Rich People Problems-Kwan 2017 (WWT)

her? They were nowhere to be found. Instead, the feature article was a ten-page spread
dedicated to pictures of Colette and Lucien’s visit to a conservation center in Indonesia.
There were photos of Colette hosting a tea party for a family of orangutans at a wroughtiron
table by the edge of a river, Colette trekking through the rain forest with a group of
primatologists, and Colette cradling a baby orangutan.
By this point, Kitty’s lounger had drifted to the middle of the pool, and she screeched at
the maid, “Get me my phone!”
Kitty jabbed at her phone angrily, calling Oliver T’sien. It rang a few times before he
picked up.
“Ollie’s Psychic Hotline,” he answered jokingly.
“Have you seen the latest Tattle yet?” Kitty said, her voice shaking with fury.
“No. Did it come out today? I’m in Hong Kong this week, so I haven’t seen it yet.
Congratulations! How does it look?”
“Congratulations? Go look at the magazine and tell me how I fucking look on the
cover!” Kitty screamed, before hanging up.
God, what now? Oliver thought to himself. Did they end up going with a photo that was
slightly less flattering to her surgically sculpted nose? There was no way he would find a
copy of the magazine in Hong Kong, but maybe the issue was already online. He went to
his browser and logged on to Tattle.com.sg. Within seconds, the page loaded, and the
cover of Tattle popped up.
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Oliver cursed, as he began to scan through the story.
ECO WARRIOR PRINCESS: AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH
COLETTE, THE COUNTESS OF PALLISER
The Countess of Palliser enters the garden of the British embassy in Singapore with no pomp or
circumstance, no personal assistant or PR handler in sight. She shakes my hand and immediately
starts fretting that I’m seated in the sun. Am I too hot? Would I like to swap seats? Has no one brought
me a drink?
This was not the woman I was expecting to meet. The former Colette Bing, once China’s most
influential fashion blogger—with over 55 million followers—is today sitting before me in a simple yet
lovely floral dress with not a dab of makeup on her face or any jewelry except for a simple wedding band
of Welsh gold. I ask her who designed her dress and she laughs. “This is a Laura Ashley dress that I got
out of a bin at an Oxfam thrift shop in the village near where I live.”
It’s the first hint that as ordinary as the Countess’s life seems to be, things are not all that ordinary.
The village she is referring to is Barchester, perhaps one of the most charming in all of England, and
home for the Countess and her husband, Lucien Montagu-Scott, the Earl of Palliser, is a charming old
vicarage with 10 bedrooms tucked away at Gatherum Castle, the 35,000-acre Barsetshire estate of her
father-in-law, the Duke of Glencora.
I’ve heard rumors that the interior designer Henrietta Spencer-Churchill, of the Blenheim Palace
Spencer-Churchills, has been busy transforming the cottage into an elysian paradise, but when I try to
ask the Countess about it, she simply says that the house is being refurbished and redirects me to the
matter at hand. “My life is not that interesting. Let’s talk about Indonesia,” she says with an effervescent
smile.