A biography for Kevin Kwanhasn’t been written yet.
“I would not call my family 'traditional Chinese.' We were more what I would term the Colonial Chinese.”
“I do believe that peoples' natures can be changed, and they have to be changed if we want to live in this modern world and be a part of it.”
“'China rich' is the new 'crazy rich.' It's a new level of outrageousness. It comes from this world where overnight fortunes have been made, but the fortunes are so ginormous compared to anything we've ever seen in the history of the world.”
“It's human nature when you first make your big fortune to want to show off a bit. I don't begrudge that whatsoever.”
“Such huge money has been made in China - it can be hundreds of millions in a year - and there's a need to validate it by showing what they can buy and how much of it.”
“I grew up with a posh English accent, and all my aunts sounded as if they came out of a Merchant Ivory movie.”
“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.”
“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.”
“My father went to boarding school in Sydney when he was 14.”
“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.”
“I come from an old establishment family from Singapore.”
“It's not normal to go into a house and see a pond in the middle of the living room full of baby sharks. It's not normal to go to someone's garage and see a private plane.”
“I'm a writer. I'm naturally introverted, so being the public face of something, I don't think I do it well.”
“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.”
“'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.”
“I met a Shanghai photographer who finds these old streets and matches the French names to what they are today. I was able to find my grandfather's block, and just walking the same streets and finding his house was deeply moving. I finally felt connected to China.”
“I moved to New York and went to art school at Parsons School of Design. Became a photographer. Became a creative consultant.”
“At least when it comes to food, there's no snobbery in Singapore.”
“I really don't keep an outline; I don't organize in any way. I just write.”
“I think snobbery is one of the oldest customs in the world, and the rich will always find ways to rank each other and make themselves feel more special than others.”