Hsin Jaoming (Chinese: 昭明辛; Zhāomíng Xīn) is a character appearing as the tritagonist of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.
Prior to his physical debut, he was briefly mentioned in Grand Theft Auto IV.
History[]
Background[]
Hsin Jaoming is the elderly head of the Jaoming Family, and leader of the Triads in Liberty City since the early 1980s.[2] He is the father of Chan Jaoming, who is himself a Triad underboss. He is believed to be responsible for several murders and has been arrested on three occasions; in 2002 for extortion, then in 2004 for assault and again in 2005 for racketeering.
Hsin's first mention in the series is an entry in the LCPD database in Grand Theft Auto IV, accessible through a link at the bottom of the police department's official page. While no photo is provided, the log lists several crimes committed by Hsin in Liberty City. It also provides a substantial amount of information on the structure of the Triads in the city, making mention of his son Chan, as well as underbosses such as Wu "Kenny" Lee and Zhou Ming, who are all direct branches of the gang.
Events of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars[]
The plot of GTA Chinatown Wars revolves mainly around the race between the boss of the Triad sub-sects (Lee, Ming and Jaoming Triads) to succeed Hsin as the Triad boss, as he seeks to appoint a replacement and retire.
After the death of his father, Huang Lee was asked to bring a supposed family heirloom, the Yu Jian Sword, to his uncle Wu "Kenny" Lee, the new head of the Lee family and a strong contender for the position of the new Triad boss. Kenny is intended to present the sword to Hsin to solidify his position- however, Huang is ambushed by unknown assailants upon landing at Francis International Airport. Yu Jian is stolen, and Huang barely survives the incident. The loss of the sword devastates Kenny's standing with Hsin, and his businesses and territory are absorbed by fellow contender and Hsin's son, Chan Jaoming, as well as underboss Zhou Ming.
Huang Lee's exploits on behalf of Kenny, and later Chan, earn Hsin's attention, and he recruits Huang for personal missions, including the assassination of several gamblers and unloyal Triads. Huang, Hsin and the other Triad bosses come to strongly suspect that an FIB informant is compromising their operations, and may have also orchestrated Yu Jian's theft. Hsin's ruthlessness is displayed when he orders the execution of several untrustworthy underlings not with firearms, but a sword.
Even after Huang completes this task, he is confronted by Hsin, who, suspecting that Huang himself is the rat, intends to kill him on the spot. Only Kenny's intervention saves Huang's life, as he convinces Hsin to give Huang more time to find the real traitor. Around this time, Hsin's suspicions turn towards the Korean Midtown Gangsters, a group which has long been loyal to him. He orders their secret base of operations found and several files stolen, and their violent resistance seems to confirm his fears. Under Hsin's orders, Huang decimates one of their warehouses, crippling them.
However, Huang has been conducting his own investigations with undercover detective Wade Heston's help, and learns of group of assassins called the Wonsu Nodong operating from within the Midtown Gangsters, coming to the conclusion that their leader is surely both the FIB rat and the one behind the theft of Yu Jian. Heston and Huang later recover a file from the FIB servers which names both Chan Jaoming and Zhou Ming as informants. Presented with this, Hsin feels ashamed and dishonored by the thought of his own son being a rat, and steps down as leader of the Triads, naming Kenny his successor, while he plans to retire to Macau. Kenny subsequently orders Huang to kill both Chan and Zhou.
Shortly after, Wade Heston informs Huang that the file which incriminated both men was a fake, and that the real Wonsu boss is having a meeting on Charge Island. Upon arrival, Huang is shocked and horrified to learn that the rat is none other than Kenny himself. Huang and Heston pursue Kenny to Hsin's penthouse, where he is confronting Hsin with Yu Jian in hand. Huang finds out that Hsin was the one who ordered Kenny to steal the Yu Jian from Huang's father in Kowloon as part of a "loyalty test" in exchange for his Triad boss position after he retires.
Hsin demands that Kenny hand over the weapon, and, with a touch of irony, Kenny responds by slashing Hsin with the weapon, heavily wounding him. After Huang enacts vengeance on his uncle, a gravely wounded Hsin tells Huang that he has what it takes to be the next Triad boss, to which Huang has no immediate answer. Officer Heston attempts to charge Hsin with some crime and says that he will think of "something heavy" on the way to the precinct.
While Hsin appears heavily wounded, lying in a pool of his own blood, he is never shown dying on screen, and Heston's dialogue indicates that he expects Hsin to survive.
Character[]
Personality[]
Hsin is very paranoid, most likely caused by years of leading one of Liberty City's biggest criminal syndicates. He, like Wu Lee, likes to speak using proverbs and analogies (even criticizing Kenny's dialogue in the last mission), but will use more foul language if he deems necessary, even to the point of appreciating Huang's foul remark of doing every thing he is asked to do during the first mission he gives him, leading Hsin to ask him to attack the Spanish Lords in a educated manner.
Hsin is shown too to be ruthless to the point of even ordering the assassination of his own son because he supposedly betrayed him (though it was actually Wu Lee) and he had swore to the Tongs that the traitor would die without compassion and no matter who was, though it should be noted that Hsin was horrified when he saw that apparently Zhou and Chan were the rats in the Triads, expressing his horror on how his own son had "betrayed" him. Hsin then yells to Wu Lee that he betrayed all of them and blamed Chan and Zhou for his treason, he also showed significant regret the last time he is seen, asking Huang to "grieve with him" over those they lost during the battle over Yu Jian.
LCPD Database Record[]
2004 - Assault
- Believed to be working with both the Angels of Death OMG and several Korean street gangs.
- His son, Chan, works with him closely though is not believed to have the respect of the rest of the Triads.
Prominent Appearances in Gameplay[]
- Trail Blazer (Boss)
- The Offshore Offload (Boss)
- One Shot, One Kill (Boss)
- By Myriads of Swords (Boss)
- A Shadow of Doubt (Boss)
- Friend or Foe? (Boss/Unseen)
- Arms Out of Harm's Way (Boss)
- The Wages of Hsin (Boss)
- A Rude Awakening (Boss)
- Rat Race
- Salt in the Wound (Arrested)
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- As with his son Chan, Jaoming is not a real Chinese surname, and would be unlikely to exist since most Chinese surnames consist of only one character. Some two-character Chinese surnames existed in the era of Romance of the Three Kingdoms (such as Au-Yeung [歐陽], Zhuge [诸葛] and Sima [司馬]), but are relatively rare in present-day China. However, Hsin is a perfectly usable surname.
- Hsin Jaoming's name spelling, unlike most Chinese characters in the game barring Huang Lee, mixes the use of the older Wade–Giles system of Chinese romanization, as well as a non-standard way to spell his last surname (which would be Chao-ming under the aforementioned WG system), presumably due to his older age, and would be spelled Xin Zhaoming using pinyin.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1
- ↑ Hsin Jaoming's description on ChinatownWars.com (promotional website).
