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Today is
Deluxe Dreams and Nightmares
Deluxe Dreams
and Nightmares
people or even the majority of people lose, and they go back to their families. And you see the pawn shops here, and you see an ugly side of that which actually jars very much with the sense of success.
Would you consider opening here a China Club or a Tang restaurant, to educate people, and show them that there are other forms of luxury?

The main reason I wouldn't open here is because I don't come here very often. But your question invites me to think that, as you are living here, you want to see what people can do to make Macau a bit better, a bit more interesting. Well, there's only one answer: to bring interesting people. You've got to lure the right people here. Now, if you want this place to be a sophisticated place that people want to come to, want to flock to, you ought to bring interesting people. It's the people that make the place.

But how do you create a consistent social scene in a place like Macau?

It's money, but cleverly used. I´ll give you an example: if tomorrow you say to me: 'a Macanese woman is prepared to pay Mario Testino a million dollars for a portrait,' and I am hypothesizing, then you will have the newspapers around the world showing Mrs. De La Cruz at Santiago Lane in Macau, perched on top of Wynn casino being photographed by the famous Mario Testino for one million dollars, and that's a start. People would ask: 'what is this Macau place?` It's a 400 year-old Portuguese colony. So suddenly, people register. That's just a one-off event. The next thing you do is another stunt. Let's say, and I am dreaming now, Abba has turned down one billion dollars for a reunion. So get two billion and that's fine. How do you get Madonna to come? Has anybody approached her? Why isn't she coming here? It's people, people, people. You need characters. But who is taking all the money? It's the casino operators and the casino owners. The first thing I would do if I were you, is to say to them: 'you people have made a lot of money in a very short time out of Macau. It's about bloody time you put the same amount of money for the benefit of the local people, but also the city´. How much will it cost to bring Madonna and Lady Gaga here? No more than two or three million dollars. They can afford that. They make that sort of money. They should pledge a $100 million in order to stimulate the economy and to make this happen. That's what I would do.

You created Shanghai Tang, a Chinese brand that became hugely successful around the world.

I created products, which were good enough for people to want to buy.