Crazy Rich Asians

“What rubbish! Prosperity is nothing but an illusion. Do you know what my children are doing with all this prosperity? My eldest daughter started a dolphin research institute. She is determined to rescue the white dolphins of the Yangtze River from extinction. Do you know how polluted that river is? This bloody mammal is already extinct! Scientists haven’t been able to locate a single one of these creatures for years now, but she is determined to find them. And my other daughter? She buys old castles in Scotland. Not even the Scottish want those crumbling old pits, but my daughter does. She spends millions restoring them, and then no one comes to visit her. Her wastrel son, my only grandson and namesake, is thirty-six years old. Do you want to know what he does?”

“No … I mean, yes,” Peik Lin said, trying not to giggle.

“He has a rock-and-roll band in London. Not even like those Beatles, who at least made money. This one has long oily hair, wears black eyeliner, and makes horrible noises with home appliances.”

“Well, at least they are being creative,” Peik Lin offered politely.

“Creatively wasting all my hard-earned money! I’m telling you, this so-called ‘prosperity’ is going to be the downfall of Asia. Each new generation becomes lazier than the next. They think they can make overnight fortunes just by flipping properties and getting hot tips in the stock market. Ha! Nothing lasts forever, and when this boom ends, these youngsters won’t know what hit them.”

“This is why I force my kids to work for a living—they are not going to get a single cent out of me until I am six feet underground,” Wye Mun said, winking at his daughter.

Dr. Gu peeked into the teapot, finally satisfied with the brew. He poured the tea into the snifter cups. “Now this is called long feng cheng xiang, which means ‘the dragon and phoenix foretells good fortune,’ ” he said, placing a teacup over the smaller snifter cup and inverting the cups deftly, releasing the tea into the drinking cup. He presented the first cup to Wye Mun, and the second cup to Peik Lin. She thanked him and took her first sip. The tea was bracingly bitter, and she tried not to make a face while swallowing it.

“So, Wye Mun, what really brings you here today? Surely you didn’t come to hear an old man rant.” Dr. Gu eyed Peik Lin. “Your father is very cunning, you know. He only comes calling when he needs to get something out of me.”

“Dr. Gu, your roots go deep in Singapore. Tell me, have you ever heard of James Young?” Wye Mun asked, cutting to the chase.

Dr. Gu looked up from pouring his own tea with a start. “James Young! I haven’t heard anyone utter that name in decades.”

“Do you know him, then? I met his grandson recently. He’s dating a good friend of mine,” Peik Lin explained. She took another sip of the tea, finding herself appreciating its silky bitterness more and more with each sip.

“Who are the Youngs?” Wye Mun asked eagerly.

“Why are you suddenly so interested in these people?” Dr. Gu queried.

Wye Mun considered the question carefully before he answered. “We are trying to help my daughter’s friend, since she is quite serious about the boy. I’m not familiar with the family.”

“Of course you wouldn’t know them, Wye Mun. Hardly anybody does these days. I have to admit that my own knowledge is very outdated.”

“Well, what can you tell us?” Wye Mun pressed on.

Dr. Gu took a long sip of his tea and leaned into a more comfortable position. “The Youngs are descended, I believe, from a long line of royal court physicians, going all the way back to the Tang dynasty. James Young—Sir James Young, actually—was the first Western-educated neurologist in Singapore, trained at Oxford.”

“He made his fortune as a doctor?” Wye Mun asked, rather surprised.

“Not at all! James was not the sort of person who cared about making a fortune. He was too busy saving lives in World War II, during the Japanese occupation,” Dr. Gu said, staring at the crisscrossing patterns of ivy on his fence as they suddenly seemed to transform into diamond-like patterns, reminding him of a chain-link fence from a long time ago.

“So you knew him during the war?” Wye Mun asked, jarring Dr. Gu out of his recollection.

“Yes, yes, that’s how I knew him,” Dr. Gu said slowly. He hesitated for a few moments, before continuing. “James Young was in charge of an underground medical corps that I was briefly involved with. After the war, he set up his clinic in the old section of Chinatown, specifically to serve the poor and elderly. I heard that for years he charged his patients practically nothing.”

“So how did he make his money?”