Tyersall Park symbolizes the epitome of wealth and power in Singapore’s ultrawealthy social circle. While detached, single-family houses are rare enough in Singapore, Tyersall Park is a mansion built on a lot that’s dozens of acres in the heart of the city. The house and property, as many characters note, are certainly close to priceless, highlighting how wealthy and powerful its sole owner, Nick’s Ah Ma, is. Its various features, from its expensive antique and modern furnishings to the Gurkha guards (highly-trained soldiers) who patrol the grounds, add to the impression that nothing is too costly for Ah Ma and that her wealth is bottomless. However mind-boggling Tyersall Park is in terms of money, though, even that seems to pale in comparison to what it connotes in terms of power: nobody outside of Singapore’s top social circle has even heard of the estate or of the Young family, and the vast estate doesn’t even show up on Google Earth. The implication is that the family doesn’t want the estate to show up on the publicly-accessible internet, and so they no doubt used their wealth and influence to keep Tyersall Park off the internet. The Young family is wealthy enough, in other words, to dictate exactly how—and if—others encounter them.
Tyersall Park Quotes in Crazy Rich Asians
His father had come to Singapore as a fourteen-year-old laborer and built a construction business out of sheer sweat and tenacity, and as their family business blossomed over the decades into a far-flung empire, Wye Mun thought that he had leveled the playing field. Singapore was a meritocracy, and whoever performed well was invited into the winner’s circle. But those people—those people behind the gates were a sudden reminder that this was not entirely the case.
“Isn’t it fun?” Eleanor said merrily. She looked at Rachel and said, “I was never allowed to set foot in the kitchen at my mother-in-law’s house. Now I get to eat in my own kitchen, and actually watch the food being cooked!” Rachel smiled in amusement—here was a woman who obviously had never cooked a meal in her life but seemed to relish the novelty of being inside a kitchen.
“Well, I love to cook. I can only dream of one day having a kitchen as beautiful as yours, Mrs. Young,” Rachel said.
Eleanor smiled graciously. I’m sure you can—with my son’s money.
“You said the same thing six years ago when you wanted to remain in England after your studies. And now you’re in America. What’s next, Australia, like your father? It was a mistake to send you abroad in the first place. You have become far too seduced by Western ways.” Rachel couldn’t help noting the irony in what Nick’s grandmother was saying. She looked and sounded like a Chinese woman in the most traditional sense, and yet here they were in a walled garden straight out of the Loire Valley having English afternoon tea.
“You’re telling me one thing, but then I hear other people speaking as if the entire economy of Asia revolves around your family, and you’re, like, the heir to the throne. I’m an economist, for crying out loud, and if I’m going to be accused of being a gold digger, I’d like to know what I’m supposedly digging for,” Rachel said bluntly.
“I know my mother-in-law never truly approved of me, so I even got out of the way. I moved out of Tyersall Park so there wouldn’t be two competing Mrs. Youngs. I always let her come first in Nicky’s life, and because of this he’s been closer to her. But I accepted that. It was for his own good. He deserves to be the heir to her fortune, the heir to Tyersall Park, but he no longer seems to care. He would rather be a bloody English professor. Hiyah, I always knew sending him to England would be a mistake.”
Tyersall Park Symbol Timeline in Crazy Rich Asians
