Crazy Rich Angelenos

Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians gets to know some of L.A’s most stylish global transplants.

- Kevin Kwan

“Los Angeles is a cultural wasteland.”

“All anyone talks about is the traffic.” “No one in L.A. has any style. You go out to a nice restaurant and the women are dressed in shorts and the men are wearing flip-flops.”

These are all real quotes I’ve heard from New Yorkers, and having lived in Manhattan for almost half my life, I once agreed. But all that changed last year after Crazy Rich Asians, the film adapted from my novel, became the highest-grossing romantic comedy in a decade. As I began working on new film and TV projects, like writing and producing the pilot for a sitcom titled The Emperor of Malibu, I found myself spending more and more time in La La Land. By the time I was dragging four suitcases out of an Uber last October, it finally hit me: “Oh I guess I live here now.” But the bigger epiphany was realizing just how much I loved my new life and how different it was than I expected.