China Rich Girlfriend

by Kevin Kwan

  Another high-ranking official I spoke to, Lt. Col. Naveen Sinha, says, “I can’t tell you exactly what he did, because that’s classified information. But let’s just say that Michael Teo has been instrumental in helping to bolster our intelligence capabilities. We were sorry to see him go.”

  What led Teo to leave a promising career with MINDEF to go into the private sector? “Love. I fell for a beautiful woman, got married, and decided that I needed to start acting like a married man—all the constant travel visiting army bases around the world and working through the night was no longer for me. Plus, I needed to build my own empire for the sake of my son and my wife,” Teo says, his piercing hawk-like eyes flickering with emotion.

  When I quiz him about his wife, he remains somewhat evasive. “She prefers to stay out of the limelight.” Spying a black-and-white portrait of a stunning woman in his bedroom, I ask, “Is that her?” “Yes, but that was taken quite a few years ago,” he says. I take a closer look and discover that the photograph is signed “To Astrid—who still eludes me, Dick.” “Who’s ‘Dick,’ ” I ask? “It’s actually some photographer named Richard Burton who died awhile back,” Michael says. Wait a minute, was this picture taken by the legendary fashion photographer Richard Avedon? “Oh yeah, that’s his name.”

  Intrigued by this astonishing tidbit, I went sleuthing into Astrid Teo’s past. Was she a high-fashion model in New York? As it turns out, Astrid is not just another pretty Methodist Girls School girl who married well and became a pampered housewife. Pinnacle can now reveal that she is the only daughter of Henry and Felicity Leong—names that are quite meaningless to most readers of this magazine, but who are apparently influential in their own right.

  An expert on Southeast Asian lineage (who wished to remain unnamed) says, “You won’t ever find the Leongs on any list because they are far too smart and far too discreet to be visible. They are an exceedingly private Straits Chinese family that goes back generations and has diversified holdings all over Asia—raw materials, commodities, real estate, that sort of thing. Their wealth is vast—Astrid’s great-grandfather S. W. Leong used to be called ‘the Palm Oil King of Borneo.’ If Singapore had an aristocracy, Astrid would be considered a princess.”

  Another grande dame of Singapore’s old-money crowd who will only talk off the record tells me, “It’s not just her Leong blood that makes her important. Astrid is loaded on both sides. Her mother is Felicity Young, and let me just tell you, the Youngs make everybody else look like paupers, because they intermarried with the T’siens and the Shangs. Alamak, I’ve already told you too much.”

  Can this mysteriously powerful family be responsible for Teo’s meteoric success? “Absolutely not!” Teo says angrily. Then, catching himself, he breaks into a laugh. “Originally, I was the one who married up, I’ll admit that. But nowadays I fit in very well with her family specifically because I never asked for their help—I was determined to succeed entirely on my own.”

  And succeed he has—by now everyone knows how Teo’s fledgling tech firm was suddenly acquired by a Silicon Valley company in 2010, increasing his net worth by several hundred million dollars. While most men might have been content to spend the rest of their lives staring out at the ocean view from one of Annabel Lee’s luxury resorts, Teo doubled down and started his own tech-focused venture capital firm.

  “I had no interest in retiring at thirty-three. I felt like I had been handed this golden opportunity, and I didn’t want to take it for granted. There is so much talent and ingenuity right here in Singapore, and I wanted to find Asia’s next generation of Sergey Brins and provide them with the wings to fly,” Teo says. So far, his bets haven’t just soared like eagles, they’ve rocketed to the moon. His apps Gong Simi? and Ziak Simi? have revolutionised the way Singaporeans communicate and argue about food, and several of the start-ups he has funded have been acquired by behemoths like Google, Alibaba Group, and Tencent. The Heron Wealth Report estimates that Teo is now worth close to a billion dollars—not bad for a thirty-six-year-old who shared a bedroom with two of his brothers until he went to college.

  So how does a man like Teo enjoy the spoils of his fortune? For starters, there is the contemporary villa in Bukit Timah that anyone driving past could easily mistake for an Aman Resort. Built around several reflecting pools and Mediterranean-style gardens, the sprawling house is already getting a bit cramped for Teo’s growing collection of war artifacts and sports cars. “We are in the process of building a new home, and have been interviewing prospective architects like Renzo Piano and Jean Nouvel. We really want something revolutionary, a home like nothing Singapore’s ever seen.”

  Until then, Teo takes me on a tour of his exclusive booty. On the ground-floor gallery, samurai swords from the Edo period and a massive canon from the Napoleonic War are displayed alongside his sparklingly restored Porsches, Ferraris, and Aston Martins. “I’m taking my time, but I hope to amass the finest collection of vintage sports cars outside the Western Hemisphere. See this 1963 Ferrari Modena Spyder over here?” Teo says, as he rubs the chrome work lovingly with his index finger. “This is the actual Ferrari that Ferris Bueller drove on his day off.”

  And just home from kindergarten is Teo’s adorable son, Cassian, who enters the room doing a series of cartwheels. Teo grabs him by the collar of his shirt and lifts the boy into his arms. “All these things I possess, though, are nothing to me without this little rascal here.” Cassian, a high-spirited boy who has inherited his parents’ extraordinary looks, will turn six later this year, and Teo is determined to pass on the secrets of his success to his son. “I’m a true believer in the adage ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’ I think kids need a great deal of discipline, and they need to be trained to function at their highest level. For example, my son is exceedingly smart, and I don’t feel that he’s being challenged at his kindergarten, and this will be very bold of me to say, but I don’t think he’ll be challenged at any primary school in Singapore either.”

  So does that mean that the Teos plan to send their child abroad to a boarding school at such an early age? “We haven’t made up our minds yet, but we think we’ll either send him to Gordonstoun in Scotland [the alma mater of both Prince Philip and Prince Charles] or Le Rosey in Switzerland. For my son, nothing is more important than the best education that money can buy—I want him to go to school with future kings and world leaders, people who really shake up the world,” he fervently declares. Michael Teo is undoubtedly one of these people, and with such a dedicated vision and love for his son, it’s no wonder he is Pinnacle’s Father of the Year!

  • • •

  Rushing home from the airport, Astrid entered the front door and saw Michael standing on a ladder, adjusting the spotlight that was shining on his marble bust of the Emperor Nero.

  “Jesus, Michael! What have you done?” she said angrily.

  “Well hello to you too, honey.”

  Astrid held up the magazine. “When did you do this interview?”

  “Oh—it’s out already!” Michael said excitedly.

  “Damn right it’s out! I can’t believe you let this happen.”

  “I didn’t let it happen, I made it happen. We did the photo shoot while you were at Nick’s wedding in California. You know, it was supposed to be Ang Peng Siong and his son on the cover, but they yanked it at the last minute in favor of me. My new publicist, Angelina Chio-Lee at SPG Strategies, engineered that. What do you think of the pictures?”

  “They are absolutely ridiculous.”

  “You don’t have to be such a bitch about it, just because you weren’t in them,” Michael suddenly snapped.

  “Jesus, do you think that’s what I’m upset about? Have you even read the article?”

  “No—how could I? It just came out. But don’t worry, I took extra care not to say anything about you or your crazy paranoid family.”

  “You didn’t have to—you let the writer into our house! Into our bedroom! She found things out for herself!
”

  “Stop being so hysterical. Can’t you see that this is good for me? That this will be good for our family?”

  “I’m not sure you’ll think that after you’ve read it. Well, you’ll have to reckon with my father when he gets wind of this, not me.”

  “Your father! Everything’s always about your father,” Michael grumbled as he fiddled with the screw on the light.

  “He is going to be furious when he sees this. More than you can possibly ever imagine,” Astrid said ominously.

  Michael shook his head in disappointment as he came off the ladder. “And to think, this was supposed to be a present to you.”

  “A present to me?” Astrid struggled to grasp the logic behind this.

  “Cassian was so excited about the photo shoot, he was so looking forward to surprising you.”

  “Oh believe me, I’m surprised.”

  “You know what’s surprising me? You’ve been away for almost a week, but you seem to care much more about this magazine article than seeing your own son.”

  Astrid stared at him incredulously. “Are you actually trying to make me the bad person here?”

  “Actions speak louder than words. You’re still standing here ranting at me, while upstairs there’s a child who’s been waiting all night for his mother to come home.”

  Astrid left the room without another word and headed upstairs.

  3

  JINXIAN LU

  SHANGHAI

  A couple of hours after returning to Shanghai from their Paris trip, Carlton called Rachel at the Peninsula Hotel. “All settled in?”

  “Yes, but now I’m jet-lagged all over again. Nick, of course, put his head on the pillow and immediately started snoring. It’s so unfair.” Rachel sighed.

  “Er…think Nick would mind if I took you out to dinner? Just the two of us?” Carlton asked timidly.

  “Of course not! Even if he wasn’t dead to the world for the next ten hours, he wouldn’t mind.”

  That evening, Carlton drove Rachel (this time in a very sensible Mercedes G-Wagen) to Jinxian Lu, a narrow street lined with old shophouses in the French Concession. “Here’s the restaurant, but where to park—that is the question,” Carlton muttered. Rachel glanced at the modest storefront with pleated white curtains and noticed a row of luxury vehicles parked outside. They found a space halfway down the block and walked leisurely toward the restaurant, passing a few enticingly quaint bars, antique shops, and trendy boutiques along the way.

  Arriving at their dining spot, Rachel discovered a tiny space with only five tables. It was a fluorescent-lit room completely devoid of decor save for a plastic rotating desk fan bolted to the dingy white wall, but it was packed with a decidedly posh crowd. “Looks like quite the foodie destination,” Rachel commented, eyeing an expensively dressed couple dining with two small kids still in their gray-and-white private-school uniforms, while at a table by the door sat two hipster Germans in their regulation plaids, wielding chopsticks as expertly as any locals.

  A waiter in a white singlet and black trousers approached them. “Mr. Fung?” he asked Carlton in Mandarin.

  “No, Bao—two people at seven thirty,” Carlton answered. The man nodded and gestured for them to enter. They navigated their way to the back of the room, where a woman with dripping-wet hands pointed toward a doorway. “Up the stairs! Don’t be shy!” she said. Rachel soon found herself climbing an extremely narrow, steep staircase whose wooden steps were so worn that they dipped in the center. Halfway up, she passed a small landing that had been converted into a cooking space. Two women crouched in front of sizzling woks, filling the whole staircase with a tantalizing smoky aroma.

  At the top of the stairs was a room with a bed against one wall and a dresser piled high with neatly folded clothes on the opposite side. A small table had been placed in front of the bed along with a couple of chairs, and a small television set buzzed in the corner. “Are we actually eating in someone’s bedroom?” Rachel asked in astonishment.

  Carlton grinned. “I was hoping we’d get to eat up here—it’s considered the best table in the house. Is it okay with you?”

  “Are you kidding? This is the coolest restaurant I think I’ve ever been in!” Rachel said excitedly, looking out the window at the line of hanging laundry that stretched across to the other side of the street.

  “This place is the definition of ‘hole-in-the-wall,’ but they are famous for preparing some of the most authentic home-style Shanghainese food in the city. There’s no menu—they just bring you whatever they’re cooking today, and everything’s always in season and very fresh,” Carlton explained.

  “After our week in Paris, this is such a welcome change.”

  “You take the place of honor on the bed,” Carlton offered. Rachel gleefully made herself comfortable on the mattress—it felt so strange and a little naughty to be eating on someone’s bed.

  Soon two women entered the bedroom-cum-dining room and started placing a multitude of steaming-hot dishes onto the Formica table. Arrayed before them was hongshao rou—thick slices of fatty pork in a sweet marinade with green peppers; jiang ya—braised duck leg covered in thick, sweetened soy sauce; jiuyang caotou—seasonal vegetables stir-fried in fragrant wine; ganshao changyu—deep-fried whole pomfret; and yandu xian—a typical Shanghainese soup of bamboo shoots, pressed tofu, salted ham, and fresh pork.

  “Sweet Jesus! How are we going to finish all this by ourselves?” Rachel laughed.

  “Trust me, the food here is so good you’ll be eating more than you normally would.”

  “Uh, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “We can wrap up whatever we don’t finish and Nick can enjoy a late-night snack,” Carlton suggested.

  “He’s gonna love that.”

  After clinking their bottles of ice-cold Tsingtao beer, they dove into the dishes without any ceremony, savoring the food in silence for the first few minutes.

  After his first round of sweet fatty pork, Carlton looked earnestly at Rachel and said, “I wanted to take you to dinner tonight because I owe you an apology.”

  “I understand. But you already apologized.”

  “No, I didn’t. Not properly, anyway. I’ve been thinking about it nonstop, and I still feel horrible about what happened in Paris. Thank you for stepping in and doing what you did. It was rather stupid of me to think I could ever race Richie in the condition I was in.”

  “I’m glad you see that.”

  “I’m also sorry for everything I said to you. I was just so shocked—ashamed, really—that you found out about London, but it was bloody unfair of me to lash out at you like that. I wish I could take it all back.”

  Rachel was silent for a moment. “I’m actually very grateful for what you told me. It’s given me some insight into a situation that’s been puzzling me since we arrived.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “Look, I think I understand the position I’ve put your father in. I truly am sorry if I’ve caused your family any trouble. Especially your mother. I see now that it must be very hard on her—this whole situation is just something none of us could ever have prepared for. I really hope she doesn’t hate me for coming to China.”

  “She doesn’t hate you—she doesn’t know you. Mum’s just had a tough year with my accident and all. Finding out about you—discovering this side of my father’s past—has just compounded that stress. She’s someone who’s used to a very orderly way of life, and she’s spent so many years planning things out perfectly. Like the company. And Dad’s career. She really has been the force behind his political rise, and now she’s trying to propel my future as well. My accident was a huge setback in her eyes, and she’s so afraid that any more scratches to that façade will destroy everything she’s planned for me.”

  “But what has she planned for you? Does she want you to get into politics too?”

  “Ultimately, yes.”

  “But is that even something you want?”

  Carlton s
ighed. “I don’t know what I want.”

  “That’s okay. You have time to figure it out.”

  “Do I? Because sometimes I feel like everyone my age is ahead of the game and I’m just totally fucked. I thought I knew what I wanted, but then the accident changed everything. What were you doing when you were twenty-three?”

  Rachel thought about it as she drank some of the pork and bamboo soup. She closed her eyes, momentarily transported by the subtle flavors.

  “Good, isn’t it? They’re famous for this soup,” Carlton said.

  “It’s amazing. I think I could drink the whole pot!” Rachel exclaimed.

  “Go right ahead.”

  Collecting herself, Rachel continued, “When I was twenty-three, I was in Chicago going to grad school at Northwestern. And I spent half the year in Ghana.”

  “You were in Africa?”

  “Yep. Doing field research for my dissertation about microlending.”

  “Brilliant! I’ve always dreamed of going to this place in Namibia called the Skeleton Coast.”

  “You should talk to Nick—he’s been there.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah—he went with his best friend Colin when he was living in England. They used to travel to all these extremely hard-to-get-to places. Nick used to have quite the life before he met me and settled down.”

  “You guys seem to have quite the life now,” Carlton said wistfully.

  “You can have any type of life you want, Carlton.”

  “I don’t know about that. You haven’t met my mother. But you know what? You will soon. I’m going to have a talk with Dad—he needs to stand up to her and end this idiotic blockade that she’s imposed. Once she meets you, once you are no longer this mysterious entity to her, she’ll see you for who you are. And she’ll come to appreciate you, I just know it.”