Crazy Rich Asians

“I just got the dossier on Rachel Chu from that private investigator in Beverly Hills who Mabel Kwok recommended. Do you want to know what it says.” It wasn’t a question; it sounded like more of a threat.

“Er … who is Rachel Chu?” Philip asked.

“Don’t be so senile, lah! Don’t you remember what I told you last week? Your son has been dating some girl in secret for more than a year, and he had the cheek to tell us about it just days before he brings her to Singapore!”

“You hired a private investigator to check up on this girl?”

“Of course I did. We know nothing about this girl, and everyone is already talking about her and Nicky—”

Philip looked down at his fishing pole, which was beginning to vibrate a hair. He knew where this conversation was leading, and he wanted no part in it. “I’m afraid I can’t talk right now, darling, I’m in the middle of something urgent.”

“Stop it, lah! This is urgent! The report is even worse than my worst nightmare! Your stupid cousin Cassandra got it wrong — it turns out the girl is not one of the Chus from that Taipei Plastics family!”

“I always tell you not to believe a word out of Cassandra’s mouth. But what difference does it make?”

“What difference? This girl is being deceitful—she is pretending to be a Chu.”

“Well, if her last name happens to be Chu, how can you accuse her of pretending to be a Chu?” Philip said with a chuckle.

“Aiyah — don’t contradict me! I’ll tell you how she’s being deceitful. At first, the private investigator told me she was ABC, but then after more digging he found out that she’s not even truly American-born Chinese. She was born in Mainland China and went to America when she was six months old.”

“So?”

“Did you hear me? Mainland China!”

Philip was baffled. “Doesn’t everybody’s family ultimately originate from Mainland China? Where would you rather her be from? Iceland?”

“Don’t be funny with me! Her family comes from some ulu ulu[29] village in China that nobody has ever heard of. The investigator thinks that they were most likely working class. In other words, they are PEASANTS!”

“I think if you go back far enough, darling, all our families were peasants. And don’t you know that in ancient China, the peasant class was actually revered? They were the backbone of the economy, and—”

“Stop talking nonsense, lah! You haven’t heard the worst yet — this girl came to America as a baby with her mother. But where’s the father? There’s no record of the father, so they must have divorced. Can you believe it? Alamak, a child from some divorced no-name ulu family! I’m going to tiao lau!”[30]

“What’s wrong with that? There are plenty of people these days who come from broken homes and go on to have happy marriages. Just look at the divorce rate here in Australia.” Philip was trying to reason with his wife.

Eleanor sighed deeply. “These Aussies are all descended from criminals, what do you expect?”

“This is why you’re so popular down here, darling,” Philip joked.

“You are not seeing the big picture. This girl is obviously a cunning, deceitful GOLD DIGGER! You know as well as I do that your son can never marry someone like that. Can you imagine how your family is going to react when he brings this gold digger home?”

“Actually, I couldn’t care less what they think.”

“But don’t you see how this will affect Nicky? And of course your mother is going to blame me for this, lah. I always get blamed for everything. Alamak, surely you know how this will end.”

Philip sighed deeply. This was the reason he spent as much time as he possibly could away from Singapore.

“I’ve already asked Lorena Lim to use all her Beijing contacts to investigate the girl’s family in China. We need to know everything. I don’t want to leave a single stone unturned. We need to be prepared for every possibility,” Eleanor said.

“Don’t you think you’re going a bit overboard?”

“Absolutely not! We must put a stop to all this nonsense before it goes any further. Do you want to know what Daisy Foo thinks?”

“Not really.”

“Daisy thinks that Nicky is going to propose to the girl while they’re in Singapore!”

“If he hasn’t already,” Philip teased.

“Alamak! Do you know something I don’t? Has Nicky told you—”

“No, no, no, don’t panic. Darling, you are letting your silly girlfriends work you up for nothing. You just need to trust our son’s good judgment. I’m sure this girl is going to turn out just fine.” The fish was really tugging at the line now. Maybe it was a barramundi. He could ask his chef to grill it for lunch. Philip just wanted to get off the phone.

That Thursday, at Carol Tai’s Bible study, Eleanor decided that it was time to call in her ground troops. As the ladies sat around enjoying homemade bobo chacha and helping Carol organize her collection of Tahitian black pearls by color grade, Eleanor began her lament as she savored her chilled coconut-and-sago pudding.