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" I go to Shenzhen, China, and am taken to a vast luxury spa with a hundred leather recliners and a hundred accompanying plasma screen televisions bolted to the ceiling. "
Kevin Kwan
Ceiling
Go
Leather
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" My father came from old money. There was less of an expectation for the children to earn a living. "
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" The characters that populate my books are global nomads in their own right, keeping multiple homes around the world and constantly jet-setting to new places. "
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" Asian literature is evolving with the people. It's always a reflection on what's happening to the culture at large. "
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" I came from a family of extremely old money, and so by the time I was born, there was really just a trickle of money left. "
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" I met a Shanghai photographer who finds these old streets and matches the French names to what they are today. I was able to find my grandfather's block, and just walking the same streets and finding his house was deeply moving. I finally felt connected to China. "
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" I'm not revealing any deep, hidden secret that there are wealthy people in Asia. "
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" Old money in Southeast Asia is much more discrete and low key. It's about not wearing brand names. It's about being invisible, almost. The billionaire can be taking the bus with you. "
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" I think snobbery is one of the oldest customs in the world, and the rich will always find ways to rank each other and make themselves feel more special than others. "
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" My books are comedies; I want to take my readers on a jet-setting romp, make them laugh, make them swoon at the beautiful settings, and maybe even make their mouths water at all the food. "
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" It's human nature when you first make your big fortune to want to show off a bit. I don't begrudge that whatsoever. "
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" Growing up in Singapore, I wasn't allowed to visit China. So when I was finally able to go there after the country began opening up to tourism in the 1990s, I found it to be utterly astounding. "
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" In Singapore, there may be 50 old-money families, but you wouldn't know them to look at them. "
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" I love Netflix and Amazon and watching movies on streamers as much as the next person. "
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" I grew up in a household where there were really, really strong matriarchal characters. I think that's true of many Asian households. People tend to think of Asia as a misogynistic society or a society where men rule. At least in my experience, the women rule the household; the women rule the social scene. The men often become very useless. "
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" 'China rich' is the new 'crazy rich.' It's a new level of outrageousness. It comes from this world where overnight fortunes have been made, but the fortunes are so ginormous compared to anything we've ever seen in the history of the world. "
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" I've lived in New York City for over twenty years now, and every single day is like a new adventure. At this point, there are many places I'd love to visit, but I can't imagine living anywhere else on the planet. "
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" As a child, I could bike down the hill from my house and grab an ice-cold bottle of soda from the neighborhood grocer, which was nothing more than a corrugated metal shack run by two Indian men clad in sarongs. "
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" My grandparents were far more English in their manners than they were Chinese. For example, we spoke English at home, had afternoon tea every day, and my grandfather, who attended university in Scotland, would smoke his pipe after dinner. "
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" Hollywood is a whole other level of crazy. I've never met so many assistants who have assistants. It's a stratified society on its own. "
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" The China Rich seem to be spending on a scale that's just beyond anything we've ever seen before. They are building and buying an insane amount of luxury residences around the world, commissioning huge flying palaces from Boeing, and paying ridiculous amounts for art. "
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Rich
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" In order for me to write a scene, it's very important for me to see and experience everything with my own eyes, so yes, I was able to visit some remarkable houses and destinations while I was in China. "
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Important
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" I have pictures of my grandmother from the 1920s and '30s in avant-garde dresses that looked like they could have come from the House of Worth or Lucien Lelong. She would never say if they were couture, but I do recall her telling me, 'All my clothes and shoes came from Paris.' "
Kevin Kwan
Shoes
She
Clothes
" I would not call my family 'traditional Chinese.' We were more what I would term the Colonial Chinese. "
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Call
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" It's not normal to go into a house and see a pond in the middle of the living room full of baby sharks. It's not normal to go to someone's garage and see a private plane. "
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" A lot of the people who live the lives of 'Crazy Rich Asians' don't see the humour of their lives simply because this is just who they are. Even though I'm from that part of the world, I'm no longer part of that world. "
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" Canada has become such a staging area for Chinese money. "
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" They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, but there's such a thing as believability when you're writing a novel. "
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" I live in New York, but I still get the village gossip. My apartment is a crash pad for so many Singaporean cousins and friends. "
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" I really don't keep an outline; I don't organize in any way. I just write. "
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" My golden dream was to move to New York and live in the Village and become that cool rebel beatnik Jack Kerouac. "
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