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
Nicholas Young and his cousin, Astrid Leong, shiver in the hotel lobby—they had to walk nine blocks from the tube station in the rain after a 16-hour flight from Singapore, all because Astrid’s mother, Felicity, thinks it’s a sin to take a taxi that distance. The hotel manager, Reginald Ormsby, is aghast: the two Chinese children are staining the settee they’re sitting on, a teenager is smearing mud on the marble tile, and three Chinese women are with the kids. Since he’s excellent at “dispatch[ing…] foreigners,” he heads downstairs and in loud, slow English, asks for the women’s reservation. He’s shocked when one woman, in perfect English, says the reservation is for Eleanor Young. The Youngs booked the Lancaster Suite, but they’re Chinese—what will the other esteemed guests say at breakfast tomorrow when they see “these folk?”
It’s evident from this opening scene that Eleanor Young’s party is wealthy despite the fact that they chose not to take a taxi from the tube station—after all, they’ve booked a suite in what appears to be a pretty fancy hotel. Further, Eleanor’s perfect English suggests she was educated in English. Ormsby, however, seems to believe that Chinese people can’t be rich or educated, and so he reasons they don’t belong in his exclusive hotel. Note too that he seems to expect that other guests will feel the same way, hence his worrying what “esteemed” guests will think of “these folk.”
Themes
Ormsby says there’s no reservation for an Eleanor Young, though he can see she booked the Lancaster Suite. Confused, Felicity leans over the counter and points to Eleanor’s name in the reservations book. Ormsby snaps at her and suggests the group stay in Chinatown. Felicity hasn’t encountered this kind of racism since she was a child. She and Eleanor return to where her sister, Alexandra Cheng, is waiting with the luggage. Moments later, Alexandra’s teenage son, Eddie, saunters in with a soda that he charged to the room tab. Felicity frowns; Eddie is so entitled, and it’s good he’s going to boarding school, where he’ll have to take cold showers and eat stale toast. Eleanor is privately angry her sisters are so miserly and poorly dressed—this man would treat them better if they didn’t look so bedraggled.
Immediately, it becomes clear to the Young party that Ormsby is being racist and cruel. As far as Eleanor is concerned, they’ve brought this on themselves to some degree by not taxiing here; now they look wet and unkempt, instead of like the wealthy family they seem to actually be. Eddie’s soda suggests that not everyone at the hotel is as racist as Ormsby, as the bartender clearly believed Eddie was staying in the Lancaster Suite. Felicity’s hope that Eddie’s entitlement will decrease after time at an English boarding school, however, is somewhat laughable: English boarding schools are known more for being exclusive and offering quality educations, not tormenting their students with cold showers.
Themes
While the women decide what to do, Eddie pretends to be a chairman while Nick, his vice president, holds his soda and Astrid, the secretary, is supposed to rub his shoulders. The younger kids argue, but Eddie says his best friend Leo’s dad, the third-richest man in Hong Kong, works like this. Eddie knocks the soda glass out of Nick’s hand, spilling it all over the floor. Ormsby approaches Eleanor and Felicity and asks them to leave the hotel. Felicity calls other hotels at a payphone and finally calls her husband, Harry Leong. He’s enraged and tells her she’s too polite, but he remembers that he’s played golf before with the hotel’s owner, Rupert Calthorpe. He hangs up to call Rupert.
It’s telling that the kids are playing at being in a high-powered office rather than, say, playing house or a more fantastical game. Eddie is aware that rich adults in his social circle in Hong Kong work this way, showing just how rich Eddie’s circle is. That Harry Leong has golfed with this hotel’s owner—and that he and Rupert seem to be on a first-name basis—highlights how connected other family members are.
Themes
Less than an hour later, the children return to the hotel lobby. Ormsby is enraged and approaches, yelling—until Lord Rupert Calthorpe-Cavendish-Gore shows the Chinese women into the lobby, pointing out the architectural features. Then, addressing Ormsby and calling him Wormsby, Lord Rupert dismissively says that he’s sold the hotel to Miss Felicity Leong and her husband Harry, who’s an excellent golfer. The lord invites the women and children to the bar for a toast, and Felicity fires Ormsby.
It took Harry less than an hour to purchase an entire hotel. This drives home how wealthy he is—he is, it seems, one of the titular “crazy rich Asians” for whom purchasing a hotel is easy and thoughtless. But while this is played for laughs, it’s also worth noting that Harry buys the hotel to show up Ormsby for being racist. The wealth can help equalize things, in other words, but it doesn’t totally insulate Asian characters from racism.
Themes
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