Rich mainland Chinese girl in the US flaunts her wealth on social media

Blanche Yuan has no qualms about posting photos of her luxury purchases and nightlife antics on social media. The budding mainland Chinese entrepreneur, who is based in Washington DC, doesn’t understand why it attracts so much hostility.

“People assume I’m flaunting my wealth, but that’s just how my life is. I try to be low-key now, but sometimes I can’t help telling the world what I have bought because of my vanity.”

The 23-year-old left Beijing at the age of 17 to attend high school in the US, where, she says, she has had more than 20 boyfriends. She is now a business student at a private research university in DC (but doesn’t want to reveal its name). She lives in a seaside condominium bought by her parents for HK$5 million and receives monthly pocket money of HK$230,000.

Three or four nights a week, she hits the swanky clubs and bars of the American capital with her rich Chinese friends. She recalls how, on her birthday in April, she picked up a few friends in her Porsche. Dressed in a new custom-made dress and high heels, with exquisite eyelashes and bright red lipstick applied by a make-up artist she hired, they hit the town for another sleepless night of drink-fuelled bar hopping.

Yuan is typical of the wealthy young mainland Chinese who are widely scorned in the West for their extravagant and sometimes reckless lifestyles.

In 2012, Chinese student Yichun Xu made headlines after crashing his Mercedes-Benz into another car in Des Moines, Iowa, killing a woman and injuring four others. He had no international driving licence and tried to bribe an officer on the scene. He was released on bail of US$2 million, paid by his mother.