—MALCOLM FORBES
CHAPTER ONE
LONDON, ENGLAND
Wandi Meggaharto Widjawa was in London with her mother, Adeline Salim Meggaharto, supposedly to watch her nephew Kristian compete in a fencing tournament, but secretly they were both there for their triannual visits to the clinic of Dr. Ben Stork on Harley Street, who was considered by the most discerning filler addicts to be the Michelangelo of Botox. So deft were his hands at plunging needles into fine lines, fragile cheekbones, and delicate nasolabial folds, even his patients with the thinnest skins never bruised, and so subtle was his artistry that every patient visiting his clinic departed with the guarantee that they would be able to close both eyelids completely should they ever choose to blink.*1
As Wandi sat in the elegant Hollywood Regency–style waiting room of the clinic in her floral embroidered Simone Rocha dress, waiting for her mother to get her usual combo of Botox®, Juvéderm Voluma®, Belotero Balance®, Restylane Lyft®, and Juvéderm Volbella® injections, she paged through the latest issue of British Tattle. She always flipped to the back of the magazine first to look at the Spectator section, which featured party pictures from the only parties that mattered throughout the realm. She loved scrutinizing all the English socialites from head to toe—the women looked like either chic swans or unmade beds (there was no middle ground).
This month’s Spectator section was quite disappointing—nothing but photos from the twenty-first birthday bash of yet another kid named Hugo, the launch party for yet another Simon Sebag Montefiore book, and some boring country wedding. She could never understand why all these aristocrats loved getting married in decrepit little Engli
sh country churches when they could have the most lavish nuptials at Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral.*2 Suddenly Wandi’s eyes zeroed in on the obligatory photo of the bride and groom. As was the custom with all the wedding shots in British Tattle, the couple was pictured posing underneath the stone archway of the modest rectory festooned with a few anemic sprigs of roses, sporting painful grins as rice was being pelted at them. But the thing that stood out to Wandi was that the bride was Asian, and this immediately triggered an alert.
Wandi was part of a particular breed of Chindocrat*3 that had been raised in a very specific manner—the only daughter of an Indonesian Chinese oligarch, she was a typical third-culture kid who had grown up all over the world. Born in Honolulu (for the American passport), her early childhood was divided between her family’s hospital-wing-size house in Singapore and the historic family joglo in Jakarta, where she attended kindergarten at the exclusive Jakarta International School (JIS). In the second grade, she was sent to the elite Singapore American School (SAS) before an unfortunate fake-Prada-backpack-trafficking incident in eighth grade led to her expulsion and swift enrollment into Aiglon, the boarding school of choice for privileged rebels in Chesières-Villars, Switzerland. After Aiglon, Wandi spent two years majoring in marketing at the University of California at Santa Barbara before dropping out and marrying the son of another Indonesian Chinese oligarch, shuttling between homes in Singapore and Jakarta, having her baby at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu, and going through the existential crisis of trying to decide whether to send her firstborn son to JIS, SAS, or ACS.*4
Like most of the women who made up Asia’s jet set, Wandi had an innate radar for OAWS—Other Asians in Western Settings. Whenever she was traveling outside of Asia and happened to be, say, lunching at Tetsuya’s in Sydney, attending the International Red Cross Ball in Monaco, or hanging out at 5 Hertford Street in London, and another person of Asian descent happened to enter the room, Wandi would notice that Asian well before any non-Asian did, and their face would immediately be run through the ten-point social-placement scanner in her brain:
1. What kind of Asian is this? In descending order of importance: Chindo, Singaporean, Hong Konger, Malaysian Chinese, Eurasian, Asian American living in New York or Los Angeles, Asian American working in private equity in Connecticut, Canadian Asian from Vancouver or Toronto, Australian Chinese from Sydney or Melbourne, Thai, Filipino from Forbes Park, American-Born Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Mainland Chinese, common Indonesian.*5
2. Do I know this OAWS? Specifically, is this a famous actor/pop singer/politician/social figure/social media star/doctor/celebrity without portfolio/billionaire/magazine editor. Add 50 points if royalty or Joe Taslim. If Joe Taslim, have bodyguard slip him my room key.
3. Do I know any members of this OAWS’s family? Have I met/attended school/socialized/shopped/co-chaired a gala/blown/backstabbed anyone related to this person?
4. How much is this OAWS or his/her family worth? Evaluate actual net worth against published net worth. Add 25 points if they have a family office, 50 points if they have a family foundation, 75 points if they have a family museum.
5. Have there been any juicy scandals in this OAWS or their family’s past? Add 100 points if it involved bringing down an elected official, political party, or BFF at the Olivier Café in the Grand Indonesia Mall.
6. Does this OAWS or their family happen to own some fabulous hotel/airline/spa resort/luxury brand/restaurant/bar/nightclub that I could potentially benefit from? Add 25 points if family owns a private island, 500 points for a major movie studio.
7. How attractive and stylish is this OAWS in relation to me? Body-scan assessment in this order:
For Ladies: face, skin whiteness, physique, jewelry, watch, handbag, shoes, outfit, hairstyle, makeup. Subtract 50 points if any gauche brands are visible, or for an obvious cosmetic procedure.
For Gentlemen: hair density, watch, shoes, physique, rest of outfit. Subtract 100 points if wearing an Hermès “H” buckle belt, which only looks good on French or Italian men with deep tans and/or titles.
8. How attractive, well-dressed, important, or famous are the white people that this OAWS is with? Subtract 20 points if it’s a business occasion with Americans in corporate attire, add 25 points if European, add 50 points if French or Italian with deep tans and/or titles.
9. How many bodyguards in this OAWS security detail? Evaluate intimidation level of bodyguards, factoring in muscle mass, uniforms, any visible weaponry, quality of earpieces, type of sunglasses, and how noticeable they are in the current space. The more they look like trigger-happy brick shithouses ready to unleash their Sig Sauers on the dinner crowd at Nobu Malibu, the better.
10. When was this OAWS or their family last profiled in their local edition of Tattle, Pinnacle, or Town & Country? Add 100 points if they’ve never appeared in any magazines but you still recognize them.
At this point in her life, Wandi’s social-placement test was so finely calibrated, it could evaluate a new Asian face in a matter of nanoseconds, thus determining to what degree Wandi felt prettier, richer, or more important than this OAWS, and what appropriate overture she felt comfortable making—whether it be stealth eye contact, a nod of recognition, the slight smile, or actually greeting the person in close physical proximity.
Of course at the present moment the OAWS in question only appeared in a rectangular two-by-three-inch photograph, but it was so highly unusual for an Asian face to appear in this setting—an English country wedding worthy of being featured in the Spectator section of British Tattle—that Wandi couldn’t help but take notice. The text block in the middle of the page simply read:
WINTER WEDDING WONDERLAND
The unexpected snowfall didn’t deter England’s grandest from dusting off their furs and braving the icy roads for the wedding of Lucien Montagu-Scott at St Mary’s, Chipping Norton. Naturally, the Glencoras were out in full force along with the Devonshires, the Buccleuches, and a smattering of Rothschilds and Rochambords from both sides of the channel. Many a girl mourned that Lucien aka #TallDrinkofWater was off the market, but no one could fault the bride, Colette Bing, whose porcelain-doll complexion and ravishing smile could warm all the frigid chapels in the Home Counties put together.
Wandi couldn’t believe her eyes as she stared at the picture of the couple again. There was no way the bride in the simple, almost monastic high-necked wedding gown was the same Colette Bing she had seen splashed over all of Asia’s tabloids. What happened to the signature swath of black eyeliner and her matador-red lipstick? This girl’s face bore no evident traces of makeup, her lips ghostly pale. Where was the spectacular gold Giambattista Valli dress that she had commissioned for her wedding? And most important, why wasn’t she wearing some glittering tiara?
Wandi dug into her Mark Cross white python handbag for her phone, quickly snapped a photo of the page, and sent it via WhatsApp to Georgina Ting, who was at that very moment lounging poolside at the American Club in Singapore, not watching her daughter splash around in the deep end of the pool.
WANDI MEGGAHARTO WIDJAWA: Check this out!!!
GEORGINA TING: Badly dressed Brits?
WMW: No, check out the bride!!!!