Warning: may contain spoilers

When I first heard of the book Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan last year (a bit behind on the times), I felt like I would be either offended by the content or unable to relate at all. I gave it a chance, and then quickly devoured the other two books in the trilogy. I was staying up late for hours every night, unable to put down my digital books (I think I read the majority in iBooks). Turns out, despite not being rich (definitely Asian though, maybe crazy, depending who you’re comparing to), I felt so many connections with Crazy Rich Asians, and now I absolutely can’t wait to support the movie at the preview on 8/8/18 (@ 8 pm lol) and the official release on 8/15.

Here are the ways I connected with the story:

Silicon Valley connection

I’m Asian-American and grew up in Silicon Valley, just like protagonist Rachel Chu. Director Jon Chu’s dad owns the amazing Chinese restaurant Chef Chu’s in Los Altos, which I’ve been to, albeit only once that I can remember (now I’m hungry and want to go there).

I realized later that Jon was actually referenced in the book. The book mentions Rachel’s family in Cupertino and a “cousin who made it big in Hollywood making movies.” I read in an interview (also mentioned in this great audio interview with both Jon and Kevin) that Rachel and her family were loosely based on Kevin Kwan’s close friend Vivian Chu, who is Jon Chu’s cousin.

“More than ten years ago, my dear friend Vivian in New York started telling me stories about how she grew up in Northern California amongst all her cousins. […] her stories inspired me when I created the character of Rachel Chu and her family. […] I never dreamed that [Jon] would one day direct the film based on my book, a film with a heroine who is inspired by the women in his own family.”

Mind. Blown.

Luxury travel connection

I enjoy traveling, flying first class and staying at luxury hotels (all with points…of course) and I even had the opportunity to fly private jets 5-6 times last year thanks to Jetsmarter. I flew the incredible Singapore Airlines First Class Suites to Singapore back in 2016. The books often describe the frequent traveler lifestyles of its characters in meticulous detail that I have either experienced or can imagine (ok, some are outlandishly unbelievable, like a koi pond in a private 737?!). I highly recommend the series to my travel hacking community as I think you guys would love the descriptions of and references to premium travel just as much as I did. At least, those of you who regularly make redemptions for J/F or have a Jetsmarter membership!

Enjoyed this mockery of BA F 😀

Reminds me of my Jetsmarter days last year. 🙂 I took a private jet to Canada and experienced the convenient on-board customs procedure.

Singapore/Asia connection

I LOVE Singapore, where much of the series is based. I have many awesome friends from there and I can’t wait to get back there…hopefully this year. Reading the books, I immediately knew just where many of the landmarks mentioned were, and could vividly picture myself right there with the characters in the hawker centers or under the supertrees at Garden by the Bay with Marina Bay Sands glowing in the background. The characters also made excursions to Hong Kong, China, Thailand, and Europe. I have not yet been to any of the European cities mentioned in the book, but enjoyed traveling with the characters to HK, China, and Thailand (the visit to Thailand doesn’t occur until the third book).

Cultural differences connection

I can relate to Rachel’s struggles to fit her Asian-American identity in with the Asians in Asia. This is a common topic that many Asian-Americans think about and discuss. We often feel like we’re not quite accepted as fully American, but our Asian counterparts also don’t accept us as fully Asian when we go to Asia. Kevin Kwan decided to tell his story through the lens of an Asian-American woman visiting Asia for the first time because, “You think you’re Asian. You think you know what you’re experiencing and then you realize it’s nothing like what you thought.” We’re in this weird cultural limbo where we practice some aspects of each culture, and are clueless about other aspects (like when Rachel tries to drink the water in the bowl used for washing your hands).

I highly recommend checking out my friend Ricky Yean’s article on Medium for more thoughts on the Asian-American identity.

Didn’t relate to…

I didn’t relate to the fashion and crazy mansions. The book describes every luxury item in meticulous detail, and I have to admit I skimmed over a lot of that since it was way over my head. Fashion was not something I’ve ever truly appreciated, but it was still entertaining to read about it. Architecture is something I’m more interested in, but I was much more interested in the descriptions of the modern flats rather than the palatial estates. I also didn’t personally relate to huge complicated families, but have many Asian friends I could witness that in. Despite not being able to personally relate to these things, I still enjoyed reading about them and imagining them.

Asian-Americans in the arts

Though I’m admittedly not much of a movie or TV show watcher, I’ve loved seeing Asian-Americans like Wong Fu Productions and other YouTube stars become successful. CRA may be the first big-production Hollywood film, but Asian-Americans have been wildly popular telling their stories on YouTube for over a decade already. Leehom Wang, my favorite musician, is an Asian-American who made it really big in Asia, and gained some traction in America as well (I wish they tapped him to provide some music for the CRA film…maybe for the sequels? please?).

I’ve also been a fan of some of the actors and actresses in the CRA film from before, such as Harry Shum, Jr. (my favorite Glee character!), Jimmy O. Yang (I love Silicon Valley!), and Constance Wu (I watched a season or two of Fresh off the Boat). Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is great too. It was so awesome to see them all in one cast, and I love newcomer Henry Golding already. I also looked up and read about many of the other actors I had not previously heard of. One of them (Lisa Lu) was even in the Joy Luck Club film, which is almost always mentioned in the same breath about CRA.

Ever since April, I’ve been obsessively searching for articles written about CRA (and obsessively trying to find more clips and glimpses of the movie outside of the trailer). I loved watching author Kevin Kwan’s talk at Google and learning that he was very involved with the movie (it really helps prevent a bit of that disappointment that often comes with books-turned-into-movies). I loved reading about how the cast was a mix of Asian-American actors as well as Asian-Asian actors and how they they felt differently about their roles in a groundbreaking movie (for America). I loved reading the articles about how they turned down an easy high 7 figure deal with complete artistic freedom and all 3 films pre-greenlighted deal with Netflix to take a chance on the big screen.

I’ve loved seeing the Asian-American community come together to support this movie. Critics may argue this historic moment is still not perfect, for example, Indians are not well represented yet. Hopefully they will be in the next two sequels, since they are definitely mentioned in the books. But I truly believe that the movie is a step in the right direction, and truly hope that CRA will do well enough that the next two movies will be easily bagged. And that other Asians will step forward to tell their stories here in the US. I’m crazy excited for the potential and everything CRA means for the industry.

Let’s support this movement of encouraging more Asian-Americans in the arts! #goldopen August 15, 2018

Singapore Airlines First Class Suites…as a (crazy?) non-rich Asian (okay, maybe rich in points…)

Update on 8/15:

I watched the movie 8/8, and today is the official opening day. Congratulations to the author and the entire cast and crew! What a momentous occasion for all of them. It has meant so many different things to everyone on various levels.

Initial Thoughts

I have to say I really enjoyed the movie. I love romantic comedies, and this one especially because I could relate so much to the protagonist. Although the movie departed from the book in a few ways, it was not in a disappointing way as with other books-turned-movies. There was a new scene added at the end, which was not in the book, giving it a slightly different ending, but I instantly recognized it as a way to tie the end back to the beginning of the movie, which I thought was GENIUS! (update upon second watch: there is WAY more mind-blowing symbolism in that scene than I realized. Also check out this amazing explanation and more behind-the-scenes descriptions directly from the director and screenwriter.)

The book is about 10x more complicated, detailed, and intense than the movie. I could see that the director pulled out 2 main threads from the book to tell in the movie (Rachel’s obviously, and also Astrid’s), but even then it was a bit rushed. Astrid didn’t get fully developed, and Charlie (Harry Shum Jr) didn’t even get much more than a two-second cameo halfway through the credits (and people who didn’t read the book will have no idea what the significance of his cameo is). I realize they probably wrapped up the first movie this way in case it didn’t get greenlighted for the sequel, but I really hope that it does. Two hours were just not enough time to tell the story, so I hope for more hours in the future.

However, despite having limited time to tell a riveting story or two, I could see the thoughtfulness of everything the director did to put the story on the screen, even down to the music selection (you can hear the soundtrack here). Another example is having singer/songwriter and Youtube star Kina Grannis perform as the beautiful and talented wedding singer in the film, thereby showcasing real-life Asian-American talent front and center. As I continue to think about the movie and read interviews with the director, author, and cast, I begin to remember little details about the movie that I didn’t really think about at the time, but now understand their significance.

The Verge did a really nice analysis on how the movie turned a common Korean drama theme into a modern statement and injected an element of Asian-American cultural identity struggle into it.

Criticisms

A few people have complained to me about the “representation.” How it doesn’t represent darker-skinned Asians, for example. How the leading man is “only” half-Asian. How the movie doesn’t really seem to represent much “culture” (as an Asian-American, I greatly disagree as I felt the movie touched on quite a few Asian-American aspects through Rachel’s eyes). How the movie represents rich Asians, while rich people in general really don’t need more representation. How it glorifies wealth that was likely obtained in nefarious ways. How it doesn’t really represent the real Singapore. People in Asia don’t even understand the need for “representation.”

First of all, this is a romantic comedy, so lighten up! It’s not supposed to be a documentary about Singapore or even about the rich Chinese in Asia. In fact, it’s actually satire. If you read the books, your favorite characters are definitely not going to be the obnoxious and snobby ones. I think Director Jon M. Chu said it best: “I mean, it’s called Crazy Rich Asians, but it’s really not about crazy rich Asians. It’s about Rachel Chu finding her identity and finding her self-worth through this journey […]”. 

He has also said in various other interviews (one example) that this one movie is not meant to represent all Asians. Some other reviewers recognize that it’s okay for one movie not too represent all Asians, or even all Asian-Americans. There are just too many stories to tell. Like my friend Diane said, it’s like expecting Keeping Up with the Kardashians to represent all Americans and the American story. No, it’s just one family! Likewise, CRA is about one specific Chinese-American’s journey to Asia for the first time. However, Director Jon Chu hopes that this is just the beginning of a movement, in which Asians would see themselves on the silver screen and be empowered, if they so desire, to get on the screen or behind the scenes themselves, to keep the door open and tell more stories about being Asian-American, or even just Asian (and not necessarily romantic comedy either). As the last decade or two of Youtube has shown, there are a lot of Asian-American creatives out there who definitely have the talent to “make it” in Hollywood, if that is their dream.

You know, sometimes I secretly wonder if some of the criticism comes from another Asian-American stereotype where nothing is ever good enough, everything has to be perfect, we are never impressed, okay-that’s-nice-now-let’s-get-back-to-being-doctors-and-engineers, etc. You know how when you send a selfie to your mom and she’s like, “You look fat. Your hair is messy. Your room is unclean.” Criticism is a way to show you love and care. Maybe criticizing is better than ignoring? 🙂

Girl Power

Another thing that many other reviews didn’t mention is the theme of strong, confident women. I only just realized this the other day myself.  The most admirable characters in both the movie and the books are women. Rachel is a strong, mature, confident, self-assured protagonist who has to face some unexpected cultural challenges that make it very difficult for her to continue her very stable and loving relationship with her boyfriend. Quite honestly, despite being a great guy, Nick doesn’t really do all that much to help her, maybe partly due to his own internal conflict (it’s his family, after all, and family is of the utmost importance to Asians, more so than following your passion and your dreams). So Rachel pretty much gets through all the hurdles on her own, with some help from another very entertaining and strong character, Peik Lin (by the way, Awkwafina is off the charts with her performance!). Unlike many romantic comedies, Rachel is not a hot mess in need of a man to save her and fix everything for her. The most redemptive moment for her comes during her mahjong game. You must read the explanation of the symbolism to fully understand how this scene is so powerful.

And of course there is Astrid, another character that is hard not to fall in love with, it’s easy to see why she is the favorite cousin. Despite being rich enough to spend $1MM in a single shopping trip, she is discrete, kind-hearted, considerate, and very strong herself. Unfortunately, I felt that the movie didn’t develop her character enough, but then again, I realize how hard it must be to fit a complicated 1000+ page novel into 2 hours. Next time? 😉

Update after watching a second time: I had completely forgotten about Astrid’s scene where she gives her [soon-to-be-ex] husband an earful about his inability to be an equal. All her life she was considerate of him and his feelings, supportive and encouraging of his career and dreams, never wanting him to feel inadequate or inferior to her. But he always did feel emasculated by her, like he was always in the shadow of a powerful woman. So when their relationship came to an end, she was right to tell him what he needed to hear, “It’s not my fault you couldn’t be a man. It’s not my job to make you something that you aren’t.” (or something like that)

This very well-written article highlights the feminism and celebrates every strong, independent woman featured prominently in the film – Eleanor, Rachel, Astrid, and even Peik Lin.

I love that the movie is already inspiring young girls (even if it just starts with the dress, but that little girl is going into musical theater!).

Crazy…”Rich” Travel Hackers?

You heard it here first. I think we could totally make a parody of this movie, starring travel hackers. We live a parallel lifestyle to these crazy rich Asians, except we do it on miles and points and things like free/cheap Jetsmarter memberships. Even those of us who use the miles/points to fly economy and stay in budget hotels travel enough to rival these rich Asians. Some of us even have our own Amex black card (mentioned several times in the Crazy Rich Asians book). Nobody knows those first class suites better than we do. And nobody shills credit card applications better than we do (yikes, this page has not been updated in quite some time, should I link to TPG instead?).

So, who wants to take a stab at the screenplay? Don’t look at me…I don’t have a creative writing bone in my body, but I think I should be pretty good at finding the cast!!

Celebrities sponsor free tickets for various showtimes throughout the country (source: Harry Shum Jr., Twitter)