Kevin Kwan - Crazy Rich Asians

One could go on for hours diagramming all the dynastic links in Astrid’s family tree, but from any angle you looked at it, Astrid’s pedigree was nothing short of extraordinary. And as Astrid took her place at the candlelit banquet table in the L’Herme-Pierres’ long gallery, surrounded by the gleaming Louis XV Sèvres and rose-period Picassos, she could not have suspected just how extraordinary life was about to become.

* The Straits Chinese, also known as the Peranakans, are the descendants of late-fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Chinese immigrants to the Malaya region during the colonial era. They were the elites of Singapore, English-educated and more loyal to the British than to China. Often intermarried with the native Malays, the Straits Chinese created a unique culture that is a hybrid of Chinese, Malay, English, Dutch, and Indian influences. Peranakan cuisine, long the cornerstone of Singaporean and Malaysian cooking, has become all the rage with foodies in the West, although visiting Asians are dumbstruck by the outrageous prices charged in trendy restaurants.

6

The Chengs

HONG KONG

Most people driving past the squat grayish-brown building on a busy intersection of Causeway Bay would likely assume it was some sort of government health office, but the Chinese Athletic Association was actually one of Hong Kong’s most exclusive private clubs. Despite its rather perfunctory name, it was the first Chinese-founded sports facility in the former British Crown colony. It boasted the legendary gambling tycoon Stanley Lo as its honorary president, and its restrictive membership had an eight-year waiting list open only to the most established families.

The CAA’s public rooms were still firmly entrenched in late-seventies chrome-and-leather decor, since members voted to spend all the money on updating the sports facilities. Only the acclaimed restaurant had been revamped in the last few years into a plush dining room with pale-rose brocade walls and windows overlooking the main tennis courts. The round tables were strategically aligned so that everyone was seated with a view of the restaurant’s main door, allowing its esteemed members to make a grand entrance in their après-sport outfits and making mealtimes a prime spectator sport.

Every Sunday afternoon, the Cheng family would come together without fail for lunch at the CAA. No matter how busy or hectic the week had been, everyone knew that Sunday dim sum at the Clubhouse, as they called it, was mandatory attendance by all family members who were in town. Dr. Malcolm Cheng was Asia’s most esteemed heart surgeon. So prized were his skilled hands that he was famous for always wearing lambskin gloves—made specially for him by Dunhill—to protect his precious hands whenever he ventured out in public, and he took additional measures to safeguard them from the wear and tear of driving, opting instead to be chauffeured in his Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit.

This was something his well-brought-up wife, the former Alexandra “Alix” Young of Singapore, felt to be overly ostentatious, so she preferred to call for a taxi wherever possible and allow her husband the exclusive use of his car and driver. “After all,” she was keen to say, “he’s saving people’s lives every day and I’m just a housewife.” This self-deprecation was standard behavior for Alexandra, even though she was the true architect of their fortune.

As a bored doctor’s wife, Alexandra began channeling every cent of her husband’s considerable earnings into properties just as the Hong Kong housing boom was taking off. She found that she had a preternatural talent for timing the market, so beginning in the oil-recession days of the seventies, through the Communist-panic sell-off of the mid-eighties and the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Alexandra was always snapping up properties when they hit rock bottom and selling at the peak. By the middle of the first decade of the new century, with Hong Kong property going for more money per square foot than anywhere else in the world, the Chengs found themselves sitting on one of the largest privately held real estate portfolios on the island.

Sunday lunch gave Malcolm and his wife a chance to inspect their children and grandchildren on a weekly basis, and it was a duty they undertook with utter seriousness. For in spite of all the advantages the Cheng children had growing up, Malcolm and Alexandra were constantly worrying about them. (Actually, Alexandra was the one doing most of the worrying.)

Their youngest son, Alistair, “the hopeless one,” was the pampered ne’er-do-well who had just barely scraped through Sydney University and was now doing something or other in the Hong Kong film industry. He had recently become involved with Kitty Pong, a soap-opera star who claimed she was from “a good Taiwanese family,” even though everyone else in the Cheng family doubted it, since her spoken Mandarin took on a distinctive northern China accent rather than the more cutesy inflections of Taiwanese Mandarin.

Their daughter, Cecilia, “the horsey one,” had developed a passion for dressage at an early age and was constantly dealing with her temperamental horse or her temperamental husband, Tony, an Australian commodities trader whom Malcolm and Alexandra secretly nicknamed “the Convict.” A “full-time mother,” Cecilia actually spent more time on the international equestrian circuit than raising their son, Jake. (Due to all the hours he spent with their Filipino maids, Jake was becoming fluent in Tagalog; he could also do a brilliant impression of Sinatra’s “My Way.”)

And then there was Eddie, their firstborn. To all appearances, Edison Cheng was “the perfect one.” He had breezed through Cambridge Judge Business School with distinction, done a stint at Cazenove in London, and was now a rising star in Hong Kong’s private banking world. He had married Fiona Tung, who hailed from a politically connected family, and they had three very studious, well-behaved children. But privately, Alexandra worried the most about Eddie. In the last few years, he was spending far too much time hanging around with these dubious Mainland Chinese billionaires, flying all over Asia every week to attend parties, and she worried how this might be affecting his health and his family life.

Today’s lunch was especially important since Alexandra wanted to plan the logistics of the family trip next month to Singapore for the Khoo wedding. It was the first time the entire family—parents, children, grandchildren, servants, and nannies included—was traveling together, and Alexandra wanted to make sure everything went off perfectly. At one o’clock, the family began filtering in from all corners: Malcolm from a mixed-doubles tennis match; Alexandra from church with Cecilia, Tony, and Jake; Fiona and her children from their weekend tutors; and Alistair from rolling out of bed fifteen minutes ago.

Eddie was the last to arrive, and as usual he was on his phone, coming to the table and ignoring everyone, chattering loudly in Cantonese on his Bluetooth earpiece. When he finally finished his call, he flashed his family a self-satisfied grin. “It’s all sorted! I just spoke with Leo, and he wants us to use his family jet,” Eddie declared, referring to his best friend Leo Ming.

“For all of us to fly to Singapore?” Alexandra asked, a bit confused.

“Yes, of course!”

Fiona raised an immediate objection. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. First, I really don’t think the entire family should be traveling together on the same plane. What would happen if there was an accident? Second, we shouldn’t be asking such a favor of Leo.”

“I knew you were going to say that, Fi,” Eddie began. “That’s why I came up with this plan: Daddy and Mummy should go a day earlier with Alistair; Cecilia, Tony, and Jake can fly with us the next day; and later in the day, the nannies can bring our children.”