“Crazy” Rich Asians?
The movie “Crazy Rich Asians” is a hit worldwide and is still drawing crowds. I have seen it, and for those who have read the book, while it lacks the details which is understandable, it is still a good and enjoyable movie. The story is based on real-life personalities which are disguised and some characters are composites of many persons. The book and the movie made the author and the people involved in the movie rich as most of the actors and actresses were paid over a million dollars and the producers will be wellrewarded, although maybe not rich enough to be crazy rich. This movie is also very timely as in the Forbes list of billionaires in 2018 which totaled 2,208, Asian billionaires accounted for 719 which is 32.5 percent. North Americans came second with 631 and Europeans third with 559 billionaires.
The “crazy” in the title refers more to the extreme or filthy rich status of the characters and less on their ostentatious behavior or extravagant spending habits. In fact, there is a scene in the movie where they are shown eating in very ordinary places and riding ordinary cars. It is more about the characters and relationships of the rich to their families and friends.
As an investment banker, I had occasions to be in the company of person with net worth of over $1 billion and were in the Forbes list. In early 1980’s as part of an Asian joint venture company, I was in a party in Taipei that lasted from morning until night with the host giving away tips to the servers totaling $4,000. In the ‘90s, working on a deal for an Asian conglomerate family, we were billeted in a Hong Kong hotel suite with a floor-to-ceiling picture window overlooking Hong Kong harbor, and with a butler. Then we moved to Singapore to the most expensive hotel in Orchard Road. And then we were assigned a 10-seater private jet that would eventually take us from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Another time, while negotiating with a Korean chaebol family, at the end of a ten-hour work day, it turned out we had no hotel booking. To solve the problem, the company got all the suites in the top floor of the hotel which had three rooms each, with a 12-seat dining room and a living room with a grand piano, plus a butler.
During these occasions and until now, I did not consider them to be ostentatious spending. These rich Asians just know how to spend properly, enjoy their money, and at the same time achieve the results. Because there were also times when we would eat at fast food joints and even at the food stalls in Singapore parking lots at night, and scramble for economy seats in airlines to get to some places. These rich people treated us well and were one of us in all these places. More recently we were in Chengdu, China, and Hanoi, Vietnam, staying at the most expensive hotels in these places. I knew some in the delegation were very rich Asians. But one night, while we were eating $5 noodles in an open-air noodle shop, we saw some of them eating in the same place and enjoying it.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of “The Great Gatsby” wrote that “the rich are different from you and me, that they possess and enjoy early…in a way that is difficult to understand and that they think they are better than we are…” To which, Ernest Hemingway retorted, “Yes, the rich are different from us, they just have more money.”
‘These rich Asians just know how to spend properly, enjoy their money, and at the same
time achieve the results.’