medical data could be set