Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Crazy Rich Asians, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Wealth and Absurdity
Marriage and Money
Family vs. Individuality
Chinese vs. Western Culture
Summary
Analysis
As Nick and Rachel taxi to his parents’ Singapore apartment, he explains the history of the building, a 30-story modern tower with the historic mansion as its base. The mansion’s owner was a family friend who gave lavish hong bao (New Year’s envelopes stuffed with cash). Nick admits his parents kept all his New Year money and implies they kept his Christmas gifts, too, horrifying Rachel. What kind of parents keep their children’s gifts?
Rachel immediately thinks it’s strange that Nick’s parents—who are wildly wealthy themselves—would confiscate their son’s money and gifts. This suggests to her that his parents are selfish and are, perhaps, willing to use their son to better their positions. While it’s left unsaid if that’s why they confiscated Nick’s gifts and money, it is true they would (or, at least, Eleanor would) like to ensure that Nick carries on the family name and fortune by marrying someone they deem appropriate.
Themes
The elevator gets to the 30th floor and opens right onto the penthouse’s foyer. Eleanor immediately comes around the corner and scolds Nick for his long hair, noting to herself that Rachel “looks better” than she did in the yearbook photo. Nick introduces Rachel, and Rachel offers Eleanor the mandarins with a bow. Privately, Eleanor is perplexed: it’s not Chinese New Year, and why the bow? But as Eleanor and Nick argue about the best hawker stalls, Rachel feels less anxious—Eleanor is funny.
This passage utilizes dramatic irony; that is, readers know Eleanor isn’t being genuinely friendly, but Rachel does not. Rachel is doing her best to follow Kerry’s advice and behave in a way that will show she’s a “good,” well-raised Chinese girl, but this backfires—her gift and bow read as out of touch, not respectful.
Themes
Nick comments on the beautiful apartment, but Eleanor says it’s been an absolute headache. The floors were stained six times before they looked right, and her blackout curtains are on backorder from France. As they walk deeper into the apartment, Rachel is awed by the dramatic, sleek living room that looks more like a hotel lobby. Just then, a maid announces that Mrs. Foo and other guests are here. Trying not to act anxious, Nick says he thought this was a family dinner. Eleanor thinks it would’ve been—“if it were just our family.” She sends Nick and Rachel to wake up Philip in the media room. He greets Rachel kindly and explains that he lives in Sydney because it’s a beautiful place to not work. He just got in this morning because Eleanor insisted he come early.
Eleanor talks about staining floors (which almost certainly means paying other people to do the work) and ordering curtains from France like these are perfectly normal activities. This highlights her privilege: like Araminta’s mother getting her airplane painted multiple times to achieve the perfect shade of white, Eleanor has the money to burn on getting exactly the curtains and floor stain she wants. Privately, Eleanor remains petty and resentful of Rachel. As far as she’s concerned, Rachel isn’t part of the family and never will be—a sentiment that Rachel, once again, doesn’t pick up on.
Themes
Astrid enters, and she, Nick, Rachel, and Philip return to the living room. There, Rachel meets Lorena, Carol, and Daisy—and she notes that Daisy is the first person to hug Nick this evening. Things seem pleasant until Nadine arrives and says she’s heard a lot about Rachel from her daughter. Just then, Francesca swoops in, kisses Nick on the cheek, and mentions how much Rachel enjoyed “the fish course” at the bachelorette party. Francesca then tries to hug Astrid, who finds Francesca’s familiarity odd. Astrid compliments Francesca’s Valentino dress, but she doesn’t share what designer she’s wearing tonight.
It shows Rachel how distant Nick is from his family when Daisy is the only person who hugs Nick. He’s closer, she suspects, to friends than he is to his family (readers have seen that this is because his friends offer him emotional support and love him for who he is, while his family sees him as a tool to preserve wealth). Francesca, meanwhile, implies that she put the mutilated fish in Rachel’s bag, essentially telling Rachel that she isn’t welcome here. Astrid subtly lets Francesca know that Francesca isn’t welcome, however, by refusing to reveal who designed her dress.
Themes
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Eleanor leads her guests to her “little kitchen,” which is massive. A cook and three maids are hard at work. After everyone is seated, Eleanor explains to Rachel that she never got to enter her mother-in-law’s kitchen, and now she gets to watch her food being cooked and sit in her own kitchen. Rachel finds this charming—Eleanor clearly has never cooked, but she finds being in a kitchen novel. She tells Eleanor she can only dream of having a kitchen so beautiful, and Eleanor is privately certain Rachel plans to use Nick’s money to get a beautiful kitchen.
Subtly, Eleanor implies that she lives the way she does in part because, for at least some of her married life, Ah Ma—her mother-in-law—carefully controlled her. This is, perhaps, culturally normal, but even Eleanor acknowledges that it being normal doesn’t make it fun or easy to accept. And yet, she seems totally willing to behave just as controllingly when it comes to Nick and his future wife, who, if she has her way, won’t be Rachel.
Themes
The maids serve beautiful bowls of noodle soup to the table. As the conversation progresses, Rachel demonstrates to Eleanor and her friends that she genuinely does know how to cook, and she and Francesca continue to exchange subtle insults and warnings. When asked, Rachel shares that she’s an economics professor, but she’s shocked when Nadine asks what a college professor earns per year. Nick, though, explains that this is a normal question here. Rachel does say she’d take a job in Asia if the right one came along, to which Eleanor and her friends exchange meaningful looks. Following dinner, Astrid insists she needs to go home to put Cassian to bed (in reality, Cassian’s nanny texted that Michael is home), and Nick and Rachel decide to leave too.
Academia isn’t known for paying professors very well, especially if one is going by wealthy Singaporean standards. Nadine’s question thus feels particularly pointed, given that readers know Eleanor and her friends are out to chase Rachel off. Still, the question is also hypocritical and speaks to different standards for women seeking to marry into the family than for male family members. Nadine and Eleanor define Rachel by her profession and how much money she makes, while there’s no mention that Nick is also a professor. Because he’s a Young, his profession doesn’t matter, as he has his name and family fortune to support him.
Themes
Alone with her friends, Philip, and Francesca, Eleanor asks if everyone saw how Rachel was staring at everything and “adding everything up with her big bulging eyes” and her “little economist brain.” Philip notes that Eleanor decorated the way she did because she wants people to stare and says he thought Rachel was nice and beautiful, knowing this will bother Eleanor. As Philip excuses himself, Daisy agrees that Rachel is pretty. Francesca then claims that at the bachelorette, Rachel tastelessly chose the most expensive dresses at the boutique and spent all day taking classes at the spa, clearly to abuse Araminta’s generosity and avoid everyone. She also said Nick was “a TOTAL catch.” Eleanor, feeling calm and in control, says they should just let the wedding weekend unfold—Rachel might not make it through the weekend.
Eleanor negatively defines Rachel by her job—that is, she suggests that because Rachel is an economist, she must know (and care) what everything in Eleanor’s apartment costs and be interested in calculating its value. This couldn’t be farther from the truth, though: Rachel was awed by the wealth on display, to be sure, but she has no idea what anything cost. The fact that readers know Rachel gravitated to the dresses she did during the bachelorette shopping spree because she thought they were simpler (and thus less expensive) confirms this. Francesca, however, continues to willfully misinterpret Rachel’s behavior to cast her in a negative light: Rachel was avoiding everyone at the bachelorette no doubt because everyone was awful to her.
Themes
