My Daddy’s Rich and My Lamborghini’s Good-Looking

[originalhypa]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/wo...alth.html?_r=0

Chinese Scions’ Song: My Daddy’s Rich and My Lamborghini’s Good-Looking

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Andy Guo, an 18-year-old Chinese immigrant, loves driving his red Lamborghini Huracán. He does not love having to share the car with his twin brother, Anky.

“There’s a lot of conflict,” Mr. Guo said, as a crowd of admirers gazed at the vehicle and its vanity license plate, “CTGRY 5,” short for the most catastrophic type of hurricane.

The 360,000-Canadian-dollar car was a gift last year from their father, who travels back and forth between Vancouver and China’s northern Shanxi Province and made his fortune in coal, said Mr. Guo, an economics major at the University of British Columbia.

The car is more fashion than function. “I have a backpack, textbooks and laundry, but I can’t fit everything inside,” he lamented. And that is not the worst of it. “A cop once pulled me over just to look at the car,” he said.

China’s rapid economic rise has turned peasants into billionaires. Many wealthy Chinese are increasingly eager to stow their families, and their riches, in the West, where rule of law, clean air and good schools offer peace of mind, especially for those looking to escape scrutiny from the Communist Party and an anti-corruption campaign that has sent hundreds of the rich and powerful to jail.

With its relatively weak currency and welcoming immigration policies, Canada has become a top destination for China’s 1 percenters. According to government figures, from 2005 to 2012, at least 37,000 Chinese millionaires took advantage of a now-defunct immigrant investor program to become permanent residents of British Columbia, the province that includes Vancouver.

The metropolitan area of 2.3 million is home to increasing numbers of ethnic-Chinese residents, who made up more than 18 percent of the population in 2011, up from less than 7 percent in 1981, according to government figures.
Continue reading the main story
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Many residents say the flood of Chinese capital has caused an affordable housing crisis. Vancouver is the most expensive city in Canada to buy a home, according to a 2016 survey by the consulting firm Demographia. The average price of a detached house in greater Vancouver more than doubled from 2005 to 2015, to about 1.6 million Canadian dollars ($1.2 million), according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

Residents angry about the rise of rich foreign real estate buyers and absentee owners, particularly from China, have begun protests on social media, including a #DontHave1Million Twitter campaign. The provincial government agreed this year to begin tracking foreign ownership of real estate in response to demands from local politicians.



The anger has had little effect on the gilded lives of Vancouver’s wealthy Chinese. Indeed, to the newcomers for whom money is no object, the next purchase after a house is usually a car, and then a few more.

A large number of luxury car dealerships here employ Chinese staff, a testament to the spending power of the city’s newest residents. In 2015, there were 2,500 cars worth more than $150,000 registered in metropolitan Vancouver, up from 1,300 in 2009, according to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

Many of Vancouver’s young supercar owners are known as fuerdai, a Mandarin expression, akin to trust-fund kids, that means “rich second generation.” In China, where the superrich are widely criticized as being corrupt and materialistic, the term provokes a mix of scorn and envy.

The fuerdai have brought their passion for extravagance to Vancouver. White Lamborghinis are popular among young Chinese women; the men often turn in their leased supercars after a few months for a newer, cooler status symbol.

Hundreds of young Chinese immigrants, along with a handful of Canadian-born Chinese, have started supercar clubs whose members come together to drive, modify and photograph their flashy vehicles, providing alluring eye candy for their followers on social media.

The Vancouver Dynamic Auto Club has 440 members, 90 percent of whom are from China, said the group’s 27-year-old founder, David Dai. To join, a member must have a car that costs over 100,000 Canadian dollars, or about $77,000. “They don’t work,” Mr. Dai said of Vancouver’s fuerdai. “They just spend their parents’ money.”

Occasionally, the need for speed hits a roadblock. In 2011, the police impounded a squadron of 13 Lamborghinis, Maseratis and other luxury cars, worth $2 million, for racing on a metropolitan Vancouver highway at 125 miles per hour. The drivers were members of a Chinese supercar club, and none were older than 21, according to news reports at the time.

On a recent evening, an overwhelmingly Chinese crowd of young adults had gathered at an invitation-only Rolls-Royce event to see a new black-and-red Dawn convertible, base price $402,000. It is the only such car in North America.

Among the curious was Jin Qiao, 20, a baby-faced art student who moved to Vancouver from Beijing six years ago with his mother. During the week, Mr. Jin drives one of two Mercedes-Benz S.U.V.s, which he said were better suited for the rigors of daily life.



But his most prized possession is a $600,000 Lamborghini Aventador Roadster Galaxy, its exterior custom wrapped to resemble outer space. Mr. Jin, a lanky design major who favors Fendi clothing and gold sneakers, extolled the virtues of exotic cars and was quick to dismiss those who criticized supercar aficionados as ostentatious. “There are so many rich people in Vancouver, so what’s the point of showing off?” he said.

Asked what his parents did for a living, Mr. Jin said his father was a successful businessman back in China but declined to provide details. “I can’t say,” he stammered with evident discomfort.

Because of high import and luxury taxes in China, supercars are often 50 percent cheaper in Canada. And in Canada, Chinese immigrants said, people are far less likely to question how they obtained their wealth.

“In Vancouver, there are lots of kids of corrupt Chinese officials,” said Shi Yi, 27, the owner of Luxury Motor, a car dealership that caters to affluent Chinese. “Here, they can flaunt their money.”

Some Chinese immigrants think a supercar is a poor investment, because its value decreases over time. “Better to spend half a million dollars on two expensive watches or some diamonds,” said Diana Wang, 23, a University of British Columbia graduate student who said she owned more than 30 Chanel bags and a $200,000 diamond-encrusted Richard Mille watch.

Ms. Wang, a star on the online reality show “Ultra Rich Asian Girls of Vancouver,” normally drives her parents’ Ferrari or Mercedes-Maybach when she visits them in Shanghai. But in Canada, her parents gave her a strict car budget of 150,000 Canadian dollars ($115,000), so she drives the less-flashy Audi RS5.

“I could be in danger if people saw me in a supercar,” she said, her Breguet watch, worth more than a BMW, glinting in the sunlight as she drove the Audi through town.

Four years ago, to learn the value of money after her friends criticized her spending habits, Ms. Wang spent three days on the streets of Vancouver, playing homeless. She said she had left her mansion with no phone, identification or wallet, wearing Victoria’s Secret pajamas and $1,000 Chanel shoes.

While in voluntary poverty, she lined up for donated food and felt the sting of humiliation after she was kicked out of a Tim Horton’s fast-food restaurant for falling asleep at a table. The experiment, she said, gave her a new appreciation for her parents’ financial support.

“Before that experience, I never looked at a price tag,” she said. “Now I do.”

[flagella]

Ok

[MarkyMark]

Well if she looks at a price tag now then that's all that really matters, she's pretty much blue-collar.

[jaretron]

Gross.

[dat_steve]

This is new and exciting.

[Armind]

What else is new?

[originalhypa]

Originally Posted by jaretron

Gross.

a thanks and a fail?

Bipolar much?

[320icar]

China’s rapid economic rise has turned peasants into billionaires.

Lol, I love this line.

[white rocket]

Pretended to be homeless for a bit? Now has appreciation for daddy's money? GET THE FUCK OUT!!!!

good post though Hypa

[Harvey Specter]

LOL, pictures were taken at the LP580-2 event and I remember seeing these girls walk in like movie stars. Really bizarre scene.

[jasonturbo]

I don't know what's worse, classless over-privileged mainlanders with no concept of work or domestic hipsters with man-buns who study political science.

#blameobama

[dvst8]

These report are meaningless. It just create more stereotyping and hate towards the chinese more than anything.

[The_AK]

Some legit 3/10s in those pictures

[pastarocket]

Among the curious was Jin Qiao, 20, a baby-faced art student who moved to Vancouver from Beijing six years ago with his mother. During the week, Mr. Jin drives one of two Mercedes-Benz S.U.V.s, which he said were better suited for the rigors of daily life
But his most prized possession is a $600,000 Lamborghini Aventador Roadster Galaxy, its exterior custom wrapped to resemble outer space. Mr. Jin, a lanky design major who favors Fendi clothing and gold sneakers, extolled the virtues of exotic cars and was quick to dismiss those who criticized supercar aficionados as ostentatious. “There are so many rich people in Vancouver, so what’s the point of showing off?” he said

This fool just contradicted himself. If he thinks there is no point showing off, then why the heck do you drive an Aventador with an ugly wrap with a galaxy design?

He's an arts student at UBC? Does he want MM Design to hire him to do wraps?

[yray]

Originally Posted by jasonturbo

Idomestic hipsters with man-buns who study political science.

#blameobama

You mean neckbeards

#polisci grad

[nns]

His brother's name is Anky? Srs?

[GLOW]

China’s rapid economic rise has turned peasants into billionaires.

Originally Posted by 320icar

Lol, I love this line.

me too. don't have to read between the lines on that one too much

[Verdasco]

Originally Posted by Harvey Specter

LOL, pictures were taken at the LP580-2 event and I remember seeing these girls walk in like movie stars. Really bizarre scene.

wth a fellow member was there

how baller are you? (not the 14 dolla balla type)

[XplicitLuder]

he's a good lawyer , but srs he's baller

[originalhypa]

Originally Posted by pastarocket

He's an arts student at UBC? Does he want MM Design to hire him to do wraps?

Isn't being an arts student one step above masturbating for a living?
I bet his dad is all like,

Originally Posted by yray

You mean neckbeards

Hey now, go easy on multicartual.
It took a lot of weed to grow that neck beard.

Originally Posted by XplicitLuder

he's a good lawyer , but srs he's baller

I didn't know he was a lawyer, until I saw his cufflinks.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by originalhypa

Isn't being an arts student one step above masturbating for a living?

not at all. the former can be summed up below

Spoiler!

YouTube

the latter at least can make money in niche market of JAV industry

[Stealthy]

I thought this thread was by gululu

[yray]

gululu is Anky

[threezero]

Originally Posted by Verdasco

wth a fellow member was there

how baller are you? (not the 14 dolla balla type)

was there for the event too. without all the flashing things these girls have seriously you would not notice any of them walking down the street. 3/10 at the most

[320icar]

I dunno, I would totally fuck the one in the yellow. Or maybe the one wearing red in the background. Would love to spank them around