Rich People Problems

After years of diligent networking, Edison “Eddie” Cheng was finally invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos. He had just arrived from Milan, where he was attending men’s fall fashion shows. He proudly wore the white plastic badge that displayed his name and proved “that he was an official delegate” (11). While there, he spotted Charlie Wu and rushed over to greet him. He couldn’t resist telling Charlie that he sat in the front row at an Etro show in Milan and made it into Hong Kong Tattle’s Best Dressed Hall of Fame last year.

Eddie asked Charlie where his badge was. When Charlie fished it out of his bag, Eddie was shocked and dismayed to see that Charlie had “an all-white badge affixed with a shiny holographic sticker”—the badge only given to world leaders (12). Charlie told Eddie that he was on his way to an informal gathering of world economic leaders, where he would be speaking with Angela Merkel.

Just then, Charlie’s assistant, Alice, approached and took Charlie aside to tell him that his daughters, Chloe and Delphine, were missing. This was unthinkable to Charlie, who kept his children under the protection of an SAS-trained security team. Worse, their mother, Isabel, couldn’t be reached. Alice’s cell phone rang again. The head of Charlie’s security team informed her that Isabel had probably left the country and had not shown up for her psychiatrist’s appointment that week. 

The property heiress Rosalind Fung was hosting her monthly, catered Christian Fellowship Banquet for 300 of her closest female friends in the Fullerton Hotel’s elegant ballroom. Daisy Foo, one of the guests, sighed as she watched Araminta Lee at the noodle station, decrying how poorly the supermodel-type was aging. Carol Tai whispered that Araminta had recently had a miscarriage and was suffering from depression. Eleanor Young figured that Colin Khoo’s mother must have been pressuring Araminta to have a son. Carol Tai noticed that Eleanor’s niece, Astrid, had just arrived with her mother, Felicity Leong; high-society queen, Mrs. Lee Yong Chien; and an elderly woman in a hijab. The women scrutinized Astrid and contrasted her youthful appearance against Araminta’s aging face.

Rosalind Fung then rose from her chair and got onstage, where she thanked the other women for coming “to join in fellowship with Christ” (17). Suddenly, the door to the ballroom flew open, and the ladies heard the booming voice of a female attendant, telling someone not to go in. One guest wondered if it was an unhinged homeless person trying to burst in, while Eleanor dismissed this idea, saying that there were no homeless people in Singapore.

A disheveled woman entered wearing stained yoga sweats and had two young girls with her, wearing school uniforms. The women recognized her as Isabel Wu, and the girls were her daughters, Chloe and Delphine. Isabel approached Astrid and screamed to her daughters to take a good look at “the whore that spreads her legs” for their father (19). Isabel then threw a bowl of spicy noodle soup at Astrid but missed, hitting Felicity Leong, Mrs. Lee Yong Chien, and the woman in the hijab—the Dowager Sultana of Perawak—instead. 

Nicholas “Nick” Young and his wife Rachel were at a Patti Smith concert when his cell phone began lighting up incessantly. Nick ignored the call but later listened to a voicemail from his cousin, Astrid, another from his best friend, Colin Khoo, and fielded numerous text messages from his mother, who never texted him. The latter informed him that his grandmother had just suffered a heart attack.

Nick called his mother, who told him that Su Yi—his “Ah Ma”—wouldn’t last much longer. She also told him about the incident at the banquet involving Isabel Wu and Astrid. She then asked if it was true Astrid was Charlie Wu’s mistress, which Nick denied. Eleanor then encouraged her husband to take the next flight to Singapore. If Su Yi was on her deathbed, she would need to assign an heir to Tyersall Park. If Nick planned his move carefully, Eleanor encouraged, he could inherit the grand property.

After the call, Nick updated Rachel on his grandmother’s condition and told her about the incident with Isabel Wu. Rachel empathized with Nick over his grandmother’s condition, knowing how close they once were. Nick and his Ah Ma had not spoken in four years due to his decision to marry Rachel. Su Yi had demanded that Nick leave Rachel, whom she felt didn’t come from a proper family, and he had refused.

After spending five hours at the hospital, Astrid took a break and went outside where she texted Charlie to update him on Su Yi’s condition. Charlie told her that Isabel had just been admitted to Hong Kong Sanatorium. He then asked Astrid what her mother, Felicity, said after finding out about their relationship. Astrid reported that her mother had probably not yet “connected all the dots” (26). She figured, though, that this might be the best time to let close family know about her plans to divorce her husband, Michael.