Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong

By Terry Gould

Book Overview

For 14K Triad official Steven Wong, faking his own death to escape trial was easy. But evading investigative reporter Terry Gould -- impossible.

For 11 years terry Gould has tracked the man known as the "paper fan" through the organized crime circles of six countries. This riveting, horrifying, yet often hilariously funny book is the story of that search, a daredevil journey through the seductions and terrors of Steve's world.

Steven Wong is the "paper fan," a thirty-nine-year-old Hong Kong-born mobster. Raised in New York's Chinatown, he matured into crime in Vancouver, where he founded and headed the murderous Gum Wah Gang in the late 1980s and early '90s. In 1992, Wong "died" in a traffic accident in a remote area of the Philippines before he could be sent to jail for heroin trafficking, conveniently just after he'd taken out a million-dollar life insurance policy. His urn may still be interred in a Vancouver cemetery, but today, Interpol has a "Red Alert" arrest warrant out for Wong, and his updated file reads like a Hollywood action film -- a post-mortem panorama of organized criminal adventure that circles the Pacific Rim, from Macau to Japan, from Cambodia to the Philippines.

Gould's search takes him into a world in which politicians, police, businessmen and criminals sprint along in one big pack, sometimes nipping each other's heels, sometimes licking each other's faces, and sometimes inviting one another back home for all-night mah-jong parties. Forced to work according to right-side-up rules, honest cops haven't had a chance of arresting Steve in his upside-down world. Four times, Terry Gould has traced Steven Wong through Asia's circles of corruption and pinned him down, but the law has let him slip away. Fifth time lucky?

"Gangsters are good team players who generally exhibit a locker-room familiarity with other men. Still, it surprised me when Steve answered the door on Monday wearing only his polka-dot boxers, showing off his biceps and his chest tattooed with the winged dragons and sharp-taloned eagle. He was talking on the phone and barely interrupted himself as he turned back into the house, whereupon I realized that the display was likely done on purpose. Neck to waist his back was totally covered by a stylized tableau of a dragon crawling against a background of tigers and flowers -- a Triad montage no one outside his syndicate world was supposed to see." -- from Paper Fan

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679313559
• ISBN13: 9780679313557
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Vintage Books Canada
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

"Young & Dangerous"

Triad members are very secretive of their organization. One must be initiated to be a member. Young recruits will usually start as a street soldier. In order to rise up the rank one need to be able to be a good earner. With $$ come power. Eventually that will lead to more "heng dai" brothers working under him. Which in hand controls different biz and Enterprises. This book is a good read for those that want to know more about the Chinese Triad. Catch the Hong Kong movie Young & Dangerous and you'll get an even better idea how Triads operates. You hv to give all due respect to them cause they do operate much better then most large Corp. Peace Steven.

Great book.......

Terry Gould came to my school and discuss his book and the gave us in insight of the Triads and Kwan Kung. Just as he did when he came to the school, his book gives great information of how the Triads were created and why they chose the God Kwan Kung. Many more intresting facts he provides in his book. It is intresting and difficult to put down.

I was there. Therefore, I know.

While Steven Wong the Triad Gangster rose through the ranks in Vancouver's Gangland, I was a Vancouver cop who had many dealings with him. I probably knew Wong, and of his activities, more so than anyone in the Vancouver Police Department, other than a handfull of other cops who might be inclined to say the same thing. I was a cop who used Wong to my own end, while Wong used me to his. I still don't know who, if anyone, came out on top. Due to my personal knowledge of Wong and his Red Eagles, his rivals the Viet Ching, Jung Ching and Lotus Gangs, plus their victims etc., I feel competant to say, "In writing Paper Fan, Terry Gould did an excellent job describing Wong and the events of the day." Terry knows his stuff, and he tells his story extremely well. It is not often one can learn such an immense amount of true information while at the same time be entertained. The book reads like a novel.