Kevin Kwan Quotes
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Hollywood is a whole other level of crazy. I've never met so many assistants who have assistants. It's a stratified society on its own.
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As a child, I could bike down the hill from my house and grab an ice-cold bottle of soda from the neighborhood grocer, which was nothing more than a corrugated metal shack run by two Indian men clad in sarongs.
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People are often disappointed when they meet me because I'm not this giant, flamboyant - you know, I don't wear sequined jackets.
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When cultural movements happen, it's so beyond your control.
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'Crazy Rich Asians' may be fiction, but given the situation I grew up in, I've had an unparalleled view into the very real world it depicts.
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At least when it comes to food, there's no snobbery in Singapore.
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People have always been fascinated by the foibles of the wealthy and privileged.
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Growing up in Singapore, I wasn't allowed to visit China. So when I was finally able to go there after the country began opening up to tourism in the 1990s, I found it to be utterly astounding.
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I go to Shenzhen, China, and am taken to a vast luxury spa with a hundred leather recliners and a hundred accompanying plasma screen televisions bolted to the ceiling.
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As a child, I didn't even realize I was Chinese. I was Singaporean, but my identity was wrapped up in the culture I was experiencing every day.
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The idea of Asian ascendancy has entered public culture.
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In Asia, it's customary to get together with your entire extended family on a regular basis, and it's all rife with politics.
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My father grew up in a life of extreme privilege.
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My grandparents were far more English in their manners than they were Chinese. For example, we spoke English at home, had afternoon tea every day, and my grandfather, who attended university in Scotland, would smoke his pipe after dinner.
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I love romantic comedies more than anything.
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When my first novel, 'Crazy Rich Asians,' was published in 2013, many readers were astonished to learn that in Asia, there were women who dressed in couture from morning till night.
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In order for me to write a scene, it's very important for me to see and experience everything with my own eyes, so yes, I was able to visit some remarkable houses and destinations while I was in China.
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I have a photographic memory.
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My father went to boarding school in Sydney when he was 14.
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If I were to generalize a bit, I would say that the ultra rich in Asia live on a scale that far surpasses the wealthy in the U.S. or Europe.
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Especially in the West, people want to understand Asia on a deeper level because it's become the engine of the world economy, like it or not.
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My father came from old money. There was less of an expectation for the children to earn a living.
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A lot of the people who live the lives of 'Crazy Rich Asians' don't see the humour of their lives simply because this is just who they are. Even though I'm from that part of the world, I'm no longer part of that world.
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The most important thing to keep in mind is the incredible diversity of talent that's out there - there are so many great actors from all over Asia, from Singapore and Hong Kong to the Philippines and Mainland China, not to mention many great Asian-American actors who are eager for fun and challenging roles.