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The Real Crazy Rich Asians: We Take A Look At Asia’s Affluent Elite

We’ve got pictures to back up just how rich these people are.

Crazy Rich Asians is having a crazy run at the box office. We’re not just talking about box offices in the United States, where the movie’s Hollywood studios is located, but many countries all over the world. Not surprisingly, the movie is also a hit in Singapore. It’s not every day a major Hollywood movie chooses to film in our sunny island, as the home of the majority of the characters.

We can’t think of a better movie to put Singapore on global screens, as Crazy Rich Asians demonstrates that a contemporary film featuring a predominantly Asian-American cast can sell like hell. But besides making cinema history, the movie, as well as the novel it’s based on, is shining the spotlight on the wealthy inequality in Asia and Singapore. Apparently, according to the movie and novel, a close look at Asia’s socio-economic order reveals a complex racial hierarchy. Kevin Kwan, the Singaporean author of the novel, went so far as to rank people of Asian descent by their importance in Rich People Problems, the novel that concludes the Crazy Rich Asians series. The ranking has no less than 16 different racial categories, most of which are East Asian.

Excerpt from Kwan's novel "Rich People Problems," as quoted by the South China Morning Post

Instead of a ranking, our own list introduces five wealthy Asians that we follow and love, wishing (quite hopelessly) that we could travel all over the world every day like they do. Are these public figures crazy rich like Nick Young’s family? Let’s find out!

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2. Arissa Cheo

You might have heard of Arissa Cheo from her tumultuous marriage with ex-F4 Taiwanese star Vanness Wu that ended in divorce just this June. It’s also no secret that Arissa comes from one of Singapore’s richest families – she’s the heiress of her father’s multi-million dollar palm oil business. But Arissa is no princess who just parties around, like what we might probably do if we could inherit a fortune like hers. Since 2009, she’s started multiple businesses as an online fashion entrepreneur. Her fashion label Arissa X and beauty line AxJ BEAUTÉ are beloved by not just ordinary women, but celebrities too! So we think it’s safe to say she’s successfully making a legacy of her own out there in the world.

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