The crazy rich will always sit uncomfortably with the crazy poor. Their ostentatiousness, aloofness and condescension irk the poor to no limits.
The reactions to the Crazy Rich Asians movie is one good example of how many Singaporeans see the uber rich, that is, they are spoilt, snobbish, and at most times, insensitive.
Although it is just a satire, CRA nevertheless puts flagrant flamboyance on the big screen. And in a society with such a large income and social divide, it only deepens the gap and distorts the perception even further.
And just when we thought that “the culture of excess by the privilege 0.01” in our society is as far as one can get or imagine to describe the fabulously rich amongst us, next comes a book entitled “The Billionaire Raj” by James Crabtree that makes CRA look like another middle income family sitcom.
These are the Crazy Rich Indians in, well, India.
Just yesterday, Vikram Khanna, the assoc editor, wrote a thought-provoking article about the book, and in one paragraph he described the home of India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani and his family called Antilia, which is a 170m high, 27-storey vertical palace.
Here is what Vikram wrote: -
“Billed as the most expensive residence in the world after Buckingham Palace, Antilia is said to have ceilings covered in chandeliers, sports courts, a temple, a theatre that can host Cirque du Soleil and Broadway productions, an “ice room” with man-made snow flurries and six flooring of parking.””
And trust me, Antilia can’t be anymore of an eyesore for the poor majority in Mumbai.
This is on top of toys that billionaires frequently purchase and possess which include huge, sprawling mansions around the world, homes with toilet bowls made of gold, “private museums, fleets of luxury cars, speedboats and private jets”, and “vast estates that host weddings where the buffers stretch for 100m or more.””
Lesson...?
Actually, I don’t think I need one. This tale has been told ad nausem and we are all too familiar with the extravagance of the rich and famous.
They have been in our face since the days of the Greeks’ and Romans’ palatial mansions and it stretches back to the time of the oldest empires in the history of world civilizations.
Just as the poor will always be with us, the rich will too because the hallowed goal of relative equality is a dastardly utopia that is forever beyond our reach.
This brings me to the recently crowned richest man in our modern century.
He is none other than Jeffrey Preston Bezos or better known as Jeff Bezos.
His company Amazon is the second company to hit the one trillion mark in market value. Todate, his net worth is S$229 billion (or US$166 billion).
So step aside Crazy Rich Asians or Crazy Rich Indians and make way for one Crazy Rich American.
Bezos was born to a teenage mother in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Jan 12, 1964.
His mother remarried when he was four and Bezos was legally adopted by his stepfather, a Cuban immigrant who worked as an engineer at a major petrochemical company.
His dad came to America without knowing any English and according to Bezos, “has been kicking ass ever since”.
On Mother’s day this year, Bezos thanked his mother for everything. He wrote: ”You shaped us, you protected us, you let us fall, you picked us up, and you loved us, always and unconditionally.”
And to his father, he wrote: “Thank you for all the love and heart dad.”
Bezos himself is married to Mackenzie since 1993 and they have four children.
Let me end with what Bezos said about his success formula.
He said, “you need to be nimble and robust, so you need to be able to take a punch and you also need to be quick and innovative and do new things at higher speed; that’s the best defence against the future.”
Then he added, “You have to always be leaning into the future. If you’re leaning away from the future, the future is gonna win, every time.”
Well, I don’t know about the nimble and robust part and the quick and innovative bit because the majority of us will probably succeed (in our ways) in a less than nimble and robust pace as compared to him.
Success in Bezos’ world is definitely different from success in most layman’s world. Not all of us are going to be the richest man in the world anytime soon and hit that over-100 billion mark.
But still, that leaning into the future part is readily identifiable for me. My spin on that is about hope, not hope to be a billionaire, but simple and sustainable hope for tomorrow.
For me, it is about fighting for hope, staying the course, doing what you can with what you have, never give up, and to borrow Bezos’ words, “able to take a punch” and then learn from it and move forward.
In the end, it is about growing strong against the storms of life as one saying goes: -
“Strong people make as many and as ghastly mistakes as weak people. The difference is that strong people admit them, laugh at them, learn from them. That’s how they become strong.”
Alas, we may not be Crazy Rich Asians but we can always be Crazy Resilient Asians who are rich in ways our children can be proud of, and such a rich legacy is in the words of Bezos that of his mother’s unconditional love and the unfailing heart of his father.
No money can buy that kind of love...and that’s crazy love for you, priceless and timeless. Cheerz.
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