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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. "
Kevin Kwan
Money
Brand
Bus
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" 'Crazy Rich Asians' may be fiction, but given the situation I grew up in, I've had an unparalleled view into the very real world it depicts. "
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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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" I grew up with a posh English accent, and all my aunts sounded as if they came out of a Merchant Ivory movie. "
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" I think, at least for me, I'm so impressed by Shanghai and how all of China continues to evolve. On a style level, you're seeing this increased sophistication and brand awareness. "
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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 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 remember I had an aunt that lived in a house that had this beautiful ceramic wall that was entirely a painting of a peacock. "
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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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" In Asia, it's customary to get together with your entire extended family on a regular basis, and it's all rife with politics. "
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" I've always been drawn to the Edwardian period in England. To me, it seems like such a fascinating time, when the British Empire was at the height of its powers and the strict mores of the Victorian age were dissipating into the decadence of King Edward's reign. "
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" To me, families are fascinating. I choose to explore it through comedy and through comic situations. "
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" People are often disappointed when they meet me because I'm not this giant, flamboyant - you know, I don't wear sequined jackets. "
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" If you're the water boiler king of China, you're selling a billion water boilers. "
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" It would have been amazing to have been a student at Oxford during that golden moment in the 1910s, rubbing elbows with the likes of Aldous Huxley and T.E. Lawrence, before World War I shattered everything forever. "
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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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" Especially in the West, people want to understand Asia on a deeper level because it's become the engine of the world economy, like it or not. "
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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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Hollywood
" As a child, I didn't even realize I was Chinese. I was Singaporean, but my identity was wrapped up in the culture I was experiencing every day. "
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Quiet
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" Such huge money has been made in China - it can be hundreds of millions in a year - and there's a need to validate it by showing what they can buy and how much of it. "
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Year
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