Kevin Kwan’s Crash Course in “Rich, Entitled, Delusional Chinese Families 101”

By Tamara Treichel

When American-born Chinese (ABC) Rachel Chu is invited by her boyfriend Nick Young to visit his family in Singapore for the summer, Rachel is delighted, believing that rest and relaxation await her under the palm trees. However, little does Rachel know that Nick belongs to one of Asia’s richest families, “whose lives revolve around making money, spending money, flaunting money, comparing money, hiding money, controlling others with money, and ruining their lives over money.” His family’s wealth makes Nick one of Asia’s most sought-after bachelors, and once Rachel and Nick’s plane departs New York City for Singapore, the ruthless hunt among Asia’s bachelorettes is on to steal Nick from Rachel and become “Mrs. Nicholas Young.”

Besides being brutally initiated into Asia’s upper crust, Rachel also makes a shocking discovery about her own past. Mostly set in Singapore, the “Switzerland of Asia,” Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians (Doubleday, 2013) reads like a medley of A Dream of Red Mansions, filled with beautiful, privileged ladies of leisure whose lives revolve around tea time, coordinating outfits and their gilded dreams, Downton Abbey, which derives its intrigue from class distinctions and dynastic woes, and Beverly Hills 90210, which deals with the soap-operatic life of Hollywood’s rich fast crowd.

Next to the down-to-earth, “everyday” couple Rachel and Nick, meet the characters of Crazy Rich Asians – all of which have money to burn: Eleanor, Nick’s elegant, yet coldly calculating mother; Astrid, Nick’s gorgeous cousin whose life appears picture-perfect yet is anything but; Nick’s bff and “billionaire bachelor jock” Colin, who suffers from premarital jitters as he is about to get married to the effortlessly stylish Araminta; gossipmonger Cassandra, whose nickname is “Radio One Asia”; Nick’s cousin Eddie, a jerk in designer suits who lords it over his family with an iron fist, and Nick’s neatly coiffed granny Su Yi, who coolly rules her clan behind the orchid hybrids and perfectly trimmed hedges of Tyersall Park.

Crazy Rich Asians has elicited an overwhelming response and become an international bestseller, and Hunger Games producer Nina Jacobson has meanwhile acquired the film rights to Kwan’s book. Kwan is a native Singaporean and lives in New York City. From Manhattan, he answers some questions about his debut novel Crazy Rich Asians exclusively for Asian Fortune.

Asian Fortune:  What inspired you to write this book?

Kwan: Starting about five years ago, I began to notice a marked increase in the coverage of Asian wealth in the U.S. media. It seemed like every week, there was some new article on “Asia’s New Gilded Age” or the outrageous spending habits of Beijing Princelings. I felt it was time to tell the story from another perspective, and I was inspired to show the Asia that I know. I wanted to confound the stereotypes – the wealthy in Asia are not all crass spenders driving their Lamborghinis to Louis Vuitton – and to create a more nuanced depiction of the people and families who inhabit this world.

Asian Fortune:  Can you identify with any of the characters? If so, with which character(s) can you identify with most?

Kwan: I think most fiction writers would admit that there’s a piece of them in every character they create. The character I would probably identify with the most is Alistair Cheng, a cousin to the hero of the book Nicholas Young. Like Alistair, I was born in Asia but educated, for the most part, in the West. And I’m that younger cousin who didn’t become a doctor or a lawyer and instead went off to New York to do “something creative” that none of my family could understand, initially at least. A few years ago, a relative I had lost touch with friended me on Facebook, and the first thing he asked was, “I hear you are a rock musician now?”

Asian Fortune: Do you have any plans to have Crazy Rich Asians made into a movie or TV mini-series? If so, do you have any idea which stars you would tap for your cast of characters?

Kwan: I’m working with producer Nina Jacobson and her team at Color Force to develop Crazy Rich Asians into a movie. They have an amazing track record with bringing books such as The Hunger Games to the big screen, and we share the same vision for the film – we feel that there will be tremendous appeal to moviegoers on both sides of the Pacific. I do have certain actors in mind for some characters, but let’s see how the casting process plays out! There is an incredible pool of acting talent from all over Asia and North America to choose from.

Asian Fortune:  What’s your attitude toward the real “crazy rich Asians”?

Kwan: I’m alternately amused and appalled, depending on how they behave, choose to dress or spend their dough.

Asian Fortune:  Do you personally share any habits or tastes of the “crazy rich Asians”?

Kwan: I’ll confess I’m much more similar to the crazy rich Asians who have a sense of thrift. I tend to live in shorts and sandals for most of the year, and when I travel, I’d rather stay in small family-run hotels than mega luxury resorts and save my money for a good meal. I would say my biggest extravagance is food, but thankfully in Asia (and many parts of the world) some of the most amazing delicacies can be enjoyed for pocket change.

Asian Fortune:  What do you regard as the greatest dangers or opportunities of being rich?

Kwan: Money is simply a tool, but you have to have the vision, talent and motivation to do something with it. I think with great wealth comes the opportunity to do tremendous good, but it can also be extremely stifling and paralyzing – I’ve witnessed many a wealthy scion coast through life on auto-pilot or suffer from all types of dysfunction. I think Asia in the next few decades will have to reckon with how this enormous wealth creation is affecting the generations to come. Warren Buffet gets it right when he says, “I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing.”

Asian Fortune:  Are you considering writing a sequel to the book?

Kwan: Yes. There are many more stories that I hope to have the chance to share.

Asian Fortune:  Do you have any other book projects planned at present?

Kwan: The overwhelming response to Crazy Rich Asians has kept me pretty busy. Right now, I’m just fantasizing about when I’ll ever have the chance to take a holiday again.

Asian Fortune: How did the real “crazy rich Asians” react to your book?

Kwan: Everyone seems to be having a good laugh over it, although lately I’ve been getting more phone calls and emails from some people saying, “Admit it – this character or this family was based on so and so, wasn’t it?” No one seems to believe me when I say that it’s fiction!