Rich People Problems-Kwan 2017 (WWT)

me. I want you to have your wedding just as you planned in March. Will you promise me
you’ll do that?”
“Oh Ah Ma, nothing’s going to happen. You’re go…going to be sitting in the front row of
my wedding,” Astrid stammered.
“I’m planning on it, but I wanted to say this just in case.”
Astrid looked away, trying to hold back her tears. She sat there holding her
grandmother’s hand for a few quiet moments, before she said, “Ah Ma, you know who’s
back in Singapore to see you? Nicky.”
“Nicky’s home?”
“Yes, he’s here. In fact he’s right outside. Do you want to see him now?”
“Send him in. I thought he was going to be here last week.”
Astrid got up from her chair and was about to head for the dressing room when her
grandmother said, “Wait a minute.”
Astrid stopped in her tracks and turned around. “Yes?”
“Is his wife here as well?” Su Yi asked.
“No, it’s just him.” Astrid paused for a second, anticipating another question from her
grandmother. But Su Yi was now fidgeting with the bed controls, raising the incline of her
bed to the exact angle she wanted. Astrid proceeded to the balcony, where she found Nick
sitting pensively at the wrought-iron table.
“Is she awake?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“How is she?”
“She’s okay. A lot better than I was expecting, actually. Come on, your turn.”
“Um…she really wants to see me?” Nick asked trepidatiously.
Astrid smiled at her cousin. For a moment he looked like he was six years old again.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course. She’s ready for you now.”
*1 Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015, the Singapore Botanic Gardens is cherished by locals in the same
way Central Park is by New Yorkers or Hyde Park is by Londoners. A verdant oasis in the middle of the island filled
with amazing botanical specimens, colonial-era pavilions, and one of the most amazing orchid collections on the
planet, it’s no wonder that so many Singaporeans want to have a tiny bit of their ashes scattered here. In secret, of
course, since it’s highly illegal. (No one escapes the law in Singapore, not even the dead.)
*2 If you read China Rich Girlfriend, you’d already know what a pontianak is. But just in case you haven’t (and why the
hell haven’t you?), allow Dr. Sandi Tan, the world’s foremost pontianakologist, to elucidate you: “A tropical female
vampire-slash-dryad combo, often assuming the form of a comely, sarong-draped maiden, who inhabits the darker
corners of the Southeast Asian jungle. Her metamorphosis into her true form will reveal: putrefying gray flesh, mucho
teeth, many claws, accompanying unpleasant odors. Her traditional prey is the unborn fetus of a pregnant woman,
consumed in situ, though during severe hunger pangs, any living person—even flatulent, stringy grandpas—would
suffice. She can be summoned by tying a white string between two adjacent banana trees and intoning a chant of your
own choosing, but she is more than capable of being an independent operator. Must not be confused with her
inelegant country cousins, also female bloodsuckers, the penanggalan (bodiless flying she-demon with long, unwashed
hair and a meaty chandelier of entrails) and the pelesit (an all-purpose slave, horrendously and pathetically devoted to