Kevin Kwan. Rich People Problems. New York: Doubleday, 2017. Print.
I had a friend who was on a full-ride scholarship for his MBA at a business school that had a reputation of catering to wealthy heirs who would spend their lives cutting coupons from inherited wealth. He was taking a course on business law, but much of the class was actually about inheritance law. The professor would be explaining some arcane case about a family set to inherit millions but there was some problem with the will. My friend said that more than one student in that class remarked that his family had had a similar problem when a grandmother or uncle had died. My friend just said, “I wish had those kinds of problems.”
Welcome to installment number three in the tales of the rich Singaporeans and the wealth and royalty in their circle. Rich People Problems includes most of the characters we have already met in Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend. And they are having the kind of problems my friend envied in his business school classmates.
My friend would say with obvious irony, “I feel so sorry for you. What terrible problems.” Frankly, that would be a typical reader response to Rich People Problems, except that the story is mostly quite funny.
The main problem indeed is that Mrs. Young Sun Yi, the matriarch of Tyersall Park, who in volume #1 was described by the daughter of a millionaire as “richer than God,” is on her deathbed. She has led a much less sheltered life than most people think and is worth billions. The vultures are circling. Everyone is hoping to get a significant piece of the pie.
Her only son, and, hence, traditional heir is Philip Young. He does keep in touch with his mother, but really does not care for Singapore. He moved years ago to Sydney where he lives a relatively simple and happy life. His son Nick has been one of the main characters in the first two novels, and as the only son of the only son, he also has a chance.
Nick’s problem is that his grandmother expressed her disapproval when he married Chinese-American Rachel rather than the girl his parents wanted him to marry. However, he grew up in Tyersall Park and has to confess he is sentimentally attached to it.
Nick’s first cousin Edison “Eddie” Cheng has become a notorious brown-nose to impress his grandmother. Unlike some of his other relatives, he is very style-conscious and does not mind being photographed by the press as long he and his family are wearing couture clothing. He will get a funny come-uppance because of his own fashion sense.
Philip’s four sisters—Felicity, Eddie’s mother Alix, Victoria, and wife of a Thai prince Catherine—are also naturally interested and involved. Let us just say many funny and obnoxious things happen. Because these people are super-rich, newspapers and gossip magazines are all interested when something even faintly scandalous happens, or for some, even when they are observed in public.
The adventures of Astrid Teo (Felicity’s daughter) and her boyfriend Charlie Wu continue. Both of their divorces appear to be going smooth until Charlie’s ex-wife tries to kidnap their daughters and releases an incriminating video tape.
And we see the continuing adventures of Kitty Pong, former Hong Kong porn star now married to Chinese billionaire Jack Bing. Kitty still refuses to be upstaged. This becomes even more difficult for her because Colette, Jack’s daughter from his first marriage, has married an actual Scottish Lord. Not only is he a Lord, but he is truly wealthy, not having to marry a rich foreigner to keep the line going.
The one rich person who probably does have true financial problems is distant cousin Oliver T’sien. He is an interior decorator who has hired himself out as a social guide to Kitty to help get established among the Asian elite. Much of China Rich Girlfriend concerned mishaps and misunderstandings in her attempts to gain acceptance. It turns out that Oliver’s parents are in debt millions, and even though they associate with the same elite, they probably are on their way out simply because they cannot afford to play in their league any more. (See The Magnificent Ambersons.) Oliver knows he is out of the picture in terms of Sun Yi’s will, but perhaps if he plays his cards right with the Bings, things may work out.
One chuckle for this writer which perhaps illustrates Kitty and Jack’s pretensions is that they name their son Harvard. In Crazy Rich Asians Nick’s mother is unsure about Rachel because she went to Stanford, a school “where students who don’t get into Harvard” go. From my own experience in teaching in China, Harvard seems to be the only American school Chinese really have heard about. When I was teaching in China on an exchange program, the teachers were asking me what my high school was doing to get students into good schools like Harvard. I explained a few things and also noted that my school was in Connecticut only about twenty miles from Yale, so Yale was the prestige school for many people where I lived. The name Yale drew a blank. It was Harvard or nothing. It was one of the few times in my life I had a boost because I was a Harvard grad. Illegitimi non carborundum.
Many of these super-rich people come across as being at least as shallow as Kitty Pong. Even Rachel, who is portrayed sympathetically by Kwan, tries to console her husband at one point by quoting—not the Bible, not Confucius, not even Chairman Mao—but radio personality Delilah.
The coolest part of the story, though, is what we learn about the Young family during Japanese occupation. The British were no more prepared for the Japanese in 1941 than the Americans were. The Japanese took over Singapore in a few days, with some of their troops on bicycles. The occupation was just a brutal there as in other places. How the people of Tyersall Park managed to survive and to help fellow Singaporeans and the British in many ways makes for a great story. Like so many people who survived the Pacific War, the Youngs never talked about it, but we begin to see that some of those crazy rich Asians are not as shallow as perhaps we thought. (We should note that the rich Asians are not crazy—at least not most of them—they are Asians who are crazy rich.)
Rich People Problems has an epilogue which seems to wrap everything up. Most of the people we are interested in have had their problems resolved one way or another. Is Kwan saying that he is finished writing about these people? From the popularity of his books, I suspect his publisher and agent would like him to continue. Time will tell.