Crazy Rich Asians (12 page)

“I do not!”

“Yes, you do! I’ve seen you do it so many times. Remember that guy we met at Yanira’s
brunch last weekend?”

“I was perfectly nice to him.”

“You treated him as if he had ‘
HERPES
’ tattooed on his forehead. Honestly, you are the most self-loathing Asian I’ve ever
met!”

“What do you mean? I’m not self-loathing at all. How about you?
You’re
the one who married the white guy.”

“Mark’s not white, he’s Jewish—that’s basically Asian! But that’s beside the point—at
least
I
dated plenty of Asians in my time.”

“Well, so have I.”

“When have you actually
ever
dated an Asian?” Sylvia arched her eyebrows in surprise.

“Sylvia, you have
no idea
how many Asian guys I’ve been set up with over the years. Let’s see, there was the
MIT quantum-physics geek who was more interested in having me as a twenty-four-hour
on-call cleaning lady, the Taiwanese frat-boy jock with pecs bigger than my chest,
the Harvard-MBA Chuppie
^†
who was obsessed with Gordon Gekko. Should I go on?”

“I’m sure they weren’t as bad as you make it sound.”

“Well, it was bad enough for me to institute a ‘no Asian guys’ policy about five years
ago,” Rachel insisted.

Sylvia sighed. “Let’s face it. The real reason you treat Asian men the way you do
is because they represent the type of man your family
wishes
you would bring home, and you are simply rebelling by refusing to date one.”

“You are so far off base.” Rachel laughed, shaking her head.

“Either that, or growing up as a racial minority in America, you feel that the ultimate
act of assimilation is to marry into the dominant race. Which is why you only ever
date WASPs … or Eurotrash.”

“Have you ever been to Cupertino, where I spent all my teenage years? Because you
would see that Asians are the
dominant race
in Cupertino. Stop projecting your own issues onto me.”

“Well, take my challenge and try to be color-blind just one more time.”

“Okay, I’ll prove you wrong. How would you like me to present myself to this Oxford
Asian charmer?”

“You don’t have to. I already arranged for us to have coffee with him at La Lanterna
after work,” Sylvia said gleefully.

By the time the gruff Estonian waitress at La Lanterna came to take Nicholas’s drink
order, Sylvia was whispering angrily into Rachel’s ear, “Hey, are you mute or something?
Enough with the Asian freeze-out!”

Rachel decided to play along and join in the conversation, but it soon became apparent
to her that Nicholas had no idea that this was a set-up and, more disturbingly, seemed
far more interested in her colleague. He was fascinated by Sylvia’s interdisciplinary
background and peppered her with questions about how the economics department was
organized. Sylvia basked in the glow of his attention, laughing coquettishly and twirling
her hair with her fingers as they bantered. Rachel glared at him.
Is this dude completely clueless? Doesn’t he notice Sylvia’s wedding ring?

It was only after twenty minutes that Rachel was able to step outside of her long-held
prejudices and consider the situation at hand. It was true—in recent years, she hadn’t
given Asian guys much of a chance. Her mother had even said, “Rachel, I know it’s
hard for you to relate properly to Asian men, since you never knew your father.”
Rachel found this sort of armchair analysis much too simplistic. If only it were that
easy.

For Rachel, the problem began practically the day she hit puberty. She began to notice
a phenomenon that occurred whenever an Asian of the opposite sex entered the room.
The Asian male would be perfectly nice and normal to all the other girls, but
special treatment
would be reserved for her. First, there was the optical scan: the boy would assess
her physical attributes in the most blatant way—quantifying every inch of her body
by a completely different set of standards than he would use for non-Asian girls.
How big were her eyes? Were they double-lidded naturally, or did she have that eyelid
surgery? How light was her skin? How straight and glossy was her hair? Did she have
good child-birthing hips? Did she have an accent? And how tall was she really, without
heels on? (At five foot seven, Rachel was on the tall side, and Asian guys would sooner
shoot themselves in the groin than date a taller girl.)

If she happened to pass this initial hurdle, the
real
test would begin. Her Asian girlfriends all knew this test. They called it the “SATs.”
The Asian male would begin a not so covert interrogation focused on the Asian female’s
social, academic, and talent aptitudes in order to determine whether she was possible
“wife and bearer of my sons” material. This happened while the Asian male not so subtly
flaunted his own SAT stats—how many generations his family had been in America; what
kind of doctors his parents were; how many musical instruments he played; the number
of tennis camps he went to; which Ivy League scholarships he turned down; what model
BMW, Audi, or Lexus he drove; and the approximate number of years before he became
(pick one) chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief technology officer,
chief law partner, or chief surgeon.

Rachel had become so accustomed to enduring the SATs that its absence tonight was
strangely disconcerting. This guy didn’t seem to have the same MO, and he wasn’t relentlessly
dropping names. It was baffling, and she didn’t quite know how to deal with him. He
was just enjoying his Irish coffee, soaking in the atmosphere, and being perfectly
charming. Sitting in the enclosed garden lit by colorful, whimsically painted lampshades,
Rachel gradually began to see, in a whole new light, the person her friend had been
so eager for her to meet.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something curiously exotic
about Nicholas Young. For starters, his slightly disheveled canvas jacket, white linen
shirt, and faded black jeans were reminiscent of some adventurer just returned from
mapping the Western Sahara. Then there was his self-deprecating wit, the sort that
all those British-educated boys were so well known for. But underlying all this was
a quiet masculinity and a relaxed ease that was proving to be infectious. Rachel found
herself being pulled into his conversational orbit, and before she even realized it,
they were yakking away like old friends.

At a certain point, Sylvia got up from the table and announced that it was high time
she went home, before her husband starved to death. Rachel and Nick decided to stay
for one more drink. Which led to another drink. Which led to dinner at the bistro
around the corner. Which led to gelato in Father Demo Square. Which led to a walk
through Washington Square Park (since Nick insisted on escorting her back to her faculty
apartment).
He’s the perfect gentleman
, Rachel thought, as they strolled past the fountain and the blond-dreadlocked guitarist
wailing a plaintive ballad.

And you’re standing here beside me, I love the passing of time
, the boy sang plaintively.

“Isn’t this Talking Heads?” Nick asked. “Listen …”

“Oh my God, it totally is! He’s singing ‘This Must Be the Place,’ ” Rachel said in
surprise. She loved that Nick knew the song well enough to recognize this bastardized
version.

“He’s not half bad,” Nick said, taking out his wallet and tossing a few dollars into
the kid’s open guitar case.

Rachel noticed that Nick was mouthing along to the song. He’s scoring some major bonus
points right now, she thought, and then she realized with a start that Sylvia had
been right—this guy who she’d just spent six straight hours engrossed in conversation
with, who knew all the lyrics to one of her favorite songs, this guy standing here
beside her was the first man she could truly imagine as her husband.

The Leongs

“At last, the golden couple!” Mavis Oon proclaimed as Astrid and Michael made their
entrance into the Colonial Club’s formal dining room. With Michael in his crisp navy
Richard James suit and Astrid in a long, flapper-style silk voile dress the color
of persimmon, they made an exceedingly striking pair, and the room rippled with the
usual hushed excitement from the ladies, who covertly scrutinized Astrid from hair
to heels, and the men, who gazed at Michael with a mixture of envy and derision.

“Aiyah, Astrid, why so late?” Felicity Leong scolded her daughter as she arrived at
the long banquet table by the trophy wall where members of the extended Leong family
and their honored guests from Kuala Lumpur—
Tan Sri
^*
Gordon Oon and
Puan Sri
Mavis Oon—were already seated.

“So sorry. Michael’s flight back from China was delayed,” Astrid apologized. “I hope
you didn’t wait for us to order? The food always takes ages here.”

“Astrid, come, come, let me look at you,” Mavis commanded.
The imperious lady, who could easily have won an Imelda Marcos look-alike contest
with her dramatically rouged cheeks and fat chignon, patted Astrid’s face as if she
were a little girl and launched into her trademark gushing. “Aiyah you haven’t aged
one bit since I last saw you how’s little Cassian when are you going to have another
one don’t wait too long
lah
you need a little girl now you know my ten-year-old granddaughter Bella absolutely
worships you ever since her last trip to Singapore she’s always saying ‘
Ah Ma
, when I grow up I want to be just like Astrid’ I asked why and she says ‘Because
she always dresses like a movie star and that Michael is such a hunk!’ ” Everyone
at the table roared with laughter.

“Yes, don’t we
all
wish we could have Astrid’s clothing budget and Michael’s eight-pack!” Astrid’s brother
Alexander quipped.

Harry Leong looked up from his menu and, catching sight of Michael, beckoned him over.
With his silvery hair and dark tan, Harry was a leonine presence at the head of the
table, and as always, Michael approached his father-in-law with no small amount of
trepidation. Harry handed him a large padded envelope. “Here’s my MacBook Air. There’s
something wrong with the Wi-Fi connection.”

“What exactly is the problem? Is it not finding the right networks, or are you having
log-in problems?” Michael asked.

Harry had already turned his attention back to the menu. “What? Oh, it just doesn’t
seem to work anywhere. You’re the one who set it up, and I haven’t changed any of
the settings. Thank you
so much
for taking a look at it. Felicity, did I have the rack of lamb here the last time?
Is this where they always overcook the meat?”

Michael dutifully took the laptop with him, and as he made his way back to his seat
at the other end of the table, Astrid’s eldest brother, Henry, grabbed him by his
jacket sleeve. “Hey, Mike, hate to bother you with this, but can you stop by the house
this weekend? There’s something wrong with Zachary’s Xbox. I hope you can fix it—it’s
too
mah fan
^†
to send it back to the factory in Japan for repair.”

“I might have to go away this weekend, but if not, I’ll try to stop by,” Michael said
flatly.

“Oh thank you, thank you,” Cathleen, Henry’s wife, cut in. “Zachary has been driving
us absolutely crazy without his Xbox.”

“Is Michael good with gadgets or something?” Mavis inquired.

“Oh, he’s an absolute
genius
, Mavis, a
genius
! He’s the perfect son-in-law to have around—he can fix anything!” Harry proclaimed.

Michael smiled uncomfortably as Mavis fixed her gaze on him. “Now why did I think
he was in the army?”

“Auntie Mavis, Michael used to work for the Ministry of Defense. He helped to program
all the high-tech weapon systems,” Astrid said.

“Yes, the fate of our country’s ballistics defense is in Michael’s hands. You know,
in case we get invaded by the two hundred and fifty million Muslims surrounding us
on all sides, we can put up a fight for about ten minutes,” Alexander chuckled.

Michael tried to hide his grimace and opened up his heavy leather-bound menu. This
month’s culinary theme was “Taste of the Amalfi,” and most of the dishes were in Italian.
Vongole
. That was clams, he knew. But what the heck was
Paccheri alla Ravello
, and would it have killed them to include an English translation? This was par for
the course at one of the island’s oldest sporting clubs, a place so pretentious and
buttoned-up in Edwardian-era tradition that women were not even allowed to
peek
into the Men’s Bar until 2007.