Piled on top of this are Hokkien and Cantonese swear words and ongoing conversations about shopping according to the strength of the Singapore dollar compared to the British pound. Similarly, in his name-dropping of brand-name clothes, the other bastion of affluent Asian expenditure, Kwan can be as tedious as he is comprehensive.
To the casual reader, these painstaking descriptions of food might appear to be superficial, written purely for the sensory indulgence of the author (and this Chinese Malaysian reviewer).
Take these descriptions of the types of food the characters indulge in throughout the novel: In an early meal, the traditional Malay desserts of “rainbow-hued kueh lapis” and “delicately sculpted ang koo kueh” are feasted upon with relish, followed later by a meal in Shanghai involving the contemporary restaurant fare of “sautéed scallops with Italian white truffle oil, and the stewed chicken with diced abalone and salted fish in clay pot.” Another meal illustrates the more traditional Chinese “hongshao rou - thick slices of fatty pork in a sweet marinade with green peppers.” While in Paris, characters melt as they indulge in pain au chocolat that is “airy, flaky, buttery, oozing rich bittersweet chocolate.” “China Rich Girlfriend,” Kevin Kwan’s follow-up to his highly successful 2013 novel “Crazy Rich Asians,” is in equal measures a celebration and an insider take-down, validating contemporary Asian culture and its consumerist aspirations as much as it pokes fun at it.
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