Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong [Paperback]

Terry Gould (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 30, 2004

Triad official 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, just after he’d taken out a million-dollar life insurance policy. His urn may be interred in a Vancouver cemetery; but today, Interpol has a “Red Alert” arrest warrant out for Wong. His updated file reads like a Hollywood action film—an organized criminal adventure that circles the Pacific Rim, from Macau to Japan, from Cambodia to the Philippines. For eleven years, award-winning writer Terry Gould tracked Wong through the organized crime circles of six countries, where politicians, police, businessmen and criminals run in one big pack, sometimes nipping each other’s heels, licking each other’s faces, and inviting one another home for all-night mah-jongg parties. Four times, Gould has traced Wong and pinned him down, but the law has let him slip away. Paper Fan includes telling photographs in this unforgettable hunt for one man.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gould, a much awarded Canadian investigative journalist, recounts his 14-year odyssey in pursuit of a major Asian organized crime figure. Intriguing if overlong, Gould's story helps illuminate the little-known world of the Triads, a byzantine, diasporic Asian mafia. Led to Wong through young Asians in Vancouver who were systematically terrorized and recruited by local thugs, Gould undertakes a risky encounter with the young but powerful gang leader. Gould boldly and secretly records an interview with Wong in the criminal's home; the tape becomes the basis for a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary that provides law enforcement with valuable insight leading to the elusive Wong's arrest and indictment for large-scale heroin trafficking. But Wong gets permission to leave Canada for a family trip, and is then conveniently reported dead in an accident. That leads Gould to Macau, the Philippines and elsewhere on a decade-long chase for proof that Wong is alive. The narrative suffers from the colorful Wong's disappearance from view early on and from occasional lapses into purple prose ("terror sat naked on my shoulder like a clawed and drooling gargoyle"), but U.S. audiences who enjoy the chase will also learn about the brutal power and scope of the Triads.
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Review

“A madcap, pulse-quickening race across the far reaches of Asia.... This work is among the most provocative and well-written texts on Asian organized crime that I have read in years.... Politics, history, culture, suspense and copious amounts of good humour — Paper Fan has it all.”
—The Globe and Mail

"Southeast Asia is like this. Asian organized crime -- in Vancouver or Hong Kong -- is like this. Great stories contain such trajectories and great investigative journalists display such compulsions. Paper Fan is unbuttoned and out-sized and wonderfully wild."
—Charles Foran

"Part cop, part journalist, part friend, Gould pursues his prey with the relentless fervour of an Indiana Jones — and takes you along for a fearful yet funny ride through the underworld."
—Julian Sher

"With verve, style and humour Terry Gould leads readers on an unforgettable journey into a ruthless underworld populated by gangsters and one almost mythic, but undeniably ingenious mobster who transcends them all. A remarkable story told by a remarkable storyteller."
—Andrew Mitrovica, author of Covert Entry

Praise for The Lifestyle:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“In this intelligent approach to this taboo subject — without advocating the heterosexual lifestyle or promoting it — Gould explains what has always only been exposed, and thus wildly misunderstood.”
—The Toronto Sun

“Gould has fashioned his extensive research on the phenomenon into a timely, serious, useful book — you can read it tonight and still respect yourself in the morning.”
—Toronto Star


From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press (July 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560256222
• ISBN-13: 978-1560256229
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,818,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I was there. Therefore, I know., May 12, 2004

By 

Tom Span (Vancouver, British Columbia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: PAPER FAN: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong (Hardcover)

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book......., September 25, 2004

By 

L. Garcia (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong (Paperback)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting enough story, terrible writer, April 16, 2008

By 

Maui Sherpa - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong (Paperback)

This book needed a strong editor. We get too much of the writer's thoughts, his interaction with people, and his supposedly brilliant investigative work. Information that should be summarized in a paragraph become pages long. Cut the fat and stick to the story: why is Steven so dangerous, what crimes did he commit, how did he escape, where is he now?

If you need to know more about Asian crime, I guess you should buy this. Otherwise, there are much better books.