Crazy Rich Asians

“Chérie, I must tell you how much I adore your necklace. In fact, I had admired it at Monsieur Rosenthal’s a few weeks ago, but sadly, he informed me it was already spoken for,” the baronne gushed. “I can see now that you were clearly meant to wear it.”

“Thank you, but you’ve got the most magnificent earrings,” Astrid replied sweetly, rather amused by the woman’s sudden about-face.

“Isabelle tells me that you are from Singapour. I have heard so much about your country, about how it’s become the Switzerland of Asia. My granddaughter is making a trip to Asia this summer. Perhaps you will be kind enough to give her some advice?”

“Of course,” Astrid said politely, thinking to herself, Wow — it took only five minutes for this lady to go from snooty to suck-up. It was quite disappointing, really. Paris was her escape, and here she strove to be invisible, to be just another of the countless Asian tourists who crammed eagerly into the boutiques along the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. It was this luxury of anonymity that made her love the City of Lights. But living here several years back had changed all that. Her parents, concerned that she was living alone in a foreign city with no proper chaperone, made the mistake of alerting friends in Paris, like the L’Herme-Pierres. Word had gotten out, and suddenly she was no longer just the jeune fille renting a loft in the Marais. She was Harry Leong’s daughter, or Shang Su Yi’s granddaughter. It was soooo frustrating. Of course, she should be used to this by now, to people talking about her as soon as she left the room. It had been going on practically since the day she was born.

To understand why, one had to first consider the obvious — her astonishing beauty. Astrid wasn’t attractive in the typical almond-eyed Hong Kong starlet sort of way, nor was she the flawless celestial-maiden type. One could say that Astrid’s eyes were set too far apart, and her jawline — so similar to the men on her mother’s side — was too prominent for a girl. Yet somehow with her delicate nose, bee-stung lips, and long naturally wavy hair, it all came together to form an inexplicably alluring vision. She was always that girl stopped on the street by modeling scouts, though her mother fended them off brusquely. Astrid was not going to be modeling for anyone, and certainly not for money. Such things were far beneath her.

And that was the other, more essential detail about Astrid: she was born into the uppermost echelon of Asian wealth — a secretive, rarefied circle of families virtually unknown to outsiders who possessed immeasurably vast fortunes. For starters, her father hailed from the Penang Leongs, a venerable Straits Chinese[12] family that held a monopoly over the palm oil industry. But adding even more oomph, her mother was the eldest daughter of Sir James Young and the even more imperial Shang Su Yi. Astrid’s aunt Catherine had married a minor Thai prince. Another was married to the renowned Hong Kong cardiologist Malcolm Cheng.

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.

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.