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发帖数: 7881 | 1 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.
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
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发帖数: 7881 | 2 Loretta Lai, Chelsea Jiang and Diana Wang attend a reception at a
Lamborghini dealership in Vancouver, British Columbia, March 19, 2016. |
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