Hong Kong: It's a tale of passion, sequins and ballroom dancing that has given a real insight into the glitzy lifestyles of the filthy rich in Hong Kong, the former British colony that is now China's wealthiest city. Mimi Monica Wong, a prominent banker and ballroom dancing fanatic, won a lawsuit yesterday against her dance instructors, who were ordered to return €6.2 million for lessons she never took.
As a shipping heiress and head of Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank's private banking business in Asia, Monica Wong was a scion of the territory's financial community. But her real love was ballroom dancing, and her weakness for salsa and rumba gradually became an obsession.
The 61-year-old widow said she was "looking for the last bit of glory in life" and agreed to pay €12.5 million to Mirko Saccani and his wife, Gaynor Fairweather, for unlimited private lessons and competitions from 2004 till 2012.
However, soon after she put down a €6.2 million deposit, things started to go sour.
The Italian-born Mr Saccani admitted in a High Court hearing to calling Ms Wong a "lazy cow", and her lawyers claimed he told Ms Wong to "move her arse" during a packed ballroom dancing session in the Li Hua restaurant in August 2004.
There were threats of violence, which Mr Saccani described as "motivational language".
Not surprisingly, the contract was terminated after the outburst.
Ms Wong claimed the insults drove her to a breakdown, but Mr Saccani and Ms Fairweather, who was world Latin dance champion 15 times with her former partner, Donnie Burns, countersued for the rest of the money outstanding under the deal.
And yet all the sides had been so close at one time.
Ms Wong began by paying €100 an hour, working with just Ms Fairweather, but her interest became an obsession, leading to the multimillion dollar deal. She saw her relationship with the dancing supremos as "an affair", while Ms Fairweather called their pupil "my little project, my love and my heart".
Ms Wong began to reap the rewards on the "pro-am" circuit, where dancers have to master the five dances that make up competitive Latin ballroom - cha-cha, rumba, samba, jive and paso doble.
She came first in the over-50 age group at the Los Angeles Embassy competition in September 2002, winning the "Top Gold Lady" title. She did well in other overseas contests, describing it as being "like winning Wimbledon".
In a written judgment, deputy high court judge Gerard Muttrie ruled that Ms Wong be repaid damages plus interest and said he found her version of events much more believable than the defendants'.
And for Mimi Monica Wong, the dream goes on. "It will not affect my passion for dancing," she said, although court records show she pays her new instructor €6,000 a month.
