In the 2020 hit TV series “Thirty Only”, one of the heroines, Gu Jia, succeeded in knocking on the door of Shanghai’s celebrity wives’ circle with a 200,000-dollar Hermes ostrich skin Kelly bag for the sake of her children’s education and husband’s career, where all sorts of Versailles-style displays of wealth were commonplace.
In reality, is there such a circle of rich wives and what is their social life actually like? Is their daily social life as bloody as depicted in the TV series? How exaggerated are the rich people’s ostentatious displays of wealth? The protagonist of our story is one of the rich wives’ circle.
Today’s narrator, Stone, was born into a wealthy business family and was sent abroad as a teenager, receiving her education overseas along the way.
In 2009, she graduated from the American university she attended and started her own business. It was also during those early years of her career that Stone met her husband, a Nordic diplomat, at a friend’s housewarming party.
In 2011, after more than a year of exotic love, Stone’s husband proposed to Stone. Four years later, the two had a cute mixed-race baby, a little girl. In Stone’s opinion, the two are evenly matched in terms of financial strength or insight and learning. Currently, Stone’s small family has become a high-income family with an annual income of 10 million dollars and assets of over 100 million.
In addition, this small family has a special feature – both Shi and her husband have highly mobile jobs, so they often have to move between China, the United States and Norway.
The schools that Stone’s daughters attend in all three countries have high tuition fees, and the children’s families are all rich. It was also in 2015 that Stone began to break into the social life of the rich moms in the US, China and Norway.
1
My name is Stone, I am 35 years old and I live in Oslo, Norway.
After my husband’s maternity leave, we sent our children to a local private daycare in the US.
Then, because of my husband’s job transfer, we went to China again, and I moved my company headquarters to China and applied for international schools in China for our children.
In the last two years, we came back to live in Norway, where there are still relatively few private schools, so our children attended the local public school.
Stone and her husband first stayed in the United States for more than two years, living in a well-known local wealthy community. Most wealthy communities in the U.S. are located in scenic suburban areas, and high-income groups such as lawyers, dentists, and executives of large companies can be found everywhere in wealthy communities. Many popular American dramas are set in these wealthy communities, such as the hit “Big Little Lies” and “Deadly Women” in the previous two years.
The wealthy community where Stone lives has an average annual household income of about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, ranking seventh on the list of wealthy communities in the country. Stone sends his children to a famous local French daycare with a tuition of over thirty thousand dollars. On top of that, parents in this community have to fit the high-end niche ……
A rich community in the U.S. Photo / from the internet
France = High-end
Our neighbors are sending their kids to the local French daycare, and we are not immune. “France” is a magical presence in the West, almost any term linked to France becomes high-end, including French schools, French daycares, French restaurants, etc. …… I remember Mrs. Kennedy who went all the way to French school.
The Perfect Housewife
As for American mothers, they are quite like the perfect housewives in American dramas. You get the feeling that they have a “to be confirmed list”, a perfect housewife code in mind, and even though the terms don’t make sense, they’re going to get it done. From the children to themselves, from clothes to food, the first thing to do, the second thing to do, each item needs to be checked off. For example, the child has to have a party every month, the child has to go out and dress up beautifully, they especially like to tie lace to the child, but those lace are expensive, unattractive and uncomfortable …..
Photo/Still from “Fatal Women
These codes are not only for children, they themselves also have a perfect housewife outfit program, where they go out to dress up beautifully. It’s just that compared to China, these American mothers in wealthy areas may not be younger.
Subtle rules of dressing
Every wealthy community in the United States has its own country club – a country club with recreational and leisure venues such as golf courses and tennis courts. However, the country club has an invitation system and is very difficult to get into. The strict eligibility process makes the members inside, a status symbol.
These members would dress in some typical American country style when participating in the various activities of the club. For example, the men would wear teal or light blue polo shirts with khaki pants underneath, and the women would wear floral dresses that matched their husbands, and once they showed up, they knew this was the family.
Photo/Still from “Fatal Women
Sometimes, when several dads are running together, they don’t wear polo shirts, they wear hoodies from their graduation schools. If they graduated from a top school like Harvard or Yale, then they will wear them out almost every time, and if they graduated from some of the better local schools, they will wear them out occasionally. So, these middle-class Americans are also very proud to go to the Ivy League for this thing.
New York Hamptons about a wave?
In this community in America, showing off your wealth is everywhere. The measure of whether you are rich or not is where you go on vacation and whether the vacation destination has its own property. Basically, the worst people over here do is go on vacation to Mexico. If you say you go on vacation to a certain hotel, it’s best not to take it out and say it.
Of course, if a family member has a vacation home in the Hamptons on Long Island, New York, then they will always hang on to it.
Others will show off that they bought a castle in France, but the castle is not expensive, not as expensive as you might think, probably only one or two million dollars, RMB 10 or 20 million. But the castle is very expensive to repair, you have to take care of it to be able to live, that may need another 20 to 30 million yuan.
Hamptons, Long Island, New York Photo / From the Internet
Remember to bring your lawyer when you go out
Another thing about rich people in the United States is that they move around and send letters from lawyers and get sued. Almost every family has its own lawyer, this is quite funny, in China and Norway are quite rare.
Once I had an appointment to talk with my child’s teacher, and while waiting outside the teacher’s office, I noticed a parent in front of me coming out of the office with a man in a suit and a lawyer standing next to him. My child’s father and I went in and asked the teacher who that person was, wondering if it was the parent’s brother, and the teacher said, “No, that person is the parent’s lawyer.”
We were really surprised to hear that we actually brought a lawyer to talk to the teacher about the child’s education, and the teacher looked bashful and said he was used to it because it was so common.
I guess these parents in the US bring lawyers to see teachers, probably to ensure that their unreasonable demands on the school and teachers are within the law.
2
In the U.S., parents bring lawyers to see teachers, but in China, parents have a much different attitude toward teachers, a point Stone learned only after he returned to China.
After spending two years in the U.S. because of her husband’s job transfer, Stone’s family moved to China and applied to a local private international kindergarten with a tuition of about 220,000 RMB.
But tuition is just the tip of the iceberg, in addition, these rich parents have many hidden expenses, including – gifts for teachers.
Luxury trips to Europe
One day, the parent liaison in the parent group sent a message out of the blue.
“Teacher C is having a birthday this week, let’s parents pool our money together to hold a birthday party for him.”
I had no idea that my child’s teacher was having a birthday, and I thought, “Why? Do teachers have to raise money for their birthdays? But there is no way, everyone wants to raise money, I can only say yes, I am not the organizer, only responsible for the money.
Later, the birthday gifts continued to escalate and increase, and the things given to teachers became more and more expensive. Chocolates and so on needless to say, this is more normal. And send the teacher and her husband to a five-star hotel, enjoy a romantic candlelit dinner, and then do a hotel SPA, at most a few thousand dollars, a per capita down a few hundred dollars does not matter. The most exaggerated once, they pooled their money to send the teacher’s family of three to travel to Europe, or business class …… At that time, my husband and I, not a person, is two people each a few thousand.
Figure / from the network
Also, most of the parents in the school have their own companies, they also send the teacher a lot of things from their own companies. I heard before, a teacher to decorate a new home, need to buy furniture, a parent is one of the largest furniture dealers here, they directly to the teacher’s furniture all inclusive ……
Popular white young thin
China is, after all, my own country, and my interactions with parents will be more and deeper. In the Chinese mom circle, I am considered older, there are much younger post-90s post-92 moms. Their children are the same age as mine. And, Chinese mothers are really beautiful!
But there are a lot of plastic surgery in between, quite obvious. I’m turning into a medical beauty expert when I’m in China because everyone is talking about it. You feel younger here, but there’s also dress code pressure and your aesthetic needs to work its way up to that circle.
Although I don’t talk to dads about aesthetics, I think dads also like white, young and thin, that is, fair-skinned, young, thin and long women. The reason is that from time to time you will hear some gossip, such as which father asked another mother out to play, or A father cheated on B mother, and then A mother in the circle of friends outbursts, and finally the trouble, this kind of bloodshed is quite a lot of things. The gossip in the gossip of the heroine, are quite in line with white young thin this aesthetic orientation.
Love Judge
I occasionally encounter uncomfortable things in my interactions with Chinese parents. I’ve been commented on many times about dressing like a post-80s because the other mom’s wear sneakers with super shorts, very young, like I did in college, and I’m not very comfortable with that style of dressing. Besides, I’m originally post-80s.
The point is, this kind of evaluation of others, permeates all aspects of our usual social life, even in some very small things. An example is the story of “an umbrella”.
I usually like to take that kind of light folding umbrella, Chinese mothers especially like to take the more expensive kind of long-handled umbrella, especially favored by the British Queen often use a brand.
The FULTON birdcage umbrella favored by Elizabeth II.
Because my daughter especially likes Disney, so I bought several Disney co-branded umbrellas, after opening the umbrella surface with Donald Duck and other flowery cartoon characters, the results of a mother saw and said, “You take this umbrella is very old eh. I feel puzzled, I take an umbrella you also want to evaluate? Then I replied, “I think it’s very handsome ah.
In fact, this kind of interaction has a good side, it allows you to communicate more deeply, because you will exchange ideas with each other, but you will also feel that you are in a system of evaluation, will feel uncomfortable.
The Stigmatization Chain of the Rich Moms Circle
The biggest divide in the circle of international school moms is probably not at the income level; after all, everyone’s income is above the same level and not too far apart. However, many parents have studied abroad or immigrated, so the circle of international school moms is divided into many different inner circles, and the division starts here, such as the British study abroad circle, the American study abroad circle, the Australian immigrant circle, etc. When we get together, we will more or less talk about the past. That mothers with different educational backgrounds will carry different social pressure.
One time, my friend’s daughter had a birthday party and she invited a lot of children who were close to her daughter, and Abby, the mother of one of the children, was also invited.
The parents got together to talk about their children and their past lives. Those from North America would prefer to play with North Americans, and those from the UK would prefer to play with the UK, and it wasn’t a huddle, it was just that we all got together and had something in common. I noticed that Abby was not very good at speaking English, she sat over there and did not speak at all, and probably did not understand much, but I did not pay much attention to it.
After that, Abby never appeared in our party again, and we didn’t call out to her at our usual gatherings. In fact, I felt a little embarrassed for her, because no one talked to her, and she couldn’t make conversation.
However, Abby has a lot of followers in ShakeYin, and she is a netizen. Every day, I can see her social account updates, and all the comments are like “God’s sister”.
Chinese parents’ show of wealth
The most shocking thing to me in China is the display of wealth by Chinese international school parents of all kinds. Our family’s assets are only at the passing mark for this circle, but there are many wealthy families around us with billions and billions of dollars.
China’s show of wealth is more simple and crude, one is more than where to go to play, and the other is more than the children’s birthday party. Compared to the United States, China is less likely to show off where they have a house, which is mainly used as an investment, and everyone basically has one. Chinese families still show off by comparing which five-star hotel to go to on vacation, such as going to Sanya for fun and staying at the Ritz-Carlton, going to Hong Kong for a weekend and staying at the Four Seasons, etc.
Photo/Still from “30 Only
The comparison between parents is sometimes projected on the children as well. Children usually wear clothes are not cheap, children’s Dior and so on quite a lot, but the children have not yet reached the time to compare clothes brand, children prefer other children wear a little cheaper, but looks fancy with sequins clothes.
One time, a child saw my daughter’s clothes, which looked shiny and a little envious. Her mother gave her a sentence, “Your clothes are very expensive, your clothes can buy 100 pieces of her clothes.”
This place is wrapped up by me.
Large show-off field, it is how to give children’s birthday. The choice of birthday party location is important.
First of all, the worst is their own home district. Second, their own home clubhouse. Again, the compound of their own home villa. Further up, it is the package of five-star hotels. More up, is the package of local amusement parks with bobble pool.
Inside the package amusement park, the highest level is the package Disneyland. But they are usually packaged at closing time because it is cheaper at this time. I have not yet met a parent who is so ho-hum as to pack a weekday Disney, which should be expensive because you have to make up for the tickets it loses.
I met the most exaggerated, is to gather everyone to go to the zoo in Cambodia to celebrate the child’s birthday, that time I had something to do not go, but most of the parents went.
This child’s mom first had everyone meet in Hong Kong, and the other parents usually had their own nanny car, or their own yacht, both modes of transportation to Hong Kong. If that doesn’t work, this mom will send a car and send a boat to pick you up. Anyway, no one goes by high speed rail. Of these people, probably no one has ever taken the high-speed rail except me. After arriving in Hong Kong, there will be their family’s private plane waiting over there, and then take everyone to Cambodia together.
At this point, some dads in the group asked, “How long will the zoo be open, and why can we live inside the zoo? Won’t it be closed?”
The mom said, “Oh, that’s our own family zoo, because our kids like animals, we built a few houses over here, and you can see and interact with the animals right outside the window.”
Later this mom also said in the parent group, “I’m also considering buying a ranch in Africa so that every year when the animals migrate, we can go over there to see it and it will be more exciting.”
……
After reading this message, I silently sent a few emojis of praise in the group.
3
After five years in China, Stone’s husband was asked to expatriate to Norway, and the family applied for a public elementary school near a wealthy local area in Norway. Compared to China and the United States, Stone felt a lot of distinct differences in Norway, especially in his dad.
Dad is the family liaison
Feminism is particularly developed in Norway. The middle-class families I met in Norway were mostly two-income families, with very few full-time housewives. One of the most direct manifestations of developed feminism is that the family liaison for Norwegian parent groups is a dad.
This is almost impossible in China and the US. In China it’s a WeChat group, in the US it’s a Facebook group, where the family liaison is a mom, and the most active speaker in the group is also a mom. But in Norway, dads and moms are equally active in the parent group, exactly the same. If there is a family where only the mom is always present and the dad is always absent, everyone will discuss the dad and everyone will think he is strange. But in China and the US this is a common thing. Instead, if there is a family where the dad always shows up and the mom doesn’t, people will only discuss it, right?
Social phobia friendly
A lot of people say that the popularity of this Nordic place is very simple, and it is indeed very simple. Parents over here are very boundary-minded when they get along and are very careful not to step on your minefield. And it’s not just me, my husband feels the same way. The sense of distance between people is still quite obvious in Scandinavia.
Norway in winter. It is said that the cold weather in Northern Europe affects the character of the Nordic people Photo / from the Internet
So if you’re a social phobic, you can get by in Scandinavia quite simply and no one will think you’re strange. The opposite is true in the United States. Although their pleasantries seem fake, two parents standing together, the other will definitely take the initiative to climb into conversation with you. If two American parents stand there and don’t talk, they will die of embarrassment. Americans can’t stand this, at least the ones I know. But switch to two Scandinavians standing together, and they can stay quiet and not feel awkward.
China just has no sense of boundaries at all, and the benefit is that you become friends immediately. Although sometimes you may complain that this person is so nosy, and you have to take care of all the gossip of the seven aunts and eight uncles, but this kind of interaction without a sense of boundaries is the fireworks.
The secret show of wealth and PK
The community where our family lives now is not the most expensive wealthy area in Norway, the average house price here is about 30-40 million RMB, while the average house price in the most expensive wealthy area is 60 million, which is still a big difference. Take away those traditional old money families in Norway, such as traditional salmon families or ship families.
As far as the Norwegian middle class is concerned, there is still less for them to compare with each other. After all, Norway also only five million people, the country’s size and resources relative to China and the United States, or a big difference. But they still feel good about themselves implicitly. A few parents sit over there and start to boast about themselves, about how good this school district is, about how good this neighborhood is.
Belum, Oslo, Norway image / from the internet
Many people say that my area is full of wealthy people, many people say that parents in my area pay a lot of attention to their children’s education, and many people say that my area is a serious climber, but I really don’t feel that way myself. I don’t know if it’s my experience in China that has raised my radar so high, but that’s really showing off the wealth in China.
Although Norway is generally unpretentious, there were two experiences that still made me feel more or less the hidden attributes of the Nordic people in terms of showing off their wealth.
At Easter, my family went skiing and ran into the parents of my daughter’s classmates.
When we greeted them, they asked, “Who did you come skiing with?”
I said, “I’m skiing with one of my husband’s classmates.”
They immediately asked again, “Do they live nearby?”
I said, “No, they live in a different area.”
After all, the neighborhood is very expensive, and if they live nearby, it means that their families are very well off. So, these Norwegian parents are still vaguely concerned about what the people you’re dating are like.
There was another time, also about skiing. Since our family had just arrived in Norway, we didn’t know much about this community. As it turned out, when winter arrived this year, the neighborhood was basically empty because everyone was going skiing.
Norway has a long winter holiday and there are many ski resorts near the community. The parents usually buy chalets in the ski resorts, called Hytte in Norwegian, and they basically stay near the ski resorts in the winter.
Chalet in a Norwegian ski resort Photo/ from the internet
If you don’t have a Hytte, or if you can’t afford one, you will be in an awkward position socially, and maybe the kids will be embarrassed that everyone is skiing in a Hytte and you don’t have one.
Our family has just arrived, so we haven’t bought one yet. So when people ask where we’re staying while skiing, I don’t say we’re staying in a hotel, I say, “We just got here and we want to get a feel for the different ski resorts before we decide where to buy a Hytte.”
4
Although Norway has its share of invisible ostentatious wealth, the overall gap between rich and poor is smaller in Norway as a high welfare country. This social system of pursuing fairness and high welfare has also influenced his husband’s thinking, leading to some disagreements between her and him on educational philosophy.
He did not support his children to attend many extracurricular classes because he thought it would affect their play time; he did not think there was any good or bad education for children, and the future of children depended on their own ability; no one was better off than anyone else, and all beings were equal, but he turned out to be a very “left” person. He turned out to be a very “left” person.
Two days ago, there was a math and English test in my child’s class, and the school emailed me this notice: “The purpose of this test is not to find the best students, and we will not rank them. The real purpose of the test is to find out which students are still struggling to pass, and which students find the content still challenging. Therefore, only the parents of these students will be notified, not the parents of the rest of the students. We don’t release the grades of all students.”
I had previously asked the teacher for my child’s grades and wanted to know their overall ranking, but the teacher refused my request. But without notifying me on the school side, I don’t know exactly how my child is doing or where her grades stand overall.
This philosophy of education and the high welfare social system more or less influences my husband’s philosophy of education.
Norwegian classroom picture / from the internet
However, as the two people’s ideas rubbed off, I think my husband slowly began to accept the importance of a so-called elite education and he has now changed his mind.
He and his parents are from the richest generation in Northern Europe, and because of the oil exploration, the region became super rich, so their generation has the smallest gap between rich and poor, the so-called “golden middle class”. For them, even if you don’t do anything at home, you can find a good job and the government will give you a good subsidy so that you don’t lack anything.
But that’s not the case anymore, as you can feel from the skyrocketing prices in Oslo, not everyone can afford to buy a house, not everyone can get a bank loan. If you are a doctor, then you just can earn more than others, and banks are more willing to lend to you, and you can live in a better place.
According to Stone, the west side of Oslo is traditionally a wealthy area with mostly detached houses, and the east side is mostly apartments with more crowded housing. So the few small outbreaks of the epidemic in Oslo were concentrated on the east side Photo/Visual China
Also for example, when I was an intern at Citibank in New York, you would find that there were two groups of interns. The first group was people with connections, like me, or the children of big Citibank clients; the other group was people who graduated from top schools and worked their way to the top, and came in through layers of selection.
However, their future paths are the same. If I want to stay at Citi, I can also stay at Citi. In the end, the two groups of people went the same way.
My husband also slowly realized that there must be a gap in this society, and the gap is getting bigger and bigger, the world is so unfair, he gradually abandoned the original naive idea.
This is why, we work so hard. I hope to weave a safety net for my child that will allow her to toss and turn.
She can be an ordinary high school teacher, or she can go into the arts, so don’t worry, you can’t be any worse off, because “home” is your permanent harbor. That’s why I don’t feel too much of a problem when I go into business, because my parents are 100% supportive.
That’s why I have more demands on myself than on my children, because you can’t control her, and you can’t control her. I always say to my Chinese friends, “It’s better to chicken your child than to chicken yourself. If you chicken yourself into Harvard for graduate school, then you can write letters of recommendation for your child later on, so why do you have to chicken your child? Right?”
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