The Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy

Your Gulfstream V is perfectly acceptable. (Please do not upgrade to the GVI yet, at least until Yolanda Kwok takes delivery of hers. She will be furious if you get one before she does and will block your Chinese Athletic Association membership application.)

DINING

The restaurants that you customarily patronize are deplorable. They are filled with nothing but expats, soap opera stars, social climbers, and—most disagreeable of all—foodies. As part of my new campaign to associate you only with establishment circles, you can no longer risk being seen at any trendy “culinary destinations.” If a restaurant is less than two years old or has been featured in Hong Kong Tattle or Pinnacle Magazine in the past eighteen months, I consider it trendy. Please see APPENDIX B for a list of approved dining clubs and restaurants with private dining rooms. Six months from now, if I feel that you have reached a certain threshold of social acceptability, I will arrange for you to be snapped by paparazzi eating a bowl of wonton noodles at a dai pai dong.*3 This will do wonders for your image, and I can already picture the headline: “Social Goddess Unafraid to Dine with the Masses.”

SOCIAL LIFE

Your social resurrection will first begin with social death. For the next three months, you will completely disappear from the scene. (Take a trip, spend time with your child, or why not both?) You will therefore refrain from attending social functions held at any retail establishment or designer boutique—until the right people begin inviting you. (An invitation from the PR firm is not acceptable; a handwritten note from Mr. Dries Van Noten requesting the honor of your presence is.) You will also refrain from all random receptions, gala dinners, annual balls, fund-raising benefits, charity auctions, “cocktail parties in aid of” anything, polo matches, tastings, or any other events that you would instinctually feel compelled to attend. After your three-month purgatory, we will slowly reintroduce you to the world in a series of carefully choreographed appearances. Depending on how well you perform, I may orchestrate further invitations to select events in London, Paris, Jakarta, and Singapore. Dipping your toes in the international scene will further enhance your reputation as “one to watch.” (Note: Ada Poon didn’t begin to receive invitations to Lady Ladoorie’s annual garden party until she was seen attending Colin Khoo and Araminta Lee’s wedding in Singapore.)

TRAVEL

I know you’ve been going to Dubai, Paris, and London for your holidays, but that’s what every common jet-setter in Hong Kong does these days. To stand out from the crowd, you need to begin traveling to new locales to demonstrate that you are someone of originality and interest. This year, I suggest that you plan a tour of famous religious pilgrimage sites such as the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal, the Sanctuary of Lourdes in France, and Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Be sure to post pictures of these places on your Facebook. In this way, even if you are photographed biting into a Galician ham croquette, people will still associate you with the Blessed Virgin Mother. If this trip goes well, we can organize a visit to Oprah’s schools in South Africa next year.

PHILANTHROPIC AFFILIATIONS

In order to truly ascend to a higher social stratosphere, it is important for you to become affiliated with one charitable cause. My mother of course has long been associated with the Hong Kong Horticultural Society, Connie Ming has a lock on all the art museums, Ada Poon owns cancer, and in a brilliant maneuver, Jordana Chiu was able to wrestle control of irritable bowel syndrome from Unity Ho last year at the Serenity Colon Ball. We can discuss some of your personal interests and decide if there is anything suitable that dovetails with our goals. Otherwise, I will select a cause from whatever available options remain so that we can send a unified message about what you stand for.

SPIRITUAL LIFE

When I feel you are ready, I will introduce you to Hong Kong’s most exclusive church, which you are to begin attending on a regular basis. Before you protest, please note that this is one of the cornerstones to my methodology of social rehabilitation. Your true spiritual affiliations do not concern me—it does not matter to me if you are Taoist, Daoist, Buddhist, or worship Meryl Streep—but it is absolutely essential that you become a regular praying, tithing, communion-taking, hands-in-the–air-waving, Bible-study-fellowship-attending member of this church. (This has the added bonus of ensuring that you will be qualified for burial at the most coveted Christian cemetery on Hong Kong Island, rather than having to suffer the eternal humiliation of being interred at one of those lesser cemeteries on the Kowloon side.)

CULTURE AND CONVERSATION

Your chief handicap to social success will always be the fact that you did not attend the right kindergarten with any of the right crowd. This eliminates you from participating in seventy percent of the conversations that occur during dinner parties at the best houses. You do not know the gossip that goes back to these people’s childhoods. And this is the secret: They are all still completely obsessed with what happened when they were five. Who was fat or thin? Who wet her pants during choir practice? Who’s father shut down Ocean Park for the day so that he could have a huge birthday party? Who spilled red bean soup all over whose party dress when they were six years old and still has not been forgiven? Twenty percent of the other conversations at parties consist of complaining about Mainlanders, so by default you will not be able to join in that dis

cussion. Another five percent is earmarked for complaining about the Chief Executive, so in order to distinguish yourself in the remaining meager five percent conversational window, you must either have one hell of a good stock tip or learn to become a scintillating conversationalist. Beauty fades, but wit will keep you on the invitation lists to all the most exclusive parties. To that end, you will embark on a reading program that I have designed specifically for you. You will also attend one cultural event per week. This can include but is not restricted to plays, opera, classical music concerts, ballet, modern dance, performance art, literary festivals, poetry readings, museum exhibitions, foreign-language or independent films, and art openings. (Hollywood movies, Cirque du Soleil, and Cantopop concerts do not count as culture.)

READING LIST

I noticed many magazines but not a single book in your entire house, with the exception of a Chinese-language translation of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In found in one of the maid’s bedrooms. You will therefore complete one book per fortnight, with the exception of Trollope, where you will be allowed three weeks per book. As you read these books, you will hopefully come to understand and appreciate why I am making you read them. The books are to be read in the following order:

Snobs by Julian Fellowes

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee

People Like Us by Dominick Dunne

The Power of Style by Annette Tapert and Diana Edkins (this is out of print; I will lend you my copy)

Pride and Avarice by Nicholas Coleridge

The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

D. V. by Diana Vreeland

A Princess Remembers: The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur by Gayatri Devi

Jane Austen—complete works beginning with Pride and Prejudice

Edith Wharton—The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence, The Buccaneers, The House of Mirth (must be read in strict order—you will understand why when you finish the last one)

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh