I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 295: The Battle of Thai Baht, the Wedding of the Century, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Kazuo Inamori is one of the "Four Saints" of post-war Japanese business world (the other three are Konosuke Matsushita, founder of Panasonic, Akio Morita, founder of Sony, and Soichiro Honda, founder of Honda).

He founded Kyoto Ceramic Co., Ltd. at the age of 27 and Daini Telegraph Co., Ltd. at the age of 52 (the second largest telecommunications company in Japan after NTT). Both companies entered the Fortune 500 during his lifetime.

After being diagnosed with stomach cancer this year, he made an astonishing decision - to donate all of his private shares to the company's employees to thank them for their dedication over the years.

After retirement, Kazuo Inamori chose to become a monk at Enpuku-ji Temple in Kyoto and continue a new journey in life.

The fact that Kitagawa Hide's total assets are comparable to those of such a legendary industrialist shows that he has truly crossed the class line and entered the ranks of Japan's chaebol groups.

After realizing this, Senhara Masato re-examined what Kitagawa Teacher had said. After analyzing it carefully, he felt more and more that Kitagawa Teacher was not the "investment novice" he thought.

Maybe Mr. Kitagawa is also an investment genius!

After completely discarding his prejudices and doubts, Senhara Masato began to face up to what Kitagawa Hide said, "the Thai baht's abandonment of the fixed exchange rate system" and the "Asian financial crisis" that might sweep across the country. It also gradually became clear how to continue to run Kitagawa Investment Co., Ltd.

In order to confirm the "possibility" mentioned by Hide Kitagawa, and also to better manage the investment capital of nearly 100 billion yen, Masato Senhara simply took a long vacation, flew directly from Tokyo to Bangkok, and kept an eye on the changes in the exchange rate of the Thai baht.

Kitagawa Hide is now a major client of the Industrial Central Bank. As his direct account manager, as long as Masato Senhara can keep him stable, the bank will approve his application to work from home for a year, let alone such a long vacation.

Shortly after arriving in Bangkok, Masato Senhara rented a long-term apartment next to the Bangkok Stock Exchange and observed the exchange rate changes of the Thai baht day and night.

Just as Kitagawa Hide expected.

Thailand relaxed restrictions on foreign investment in April and May, and was soon targeted by overseas hot money, which borrowed large amounts of Thai baht by purchasing and mortgaging local real estate, and then frantically sold them on the market, creating an artificially fabricated "baht depreciation" phenomenon.

Countless retail investors and small investors who were observing the Thai baht exchange rate saw a large number of Thai baht appear in the market and thought the time was ripe, so they rushed into the market with funds, trying to follow the overseas hot money to break Thailand's fixed exchange rate system.

The so-called fixed exchange rate means that the exchange rate of the domestic currency is only linked to a general equivalent (such as gold) and will not change due to market fluctuations.

The advantage of this currency exchange rate is that the country's economy will be relatively stable, and slight market fluctuations will not destroy the monetary system.

The downside is that when this kind of vicious selling of one's own currency occurs, the panic of the people and domestic capitalists may exacerbate the collapse of the monetary system. Once the fixed exchange rate system is broken, it means that your country's currency will be completely finished.

At that time, whether your country's currency rises or falls, and what its price is, will all be decided by others!
However, after a brief battle between the two sides for more than a dozen trading days, Thailand's fixed exchange rate system was unbreakable, and overseas hot money returned empty-handed and even suffered a small loss.

Just as the dawn of victory was about to come, Thailand won a great victory in the end, and Masato Senhara was stunned.

Fortunately, he did not go all in as Kitagawa Hide said. In the first fight between the two sides, he just went there to mix things up and suffered a small loss, which was within the normal investment profit and loss range.

Kitagawa Hide, who was busy arranging a wedding in Tokyo, was not too surprised after listening to Masato Senhara's report. He just told him to continue observing the changes in the Thai baht exchange rate, and then follow the bosses to reap the aftermath after the Thai baht was completely defeated.

"I understand. But it seems that the strength of overseas hot money is not enough to defeat Thailand's fixed exchange rate system." Masato Senhara kindly reminded.

After all, this is 100 billion yen, not 100 yen.

No matter how easy it is for Mr. Beichuan to make money, the money does not come from the wind.

Kitagawa Hide still felt that it was unlikely that such a major historical event would undergo major changes, and therefore believed that there must be some details in the middle that he was not aware of - Thailand completely abandoned the fixed exchange rate system of the Thai baht in July of this year, and it is now the end of May, so there is still some time.

Putting aside the idea of ​​investing and making money, Kitagawa Hide put all his energy into the wedding banquet and the writing of "Remembrance of Things Past".

The wedding banquet was scheduled for June 6, which is said to be the birthday of the "Sansha Myojin" enshrined in the Asakusa Shrine in Tokyo. It is an auspicious day that only comes once in a century.

Anyway, the wedding banquet and wedding celebrations were planned by the wedding company and the shrine, and Kitagawa Hide just had to pay.

If traditional weddings in Japan were not conducted according to Shinto rituals, he would have moved his wedding to the Tokyo Hotel long ago!
Although Western-style weddings are all the same and don’t seem to have any special features, they are convenient and comfortable!

Kitagawa Hide and Yumeko are not the kind of people who care much about rituals. Booking the Tokyo Tower to propose is romantic, but Yumeko feels more sorry for the 1.8 million yen - no matter how rich she is, Yumeko still looks like a virtuous housewife. Every penny of the money in the family must be counted clearly and not wasted!

It was already June of 97 when all these trivial matters were dealt with.

During the preparation time for the wedding banquet, Kitagawa Hide did not allow himself to be idle. He took advantage of his free time every day to finish writing the remaining part of the first volume of "Remembrance of Things Past".

The finished manuscript was sent all at once via email to Audemasonry in Paris, France, along with the outlines of the second volume, "Swann's Love", and the third volume, "Place Name: That Surname".

Ever since reading "Remembrance of Things Past", Oddmesson put down all the work at hand and concentrated on helping Kitagawa Hide to complete this masterpiece.

After receiving the new manuscript and new outline, Odmesson didn't even have time to eat. He took the manuscript and ran to the study to read it carefully.

After spending three hours reading all of this, Odmesson breathed a sigh of relief, feeling fortunate that Kitagawa Hide did not slack off because of the false title of "the best in the world", nor was he distracted by trivial matters such as marriage.

The first volume, "Combray", was completed smoothly, and Kitagawa Hide's amazing writing skills and knowledge reserves became more and more evident as he wrote later. The second volume, "Swann's Love", is the climax, and judging from the outline he wrote, there is no problem with it.

However, the third volume, "Place Names: That Surname", only had two chapters, which surprised Odmeson.

Looking back now, "Remembrance of Things Past" is written with the life experience of the protagonist Marcel as the story axis, and the experience of the Swann family should be the beginning of the whole epic story.

Odemaison knew that the "map" would be changed in the second part, but he didn't expect the second part to come so soon.

And the ending only has two chapters, isn’t it a bit hasty?
He wrote all his doubts into a thick letter and prepared to mail it to Kitagawa Hide - he didn't like the Internet and computer model, and felt that these high technologies were quietly depriving the original beauty of letters.

Before leaving, Odmeson suddenly remembered something, smiled, patted his already white head, and went back to the room.

Seeing her husband coming back, the elegant old lady, who was also over 60 years old, asked with a smile: "Why are you back? Did you forget something?" "The child far away in the East is getting married. What gift do you think we should give?" Odmesson asked with a smile.

"Is it Mr. Kitagawa?" The old lady knew that her husband had been in contact with the young Japanese writer recently. After tilting her head and thinking for a while, she asked with a smile, "They are all young people. They should like to go to the coastal city, right?
I remember a while ago a Colombian writer sent me season tickets for a trip, but at our age, we definitely can’t go.

How about mixing those season tickets with the jewelry and giving them as gifts?"

The French love this kind of "mixed" gifts. Sometimes when they send something to a friend, they often mail a large gift box filled with all kinds of small gadgets that look very interesting.

"Well, I'll go look for it in the study now!" Odmeson knew nothing about such social matters, and for decades, it had been entirely handled by his wife.

Time flies and it is June 6th.

Wearing a white kimono and a "fan" on her head, Yumeko walked into the main shrine of Asakusa Shrine step by step with the support of Jabami Rei.

Kitagawa Hidenori, wearing a men's yukata, was waiting in the side hall with Keigo Higashino, Shiro Dango and other groomsmen.

The Shinto wedding process is very complicated, and the folk customs involved feel like they could fill a book, with even the smallest details like the guests' attire being considered.

The person in charge of presiding over the wedding was the shrine maiden Miyamizu Mitsuha, who came from a small village called Itomori Town. While working part-time at Asakusa Shrine, she was noticed by the chief priest and became an official shrine maiden.

When Kitagawa Hide and his friends came here for the New Year's celebration, it was Miyamizu Mitsuha who was in charge of receiving them.

She is also one of the eight million "Kitagawa Youngsters" on the "Kitagawa's Little Bookstore" website and a die-hard fan of Kitagawa Hide.

The grand wedding is about to begin, and many well-known social figures have arrived, ready to witness the "wedding of the century".

Ryutaro Hashimoto, who was overwhelmed by consumption tax and economic issues, was not present, but he asked the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Nobutaka Machimura, to congratulate on his behalf.

The six major financial groups also came to congratulate. The Mitsubishi Group gave a large share of the money, and it seemed that they had no grudge against Kitagawa Hide because of his defeat of Tanizaki Ichiro.

The cannons roared and the chimes rang.

To the melodious tune, the bride and groom took their seats, exchanged tokens amid cheers, kissed each other for a while, and then returned to their seats surrounded by everyone.

The wedding banquet was held in a lively atmosphere, and the five major TV stations even sent reporters to broadcast the entire event, allowing people across the country to offer their blessings to Teacher Beichuan and share in the joy.

The only two people who cried loudly at the wedding were Yumeko's mother Agatsuma Gen and Aso Mayumi. The latter was drunk to the point of passing out, and was carried back to her room by Saito Rena and Kawaide Shizuko to rest.

After the wedding banquet, Kitagawa Hide received a gift from the Odmesson couple from Olivia. In addition to a pile of gold and silver jewelry that were obviously worth a lot of money, several tourist season tickets printed with Latin caught his eye.

He and Mengzi were planning to start their around-the-world honeymoon trip after their wedding. Now that Mengzi is about six months pregnant and it is still convenient for her to move around, she also wants to take this opportunity to go abroad and breathe some "fresh air."

The first week after the wedding.

Kitagawa Hide and Yumeko packed up their new home, a large villa in the port area, and arranged for my wife Eikichi and her husband, who had come from afar, to live in a large flat in Aoyama Building.

On June 6, the new issues of "New Trend" and "Gun Portrait" were released one after another. The sales of the former declined again because "Idiot Love" was no longer serialized, with only 15 copies sold on the first day of printing. The latter was even worse, with sales of less than 1.2 copies on the first day of printing.

Kodansha issued a new announcement on the same day, stating that the June 1997 issue of "Gunzo" would be the "last issue" of the magazine, after which "Gunzo" would be put up for sale, and whatever it became in the future would have nothing to do with Kodansha.

On June 6, "Wenyi", which serialized the final chapter of "The End of the World and Hard-boiled Wonderland", was released, and the situation it encountered was completely different from that of "Shincho" and "Gunzo".

On the day of release, Kawaide Shobo first sent out 50 online pre-sale copies nationwide, and they were quickly sold out as soon as major bookstores opened, and the stock of 100 million copies quickly sold out.

no way.

The two major popular events, the dispute with Ichiro Tanizaki for the title of "the best in the world" and Hide Kitagawa's wedding, made "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland" instantly become a masterpiece.

According to incomplete statistics from Oricon, about 1.26 million of Japan's 1200 million citizens said they had heard of the book, and half of them clearly stated that they would purchase this issue of "Wenyi".

No one knows whether the monthly sales of this issue of "Wenyi" can continue to reach the 600 million mark.

But everyone knows that the "number one in the world" in Japanese literary world, who set one amazing record after another, left Japan at the age of 25 with his young wife.

They are about to embark on a six-month long around the world honeymoon trip.

During this period, readers can only quench their thirst with the upcoming "Tokyo Love Story".

Oh, and there is also "Remembrance of Things Past" which is released simultaneously with France. This is already the series of novels that Japanese people are most looking forward to publishing this year.

Sitting on a private plane.

Kitagawa Hide and Yumeko held hands, leisurely ate cake, drank drinks, and imagined the sweetness of this round-the-world honeymoon trip.

The first stop for the two was the coastal town of Aracataca in Colombia, which has a typical Caribbean marine climate, beautiful scenery and pleasant weather.

Aracataca means "clear river" in Indian language, and it sounds like a spell recited by a wizard. You can often see strange wizards wearing esoteric costumes there, which is very characteristic of the local customs.

Because it is the first stop recommended by Odmezon, and Aracataca was very famous in Kitagawa Hide's previous life - the small town of Macondo based on it is the setting for the story of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" written by the great Colombian writer Marquez.

So the two of them simply went there first.

(End of this chapter)