What Singapore’s real crazy rich Asians spend their money on: the houses they buy, restaurants they eat at and holidays they take
This month sees the release of the much-anticipated Crazy Rich Asians film, but how close is it to real life? We talk to Singapore’s high rollers and the people that deal with them to find out what really gets them going
As wacky as its title sounds, the big-screen adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s 2013 novel Crazy Rich Asians could not have come at a more appropriate time. Figures from research firm Wealth-X found that Asia’s billionaire population jumped by a third last year, showing that wealth is continuing to gravitate towards the region.
The story satirises a stereotype of indulgent, wealthy Asians with comic exaggeration, portraying Singapore’s unfathomably rich in their elite social circles: from private couture fittings and ponds filled with pet sharks to extravagantly ornate mansions. Due to premiere in US cinemas on August 15, the film has been billed as “Dynasty on steroids”.
Touted as the first Hollywood film with an (almost) all-Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club was released in 1993, Crazy Rich Asians tells the tale of a Chinese-American economics professor who falls for Singapore’s most eligible bachelor, and of his disapproving mother, who suspects her of being a gold-digger.
Though tales of affluent people leading lavish lifestyles are common in Singapore, merely having money does not command a place among the city state’s elite. Similar to “old money” social circles in cities such as New York, London and Hong Kong, it is status and prestige spanning generations that are the marks of “blue blood”.
The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2017 revealed that Singapore was home to 152,000 US-dollar millionaires, equivalent to about 2.7 per cent of the population of 5.6 million.
