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This is a woman who was, she was actually a career woman.

You know, she started teaching piano at age 19 after she got her broad certification from the Royal School of

Music, right? She started teaching at 19, and by this point she was almost 50, so she had three

decades of a career in Singapore, having been a concert pianist, having trained generations of young musicians,

and here she is in Houston, Texas, having never done housework in her entire life,

having never cooked anything but made, making spaghetti bolognese once in her life,

and even her friends, you know, said, oh my God, you're never going to survive. making spaghetti bolognese once in her life.

And even her friends, you know, said,

oh, my God, you're never going to survive.

Hello, hello, welcome back to your mama's kitchen.

This is the place where we explore how we are shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grew up in as kids, not just the meals, but all the stuff that happened there. The laughter, the sibling rivalry, the music on the radio, the things that you saw out the kitchen window. I'm Michelle Norris. And my guest today is Kevin Kwan. He's the author behind the wildly bestselling book, Crazy Rich Asians.

Many of you know that that book had its own hit film adaptation that rocked Hollywood and was a beacon for Asian representation on screen.

He's written several books, all of them bestsellers, that explore the Asian Gilded Age and High Society.

And they include China Rich Girlfriend, rich people problems, sex and vanity, and lies and weddings. They are all

international bestsellers. They've been translated into more than 40 languages. Kevin spent

much of his childhood here in the U.S., but he was born in Singapore. And it turns out that the life that he

and his family led were in some ways an inspiration for that avalanche of best-selling books. And we're

going to talk about that today and so much more. Kevin, thank you for being with us.

It's such a pleasure and an honor to be here. I have been looking forward to this conversation.

I have been following you on

Instagram so I know that you love food. You like to spend time in the kitchen yourself. Here at your

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