Crazy Ripe Bananas

It's that golden hour again on Monday for me to blog. And as always on the first working day of the week, it is my vegetarian day. I'm having some simple pasta at this quiet cafe here at the Empire Shopping Centre, Subang Jaya as I type these lines.

Now, what shall be the topic today? Guess what, I'm going to write about a movie I happened to watch last Saturday--the one that's getting all the press worldwide lately - Crazy Rich Asians.

The movie is getting all the limelight and rightly so because it is the first rom com with an all-Asian cast from Hollywood, not to mention being the first all-Asian major studio production since the famous Joy Luck Club 2 decades ago.

I had enjoyed the Joy Luck Club, based on Amy Tan's best-selling novel when it first came out. Crazy Rich Asians is also based on a best-selling novel by a Singaporean American, Kevin Kwan. I had ignored the novel, when it first hit the stores because I thought it was a story about the nouveau riche of mainland Chinese. In any case, I don't read popular bestsellers by new writers very much, as my reading list is already filled with must-read books by established (usually dead) authors.

By chance, through casual reading of some interviews with the cast of CRA that I recently found out that the novel can't be simply be dismissed as another pop trash. It is actually a satire focusing on the lifestyle and intrigues of a rich Peranakan Chinese clan in Singapore. They are not only old money rich, they are crazy rich.

That kind of stirred my interest--I can actually learn something from this. Even though it is fiction, the book is based on Kevin Kwan's childhood experience growing up in a similarly rich family in Singapore. I think he introduced something unique to the Western reading public--a glimpse into the world of the Anglicized Chinese in South East Asia.

The interesting thing about these families is that, though they are educated in the best boarding schools and universities in West, they are subconsciously ruled by the values and traditions of their Chinese heritage. They are at once, the outcasts and the outstanding members of the community. Looked down by some as bananas ("yellow on the outside, white on the inside"), envied by others as cosmopolitan Asians, at ease with the West.

The movie is actually an uproariously funny romp of romantic comedy. I enjoyed it thoroughly. More so because it was partly shot in Malaysia, with our very own Michelle Yeoh playing the pivotal role of the tiger mum of this clan and the dashing half-Iban Henry Golding as her son who is bringing his ABC girlfriend, Rachel (played by Constance Wu) on a trip back to Asia to meet his family. The plot, like all movies of this genre, is full of cliches but is thoroughly redeemed by its clever use of them.

One can see why this movie means so much to the Asians in America. The immigrant Chinese community in the West have always struggled with their identity. Stereotyped and often having to live with the token representation of the Chinese/Japanese/Korean member of a movie cast, they are finally represented as they truly are--smart, confident, with a life and identity of their own.

The movie, as expected has stirred debates among Asians as to whether it is a true representation of their community or is simply pandering to Hollywood ideals of glamour and success. One can see from the sheer emotional connection that many of them feel with the movie that it says something that has never been said before, about a community that has a rightful place in the world.

Some Asians in Asia will find all the fuss about this movie rather perplexing, especially those who have been educated and brought up in their native languages (What identity crisis?). There have been equally big movies with even bigger stars playing to less niche markets in the East.

That is true, but this is Hollywood: the time is finally ripe for bananas to have their day in the sun, and deservedly so. I think Kevin Kwan's trilogy too has earned a place in my already packed reading list.