By Aaron Thomas, Dean Cornish, 6/7/16 Channel: SBS
Over
100,000 Chinese millionaires have moved to Vancouver, sparking everything from
a reality show to a property boom making housing unaffordable. Dateline asks if
the millionaire migrants are a blessing or
curse.
$151,000 for a diamond necklace?
$140,000 for a piano? $15,000 for a handbag?*
This is everyday life for the Ultra Rich Asian Girls of
Vancouver, played out in front of millions on reality TV. “I remember I had my first Chanel
wallet when I was in grade nine or ten,” one of the stars Pam Zhou tells
Dateline's Aaron Thomas. “I don’t see my family as super, super loaded or like
super rich, I think we’re just at a point where we’re satisfied.”
The idea for the show came from TV
producer Kevin Li and he knows the conspicuous wealth divides opinion. “There’s a huge range of responses
from my show – anything from utter disgust to utter fascination,” he tells
Aaron. “The disgusting part is the amount of money that’s being thrown around.”
“People in mainland China hate it…
but they love talking about it and they’ll continue to
watch it so they can find something they hate about it.”
Pam's family came to Canada as part
of a visa program that welcomed foreigners with a net worth of at least $1.6
million. It’s seen over 100,000 migrants move to Vancouver in the past 30
years.
Lifestyles
of the Ultra Rich Asian Girls - They
have all the money they
could possibly need and star in a popular reality TV show, but while filming
with the Ultra Rich Asian Girls for Dateline, Aaron Thomas finds that wealth
can be a double-edged sword.
The Intern
Diaries: China’s Millionaire Migration - The
millionaire second generation of China’s rich are known as fuerdai, and few are
flaunting their wealth more prominently than Vancouver’s Ultra Rich Asian
Girls. But their spending has
helped see property prices rocket, by 40% last year alone, and now regular wage
earners are being priced out of the market. Vancouver has been named the second most unaffordable city in the
world for four of the past five years.
“The typical Chinese investment portfolio is half real estate,” Professor David Ley explains,
drawing comparison to unaffordability in Sydney and Melbourne. “The population
of Chinese Canadians… is projected in 30 years to be 800,000.”
“This isn’t really an issue about
race, this is an issue about wealth,” says Australian-born Chinese journalist Ian Young,
who’s now based in what he dubs Hongcouver.
“These are not luxury homes, but
every one of them is a $3 million house,” he says as he drives Aaron through
the suburbs. He’s been closely following the impact of the visa program for
millionaire migrants.
“The primary breadwinners who
arrived under those schemes… were only paying an average of $1,400 in income
tax each year,” he says. “They were declaring less income than refugees in many
cases.”
How do
Canada and Australia compare for Chinese property demand? $450
billion in personal wealth left China last year as people look overseas for
investment and lifestyle. As Dateline looks at how it's pushed up property
prices in Canada, SBS's Finance Editor finds a very similar story in Australia. There’s criticism too of them leaving
behind their cultural heritage.
The first Chinese immigrants arrived
in Canada 160 years ago, but Vancouver’s once thriving Chinatown is now
struggling to survive.
Pam admits that she only recently
visited for the first time in 13 years. “Time changes, everywhere changes,” another
of the girls Chelsea Jiang tells Aaron. She and Pam both run their own
businesses and reject criticism of their lifestyle and wealth. “Resentment is
already out there, but I’m not worried about it,” Chelsea says. “I only need to
deal with people who can see the truth.”
“The Chinese brought you great food
and a better economy. What’s there to complain about?”
* All prices in this story are
quoted in Canadian Dollars. CA$1.00 = AU$1.06 at the time of writing.
Related Links
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/dateline/story/chinas-millionaire-migration
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