Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians, #1)

by Kevin Kwan

Minutes later, before Rachel herself knew for certain her summer plans, the details of her conversation had already begun to spread far and wide, circling the globe like a virus set loose. After Celine Lim (Parsons School of Design fashion major) e-mailed her sister Charlotte Lim (recently engaged to venture capitalist Henry Chiu) in California, Charlotte called her best friend Daphne Ma (Sir Benedict Ma’s youngest daughter) in Singapore and breathlessly filled her in. Daphne texted eight friends, including Carmen Kwek (granddaughter of Robert “Sugar King” Kwek) in Shanghai, whose cousin Amelia Kwek had gone to Oxford with Nicholas Young. Amelia simply had to IM her friend Justina Wei (the Instant Noodle heiress) in Hong Kong, and Justina, whose office at Hutchison Whampoa was right across the hall from Roderick Liang’s (of the Liang Finance Group Liangs), simply had to interrupt his conference call to share this juicy tidbit. Roderick in turn Skyped his girlfriend Lauren Lee, who was holidaying at the Royal Mansour in Marrakech with her grandmother Mrs. Lee Yong Chien (no introductions necessary) and her aunt Patsy Teoh (Miss Taiwan 1979, now the ex-wife of telecom mogul Dickson Teoh). Patsy made a poolside call to Jacqueline Ling (granddaughter of philanthropist Ling Yin Chao) in London, knowing full well that Jacqueline would have a direct line to Cassandra Shang (Nicholas Young’s second cousin), who spent every spring at her family’s vast estate in Surrey. And so this ...

Something like this has actually happened to me dozens of times. Singapore, for all its jaw-dropping modernity, is at the end of the day still a little island where gossip spreads faster than wildfire. Even if one hasn't lived there in decades, one is subject to this gossip matrix. One day back in the early 2000s, my mom called me in New York and invited me to meet her in London over Spring Break. I told her I would think about it...I had a lot of work deadlines and wasn't sure I could get away. I hung up the phone, and about fifteen minutes later a friend in Singapore called me up and said, "Oh, I hear you're going to London." Astonished, I told this friend that I had just been invited not more than fifteen minutes ago, and I hadn't even decided yet. How did she know? As it turns out, after my mother talked to me, she called her sister in Singapore, who was at that time managing her husband's medical clinic. The sister mentioned it to the head nurse, and the head nurse told a patient in the waiting room, who happened to be the cousin of my friend. And that busybody cousin immediately called my friend. As the song goes, "it's a small world after all."