Crazy Rich Asians & Singapore: my reaction
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Title : Crazy Rich Asians & Singapore: my reaction
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news-today.world | Hello! Before I start on another serious blog piece, let's do another fun one - I'm sure many of you would have seen the trailer for Crazy Rich Asians and for those of you who have yet to see it, I have embedded the trailer below. It is not often that you get a Hollywood film set in Singapore, but this one is not without controversy despite it being a lighthearted rom-com. I shall summarize the main reasons why this film has irked many Asians and then offer my response to the trailer.
1. He isn't even half Chinese, he's not Chinese at all!
The lead of Nicholas Young is played by Henry Golding - Golding is half British half Iban, his mother is originally from Malaysia and so it is not like he is half Chinese, he just isn't Chinese at all. This begs the question: when there are so many ethnic Chinese actors around, why did they cast someone who wasn't even Chinese, but half white to play the role of a character who was supposed to have been properly Chinese? Besides, it was not like the character of Nicholas Young was ethnically ambigious, no the film does go out of its way to portray his family as Chinese. But it's not like the director is a racist white person whitewashing the film, casting white actors to play Asian roles - the director is Jon Chu, a Chinese American director. The public getting incensed by whitewashing is really nothing new, but it seems clear that Chu had considerable influence in choosing a Chinese actor rather than a mixed, half-white actor, yet he didn't exercise that influence. It's not like Henry Golding is such a big star that would justify such a controversial casting decision - his IMDB is actually fairly modest compared to some other Chinese actors who could have played this role. I'm not saying Golding can't act - I'm just pointing out that casting him was only going to be at best a very controversial decision.
But is this new? Hardly. I've seen loads of half white half Asian actors like Jessica Henwick (half English - she went on to do Game of Thrones) and Tommy Franzen (half Swedish) get cast in Asian parts over the years here in London - why is this the case? I've worked with them both in the past and they couldn't be nicer, but at the back of my mind, I can't help but think, "you're not actually Chinese, you're mixed, you don't look like a Chinese person, you look quite white." Now in the past, there was the argument that the Asian actors from Hong Kong or Singapore probably had a strong accent and they struggled with English, so short of dubbing them, the casting directors had to pick the mixed actors who grew up here. But even in Asia, there is a skin-colour hierarchy going on: in Thailand, the fairer skinned, Chinese-looking or half white actors like Sunny Suwanmethanon are favoured over those who have darker skin and look more Thai. In Malaysia or Indonesia, ideally you should have some white or Arab blood, so your features are far more European than Malaysian/Indonesian. I remember once I was up for a Chinese part against Tommy Franzen for an ad to be shot in China for the Chinese market and of course, they picked the half-Swedish 'Chinese' guy over me - but that wasn't a white casting director preferring 'Asian' actors who looked more white, oh no, this was a group of Chinese producers and directors picking the half white Tommy Franzen over me, despite the fact that Franzen didn't really look that Chinese.
In short, yeah us Asians look down on ourselves a lot. Everybody wants to be a shade whiter - the Thais aspire to look like the Chinese, the Malays aspire to look like the fair-skinned Arabs from places like Lebanon or Jordan and for the Chinese, the ultimate image of beauty is to look white. Now sometimes this is done by picking Eurasian actors like Tommy Franzen over more Chinese looking ones, but plenty of Chinese people do go to quite extreme lengths to look white by undergoing extensive plastic surgery. Take famous Singaporean influencer Xiaxue for example - her eyes are as wide as a Barbie doll's, she uses contact lenses to change the colour of her eyes, her nose is narrow and pointed like a European person, her hair is always dyed some outrageous colour. It is quite shocking to look at pre-plastic surgery photos of Xiaxue before her drastic transformation when she looked pretty much like your ordinary, average Singaporean. But guess what? She has thousands of followers on social media and has achieved celebrity status because many of her Asian followers aspire to do exactly what she did and follow in her footsteps. If us Asians can't even be asked to stop being so terribly ashamed of the way we look and stop trying to whiten our skins, then I'm afraid what you see in the media is only going to reflect that pathetic attitude. This is such a widespread problem, from the Philippines to India to Nigeria, everybody is desperately bleaching their skins to become more white. If this is what the audience wants, then the casting directors will keep on casting half-white (or totally white) actors to play Asian parts.
But then again, this does raise the disturbing concept of ethnic purity: my regular readers will know that I took a DNA test back in 2012 and I found out that I am in fact 15.8% European. My parents went apeshit of course, with my father declaring that we were pure Chinese and that the lab must have made a mistake. But of course, once I dug a bit deeper, it wasn't hard to identify where my European blood had come from and so I now identify as Eurasian or mixed rather than Chinese despite the fact that my parents would rather identify as simply Chinese. Now I am way too old to even be considered for the role of Nicholas Young in this film, but would my 15.8% Shouldn't my looks or acting ability matter more than the results of a DNA test? European heritage disqualify me from even auditioning for the part in the eyes of the purists? Would they set some kind of threshold of 'Chinese-ness' that you must have before you can actually play the part of a Chinese character in a film? Would DNA tests be a part of the audition process then and if so, where do you draw the line? Because if it is 15%, then damn that would actually put me in the same category as Henry Golding - a Eurasian man stealing Chinese parts from properly Chinese actors. Or is a mandatory DNA test just way too absurd?
2. That's not the Singapore we know.
Yes, we barely see any ordinary people there, you know, those families living in HDB flats which account for 82% of Singaporeans? But then again, the title of the film is 'Crazy Rich Asians' not 'ordinary Singaporean uncles and aunties in Ang Mo Kio'. Films are not documentaries, they are not obliged to represent every single aspect of the topic: they merely focus on the lives of the main characters and in this story, it happens to be about a crazy rich Singaporean family. Such rich people do exist of course in every country and no one is pretending for a moment that they are the norm - it is just that most of us are unfamiliar with that kind of lifestyle. But then again, Singapore is a society that is segregated by a class structure - your class identity and your social economic status will determine the kind of social experience you have in Singapore. So whilst it is accurate to say that the vast majority of Singaporeans don't lead the kind of lives as portrayed in the film, it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the film. Come on, when you watch a James Bond film, do you imagine that this is the kind of lives that ordinary British people lead? Of course not, it's just the spies who do crazy shit like that and it is fun to watch them do so. That's why people like watching such films for light entertainment.
3. Singapore's actually a very hot country, nobody dresses like that.
This is my primary gripe with the film and having worked with enough costume designers over the years, I think it's downright stupid when they favour style over reality to the extent where the viewers roll their eyes in disbelief. Look, Singapore is a tropical country, it is bloody hot with day time temperatures approaching the mid-30s and even at night, it rarely ever drops below 25. It may get down to the low-20s once in a while, but that's really at 5 am in the morning, just before the sun rises. In short, it is always too hot to wear a jacket in Singapore, apart from when you are in an air-conditioned environment. Some Singaporeans do like to dress up nicely of course, but they will do so when they attend an event at an air-conditioned venue so they can suit up and dress as formally as they want without worrying about sweating in the extremely hot and humid tropical weather. But in the trailer, we see men in suits (including butlers in white tie and tails) outdoors, like hello? Anyone who has ever been to Singapore would know that if you dress like that there, you'll start sweating in about 30 seconds even if you were sitting absolutely still and within 5 minutes you would be drenched in sweat because that's just how your body reacts when you are wearing that many layers of clothing in the tropical heat. I can just imagine them on set struggling with the heat, "can someone from costume get Henry a fresh shirt? He is totally drenched in sweat again, someone wipe him down before the next take, get him some cold water."
If the film was a lot more realistic, then it would feature crazy rich people having fun in air-conditioned venues, like the ballroom of a hotel and they just wouldn't step outside at all because well, sweating profusely is hardly attractive. But then again, in order to appreciate the full splendour of Marina Bay Sands, you have to admire it from the outside, from a distance to see the sheer scale of the structure. If you were filming from inside MBS, well of course they have lovely ball rooms and casinos, but you won't be able to see the building itself. Hence if they were going to use some of the more iconic buildings of Singapore as a backdrop, quite a number of scenes will have to be shot outdoors. So yeah, the actors will just have to suffer - but really, that's just not what happens in Singapore. Rich people can afford to go from their air-conditioned homes to their air-conditioned offices (or shopping malls) in their air-conditioned cars without ever having to suffer the tropical heat and it can be 34 degrees outside, but they will never ever perspire - well, not till they go to the gym for their daily workout, but even that gym will be air-conditioned too. Oh yes, Singaporeans love their air-conditioning so much, it is a necessity in the tropics. That's why Singaporeans just don't dress like Americans in New York or the Brits in London, it is the tropical climate but the film directors have clearly chosen to ignore that crucial fact.
4. Where are the non-Chinese people?
Singaporean writer Alfian Sa'at complained that there was a complete absence of other kinds of Asian people and that the film should have been called Crazy Rich East Asians, so as not to include other kinds of Asian people like the Malays and Indians who just as much a part of Singapore. He did a screen grab of the one moment two Indian-looking valets appear in the background in a scene from the film as Rachel and Peik Lin get out of a car. Sa'at goes further to accuse the film of celebrating Chinese people who are trying so desperately to be white. I agree that the film does have its flaws, but allow me to share my perspective. I grew up in a very traditional Singaporean-Chinese family, my father worked as a Chinese teacher all his life and doesn't speak any English beyond the very basics. Thus his social life revolved around other Chinese people with whom he didn't encounter a language barrier. That was the case for a lot of older Chinese Singaporeans who didn't speak English as a first language - even if they did speak some English, they would not speak it well and would feel a lot more comfortable forming social bonds with others they could communicate in their first language (be it Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, Hainanese etc). But the complete opposite has happened with many Singaporeans of my generation who have had the benefit of a great education: allow me to explain.
The kind of ultra-rich Chinese families portrayed in the film have connections all over the western world from Australia to America to the UK - that is an accurate representation of what happens today, but what it doesn't reflect is how living and working abroad for extended periods change you. Firstly, you will have friends of all nationalities, rather than just stick to 'your own kind' the way people like my father had to by default, limited by their lack of social skills and linguistic abilities. Certainly, these characters are portrayed well educated, well traveled, confident and cosmopolitan, so why wouldn't they be able to make friends with people who aren't Chinese? The true elite in Singapore are not defined by their ethnicity or culture, but by their success. I remember laughing last year as I read a copy of Singapore Tatler, "look at these photos, it is clear that the favourite accessory amongst the elite in Singapore this season is the Angmoh, never show up at an event without your Angmoh. And you're a super elite if you have an Angmoh in each arm!" So whilst it is nice to have an all-Asian cast in a big budget Hollywood film, anyone who knows anything about the Singaporean elite would be asking the question, "where are the white people? If these people are so bloody rich, then where are their white friends? On top of the missing the Indians and the Malays, where are the Angmohs? Really, they are not that hard to find in Singapore."
4. The total absence of Singlish or even a hint of a Singaporean accent
Now this is a controversial point which has had a debate raging in social media already! There is a complete absence of Singlish in the film, given that the main cast are not from Singapore - go figure, it is a movie about Singaporeans set in Singapore, yet the vast majority of the cast are either Americans or Brits. The accents you will hear are mostly American or British - Michelle Yeoh is the only one who has a bit of a Malaysian accent and it has been described as a very refined, educated Malaysian accent as opposed to what you would expect from your typical Malaysian. You're probably not going to like what I am going to say here. The kind of super rich Singaporeans who have spent time studying, living and working in the West do not speak Singlish, nor do they have a Singaporean accent. You will lose it after some time in the West - let me give you a simple example: if you don't have to deal with foreigners, say you work in a small shop in Ang Mo Kio, then you can speak Singlish all day and be perfectly understood by the locals who come to your shop. However, if you worked at a shop in Changi airport and had to serve travelers from all over the world at your shop, then you would be forced to adjust your accent because many of the foreigners you encounter will not understand Singlish at all and many will even struggle to understand your English if you have a strong accent. Thus the accent you end up with is determined by the kind of company you keep and you pick the accept that best helps establish rapport with your peers.
The only time when I would deliberately speak Singlish or English with a Singaporean accent is if I was meeting another Singaporean and I wanted to establish rapport quickly - so for example, I would do that if I got into a taxi in Singapore, I would go totally Singlish on the taxi driver to convince him that I am a local and not a foreigner, so he won't try to take a longer route than necessary. So context is everything when it comes to this kind of code-switching. The fact is a lot of Singaporeans do look down on Singlish and the Singaporean accent because it is used by those who aren't as educated whilst the more educated Singaporeans tend to default to a more neutral form of standard English in the business world. In any case, the film isn't targeting the Singaporean audience, oh no. The film is scheduled for a general release in America and I just can't imagine the average American in Arizona or Michigan understanding Singlish or even English with a Singaporean accent. No way, can you imagine the reviews on social media? "Wait wait wait, I'm sorry but I have absolutely no clue what these Singaporeans actors are saying, like where are the subtitles? What language(s) are these people speaking, like it kinda sounds like an Asian English creole?" Singaporeans take one thing for granted: they watch a lot of American TV and can understand American English perfectly well, so they somehow just assume that Americans will understand their Singaporean English, but it just doesn't work that way! You'll be amazed how much Americans struggle to understand Singaporeans with a strong accent - and when it comes to Singlish, don't even go there please.
5. There is nothing that Asian, Singaporean or Chinese about this film.
A lot of Asians (not just in Singapore but all over) have been quite disappointed by this film as it doesn't celebrate Asian culture at all - quite on the contrary, the main characters are either Chinese Singaporeans or Chinese Americans who are completely English speaking to the point where they are clearly speaking English as a mother tongue and first language and are completely westernized. But it goes way beyond the language used in the film: these rich people live very Western lifestyles and whilst Singapore provides a beautiful, exotic, tropical backdrop to this film. There seems to be cursory references to Chinese culture (such as in the dresses that we see Michelle Yeoh in), but most of these characters are bananas: yellow on the outside, completely white on the inside. And I'm like, yeah and so? I'm a complete banana too, like I am so white on the inside. Loads of bananas exist - from Malaysia and Singapore to the Chinese diaspora in the West, many of us are completely westernized. The film is based on the original book written by Kevin Kwan, who is Singaporean and Kwan had decided to write a book where the protagonists are bananas. I don't have a problem with that - why should this film be treated like, "oh finally we have an Asian film in the Hollywood mainstream, let's use this opportunity show those white people how glorious our Chinese culture is" - no, it is just a story about a bunch of fictitious characters in Singapore, so why should this be some kind of PR stunt for Asian or Chinese culture?
Let's get real here. Even if you try to turn this into a PR exercise to convince the cinema audience in the West that Chinese culture is glorious, wonderful and virtuous or how fantastic Singapore is, guess what? It wouldn't work. The average white person in the West has already formed an opinion about Chinese culture already - it may not be all positive, it may not even be accurate but that opinion exists. I think it is quite audacious to even assume that you can change people's opinion with just one film like that. All you can do is add to the vast cache of information that the viewer has accumulated about issues concerning Singapore, Chinese people, Chinese culture and the amount of impact one film can make in that context is really negligible. I encounter this all the time as a blogger - sometimes I get an angry reader who posts a comment that goes along the line of, "you stupid bitch, you're totally wrong about this topic and this is why, now admit that you're wrong, I'm right." And I'm like woah woah woah, please do feel free to offer a contrary opinion and I'll add this to the cache of information I have about this topic, I will then evaluate the new information in due course and see if it impacts my stance on the issue. But if you think you can then waltz in here and give me a lecture, then expect me to change my mind on the matter, then you have grossly overestimated your ability to influence others. Can we have a reality check please? Let's keep it real people, it is a lot harder to get people to change their opinions than you think. The best case scenario is for more tourists to visit Singapore after having seen the splendid way it was portrayed.
So there you go, what do you feel about Crazy Rich Asians after having seen the trailer? Are you intrigued by the film, angered or offended by the trailer? Or is the public reaction somewhat perplexing to you? And would you want to see this film later this year? Leave a comment below please and let me know what you think please - many thanks for reading!
1. He isn't even half Chinese, he's not Chinese at all!
The lead of Nicholas Young is played by Henry Golding - Golding is half British half Iban, his mother is originally from Malaysia and so it is not like he is half Chinese, he just isn't Chinese at all. This begs the question: when there are so many ethnic Chinese actors around, why did they cast someone who wasn't even Chinese, but half white to play the role of a character who was supposed to have been properly Chinese? Besides, it was not like the character of Nicholas Young was ethnically ambigious, no the film does go out of its way to portray his family as Chinese. But it's not like the director is a racist white person whitewashing the film, casting white actors to play Asian roles - the director is Jon Chu, a Chinese American director. The public getting incensed by whitewashing is really nothing new, but it seems clear that Chu had considerable influence in choosing a Chinese actor rather than a mixed, half-white actor, yet he didn't exercise that influence. It's not like Henry Golding is such a big star that would justify such a controversial casting decision - his IMDB is actually fairly modest compared to some other Chinese actors who could have played this role. I'm not saying Golding can't act - I'm just pointing out that casting him was only going to be at best a very controversial decision.
But is this new? Hardly. I've seen loads of half white half Asian actors like Jessica Henwick (half English - she went on to do Game of Thrones) and Tommy Franzen (half Swedish) get cast in Asian parts over the years here in London - why is this the case? I've worked with them both in the past and they couldn't be nicer, but at the back of my mind, I can't help but think, "you're not actually Chinese, you're mixed, you don't look like a Chinese person, you look quite white." Now in the past, there was the argument that the Asian actors from Hong Kong or Singapore probably had a strong accent and they struggled with English, so short of dubbing them, the casting directors had to pick the mixed actors who grew up here. But even in Asia, there is a skin-colour hierarchy going on: in Thailand, the fairer skinned, Chinese-looking or half white actors like Sunny Suwanmethanon are favoured over those who have darker skin and look more Thai. In Malaysia or Indonesia, ideally you should have some white or Arab blood, so your features are far more European than Malaysian/Indonesian. I remember once I was up for a Chinese part against Tommy Franzen for an ad to be shot in China for the Chinese market and of course, they picked the half-Swedish 'Chinese' guy over me - but that wasn't a white casting director preferring 'Asian' actors who looked more white, oh no, this was a group of Chinese producers and directors picking the half white Tommy Franzen over me, despite the fact that Franzen didn't really look that Chinese.
In short, yeah us Asians look down on ourselves a lot. Everybody wants to be a shade whiter - the Thais aspire to look like the Chinese, the Malays aspire to look like the fair-skinned Arabs from places like Lebanon or Jordan and for the Chinese, the ultimate image of beauty is to look white. Now sometimes this is done by picking Eurasian actors like Tommy Franzen over more Chinese looking ones, but plenty of Chinese people do go to quite extreme lengths to look white by undergoing extensive plastic surgery. Take famous Singaporean influencer Xiaxue for example - her eyes are as wide as a Barbie doll's, she uses contact lenses to change the colour of her eyes, her nose is narrow and pointed like a European person, her hair is always dyed some outrageous colour. It is quite shocking to look at pre-plastic surgery photos of Xiaxue before her drastic transformation when she looked pretty much like your ordinary, average Singaporean. But guess what? She has thousands of followers on social media and has achieved celebrity status because many of her Asian followers aspire to do exactly what she did and follow in her footsteps. If us Asians can't even be asked to stop being so terribly ashamed of the way we look and stop trying to whiten our skins, then I'm afraid what you see in the media is only going to reflect that pathetic attitude. This is such a widespread problem, from the Philippines to India to Nigeria, everybody is desperately bleaching their skins to become more white. If this is what the audience wants, then the casting directors will keep on casting half-white (or totally white) actors to play Asian parts.
But then again, this does raise the disturbing concept of ethnic purity: my regular readers will know that I took a DNA test back in 2012 and I found out that I am in fact 15.8% European. My parents went apeshit of course, with my father declaring that we were pure Chinese and that the lab must have made a mistake. But of course, once I dug a bit deeper, it wasn't hard to identify where my European blood had come from and so I now identify as Eurasian or mixed rather than Chinese despite the fact that my parents would rather identify as simply Chinese. Now I am way too old to even be considered for the role of Nicholas Young in this film, but would my 15.8% Shouldn't my looks or acting ability matter more than the results of a DNA test? European heritage disqualify me from even auditioning for the part in the eyes of the purists? Would they set some kind of threshold of 'Chinese-ness' that you must have before you can actually play the part of a Chinese character in a film? Would DNA tests be a part of the audition process then and if so, where do you draw the line? Because if it is 15%, then damn that would actually put me in the same category as Henry Golding - a Eurasian man stealing Chinese parts from properly Chinese actors. Or is a mandatory DNA test just way too absurd?
2. That's not the Singapore we know.
Yes, we barely see any ordinary people there, you know, those families living in HDB flats which account for 82% of Singaporeans? But then again, the title of the film is 'Crazy Rich Asians' not 'ordinary Singaporean uncles and aunties in Ang Mo Kio'. Films are not documentaries, they are not obliged to represent every single aspect of the topic: they merely focus on the lives of the main characters and in this story, it happens to be about a crazy rich Singaporean family. Such rich people do exist of course in every country and no one is pretending for a moment that they are the norm - it is just that most of us are unfamiliar with that kind of lifestyle. But then again, Singapore is a society that is segregated by a class structure - your class identity and your social economic status will determine the kind of social experience you have in Singapore. So whilst it is accurate to say that the vast majority of Singaporeans don't lead the kind of lives as portrayed in the film, it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the film. Come on, when you watch a James Bond film, do you imagine that this is the kind of lives that ordinary British people lead? Of course not, it's just the spies who do crazy shit like that and it is fun to watch them do so. That's why people like watching such films for light entertainment.
3. Singapore's actually a very hot country, nobody dresses like that.
This is my primary gripe with the film and having worked with enough costume designers over the years, I think it's downright stupid when they favour style over reality to the extent where the viewers roll their eyes in disbelief. Look, Singapore is a tropical country, it is bloody hot with day time temperatures approaching the mid-30s and even at night, it rarely ever drops below 25. It may get down to the low-20s once in a while, but that's really at 5 am in the morning, just before the sun rises. In short, it is always too hot to wear a jacket in Singapore, apart from when you are in an air-conditioned environment. Some Singaporeans do like to dress up nicely of course, but they will do so when they attend an event at an air-conditioned venue so they can suit up and dress as formally as they want without worrying about sweating in the extremely hot and humid tropical weather. But in the trailer, we see men in suits (including butlers in white tie and tails) outdoors, like hello? Anyone who has ever been to Singapore would know that if you dress like that there, you'll start sweating in about 30 seconds even if you were sitting absolutely still and within 5 minutes you would be drenched in sweat because that's just how your body reacts when you are wearing that many layers of clothing in the tropical heat. I can just imagine them on set struggling with the heat, "can someone from costume get Henry a fresh shirt? He is totally drenched in sweat again, someone wipe him down before the next take, get him some cold water."
If the film was a lot more realistic, then it would feature crazy rich people having fun in air-conditioned venues, like the ballroom of a hotel and they just wouldn't step outside at all because well, sweating profusely is hardly attractive. But then again, in order to appreciate the full splendour of Marina Bay Sands, you have to admire it from the outside, from a distance to see the sheer scale of the structure. If you were filming from inside MBS, well of course they have lovely ball rooms and casinos, but you won't be able to see the building itself. Hence if they were going to use some of the more iconic buildings of Singapore as a backdrop, quite a number of scenes will have to be shot outdoors. So yeah, the actors will just have to suffer - but really, that's just not what happens in Singapore. Rich people can afford to go from their air-conditioned homes to their air-conditioned offices (or shopping malls) in their air-conditioned cars without ever having to suffer the tropical heat and it can be 34 degrees outside, but they will never ever perspire - well, not till they go to the gym for their daily workout, but even that gym will be air-conditioned too. Oh yes, Singaporeans love their air-conditioning so much, it is a necessity in the tropics. That's why Singaporeans just don't dress like Americans in New York or the Brits in London, it is the tropical climate but the film directors have clearly chosen to ignore that crucial fact.
4. Where are the non-Chinese people?
Singaporean writer Alfian Sa'at complained that there was a complete absence of other kinds of Asian people and that the film should have been called Crazy Rich East Asians, so as not to include other kinds of Asian people like the Malays and Indians who just as much a part of Singapore. He did a screen grab of the one moment two Indian-looking valets appear in the background in a scene from the film as Rachel and Peik Lin get out of a car. Sa'at goes further to accuse the film of celebrating Chinese people who are trying so desperately to be white. I agree that the film does have its flaws, but allow me to share my perspective. I grew up in a very traditional Singaporean-Chinese family, my father worked as a Chinese teacher all his life and doesn't speak any English beyond the very basics. Thus his social life revolved around other Chinese people with whom he didn't encounter a language barrier. That was the case for a lot of older Chinese Singaporeans who didn't speak English as a first language - even if they did speak some English, they would not speak it well and would feel a lot more comfortable forming social bonds with others they could communicate in their first language (be it Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, Hainanese etc). But the complete opposite has happened with many Singaporeans of my generation who have had the benefit of a great education: allow me to explain.
The kind of ultra-rich Chinese families portrayed in the film have connections all over the western world from Australia to America to the UK - that is an accurate representation of what happens today, but what it doesn't reflect is how living and working abroad for extended periods change you. Firstly, you will have friends of all nationalities, rather than just stick to 'your own kind' the way people like my father had to by default, limited by their lack of social skills and linguistic abilities. Certainly, these characters are portrayed well educated, well traveled, confident and cosmopolitan, so why wouldn't they be able to make friends with people who aren't Chinese? The true elite in Singapore are not defined by their ethnicity or culture, but by their success. I remember laughing last year as I read a copy of Singapore Tatler, "look at these photos, it is clear that the favourite accessory amongst the elite in Singapore this season is the Angmoh, never show up at an event without your Angmoh. And you're a super elite if you have an Angmoh in each arm!" So whilst it is nice to have an all-Asian cast in a big budget Hollywood film, anyone who knows anything about the Singaporean elite would be asking the question, "where are the white people? If these people are so bloody rich, then where are their white friends? On top of the missing the Indians and the Malays, where are the Angmohs? Really, they are not that hard to find in Singapore."
4. The total absence of Singlish or even a hint of a Singaporean accent
Now this is a controversial point which has had a debate raging in social media already! There is a complete absence of Singlish in the film, given that the main cast are not from Singapore - go figure, it is a movie about Singaporeans set in Singapore, yet the vast majority of the cast are either Americans or Brits. The accents you will hear are mostly American or British - Michelle Yeoh is the only one who has a bit of a Malaysian accent and it has been described as a very refined, educated Malaysian accent as opposed to what you would expect from your typical Malaysian. You're probably not going to like what I am going to say here. The kind of super rich Singaporeans who have spent time studying, living and working in the West do not speak Singlish, nor do they have a Singaporean accent. You will lose it after some time in the West - let me give you a simple example: if you don't have to deal with foreigners, say you work in a small shop in Ang Mo Kio, then you can speak Singlish all day and be perfectly understood by the locals who come to your shop. However, if you worked at a shop in Changi airport and had to serve travelers from all over the world at your shop, then you would be forced to adjust your accent because many of the foreigners you encounter will not understand Singlish at all and many will even struggle to understand your English if you have a strong accent. Thus the accent you end up with is determined by the kind of company you keep and you pick the accept that best helps establish rapport with your peers.
The only time when I would deliberately speak Singlish or English with a Singaporean accent is if I was meeting another Singaporean and I wanted to establish rapport quickly - so for example, I would do that if I got into a taxi in Singapore, I would go totally Singlish on the taxi driver to convince him that I am a local and not a foreigner, so he won't try to take a longer route than necessary. So context is everything when it comes to this kind of code-switching. The fact is a lot of Singaporeans do look down on Singlish and the Singaporean accent because it is used by those who aren't as educated whilst the more educated Singaporeans tend to default to a more neutral form of standard English in the business world. In any case, the film isn't targeting the Singaporean audience, oh no. The film is scheduled for a general release in America and I just can't imagine the average American in Arizona or Michigan understanding Singlish or even English with a Singaporean accent. No way, can you imagine the reviews on social media? "Wait wait wait, I'm sorry but I have absolutely no clue what these Singaporeans actors are saying, like where are the subtitles? What language(s) are these people speaking, like it kinda sounds like an Asian English creole?" Singaporeans take one thing for granted: they watch a lot of American TV and can understand American English perfectly well, so they somehow just assume that Americans will understand their Singaporean English, but it just doesn't work that way! You'll be amazed how much Americans struggle to understand Singaporeans with a strong accent - and when it comes to Singlish, don't even go there please.
5. There is nothing that Asian, Singaporean or Chinese about this film.
A lot of Asians (not just in Singapore but all over) have been quite disappointed by this film as it doesn't celebrate Asian culture at all - quite on the contrary, the main characters are either Chinese Singaporeans or Chinese Americans who are completely English speaking to the point where they are clearly speaking English as a mother tongue and first language and are completely westernized. But it goes way beyond the language used in the film: these rich people live very Western lifestyles and whilst Singapore provides a beautiful, exotic, tropical backdrop to this film. There seems to be cursory references to Chinese culture (such as in the dresses that we see Michelle Yeoh in), but most of these characters are bananas: yellow on the outside, completely white on the inside. And I'm like, yeah and so? I'm a complete banana too, like I am so white on the inside. Loads of bananas exist - from Malaysia and Singapore to the Chinese diaspora in the West, many of us are completely westernized. The film is based on the original book written by Kevin Kwan, who is Singaporean and Kwan had decided to write a book where the protagonists are bananas. I don't have a problem with that - why should this film be treated like, "oh finally we have an Asian film in the Hollywood mainstream, let's use this opportunity show those white people how glorious our Chinese culture is" - no, it is just a story about a bunch of fictitious characters in Singapore, so why should this be some kind of PR stunt for Asian or Chinese culture?
Let's get real here. Even if you try to turn this into a PR exercise to convince the cinema audience in the West that Chinese culture is glorious, wonderful and virtuous or how fantastic Singapore is, guess what? It wouldn't work. The average white person in the West has already formed an opinion about Chinese culture already - it may not be all positive, it may not even be accurate but that opinion exists. I think it is quite audacious to even assume that you can change people's opinion with just one film like that. All you can do is add to the vast cache of information that the viewer has accumulated about issues concerning Singapore, Chinese people, Chinese culture and the amount of impact one film can make in that context is really negligible. I encounter this all the time as a blogger - sometimes I get an angry reader who posts a comment that goes along the line of, "you stupid bitch, you're totally wrong about this topic and this is why, now admit that you're wrong, I'm right." And I'm like woah woah woah, please do feel free to offer a contrary opinion and I'll add this to the cache of information I have about this topic, I will then evaluate the new information in due course and see if it impacts my stance on the issue. But if you think you can then waltz in here and give me a lecture, then expect me to change my mind on the matter, then you have grossly overestimated your ability to influence others. Can we have a reality check please? Let's keep it real people, it is a lot harder to get people to change their opinions than you think. The best case scenario is for more tourists to visit Singapore after having seen the splendid way it was portrayed.
So there you go, what do you feel about Crazy Rich Asians after having seen the trailer? Are you intrigued by the film, angered or offended by the trailer? Or is the public reaction somewhat perplexing to you? And would you want to see this film later this year? Leave a comment below please and let me know what you think please - many thanks for reading!
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