SINGAPORE – Dressed as if he'd robbed an old socialite, and with his habit of reciting the prices of his possessions, David Yong seemed a little surreal at first.
Just when you think you understand the audacity of this guy, he He carries a black American Express card in a sort of spring-loaded holster worthy of Batman, ready to pull out and use it as a conversation starter for waiters, real estate agents, or anyone else.
For Yong, the card is less a means of payment and more a signal: “I'm richer than you.”
Of all the wealthy people they could have chosen to represent Singapore, did they choose this person?
We've all encountered anxious people, but Mr Yong must be the head of that society. It must be exhausting to be him, worrying at every social occasion that he'll be mistaken for a peasant rather than part of what Mr Yong calls “Singapore's top one percent.”
But this is reality TV. The six-episode Netflix series “Super Rich in Korea,” which premiered on May 7, depicts a group of mostly non-Korean people who have settled in South Korea and, if you can believe what they say, love the country dearly.
Among them is Yeung, a Singaporean who's here to bring Southeast Asian talent to Seoul, the K-pop capital of the world. He comes from a wealthy family; in published articles, he's often referred to as the “Scion of Wood,” a reference to his family's wealth before the discovery of fire, much like the “Tin King” and “Copper King.”
If there's one thing we've learned about reality TV, it's that they lie. Producers create good guys and bad guys. They favor participants who can provoke, incite and, as this column has shown, spark conversation.
Who knows what questions producers asked Yeung to induce him to say, “I'm in the top 1%.” And was he asked to wear an asteroid-sized Chanel brooch on his blind date, or was he free to do so?
But as we see in the scene where he's shopping, the more flashy the clothes he wears, the bigger his eyes get, so it's clear he likes flashy accessories. To him, “quiet luxury” is a trend like holy water to vampires.
Yeon is certainly a clumsy man, but it is his clumsiness that makes him so lovable.
In the blind date scene, he's clearly struggling, as his businessman friend Theo, the embodiment of Italian slickness, shows off his specialty: while the two women at the table are romancing in the Tuscan sun, Yong looks on helplessly, like a tourist, as the locals chatter away merrily in a language he can't understand.
As a Singaporean man, I can empathize with his predicament — this dating scenario perfectly illustrates common female complaints that Singaporean men are less romantic, more passive and generally less socially inclined than their foreign counterparts.
