Rachel Chu

Rachel Young (née Chu) is a Chinese-American economics professor at New York University and one of the main protagonists of the Crazy Rich Asians book series by Kevin Kwan.

Appearance


Rachel Chu is described as having a nut-brown tan, medium length, jet-black hair, and a flat chest, and a nose a little round. She is also described as being naturally pretty, but in a very simple way.

Background
Rachel is an NYU professor of economics who is originally from Cupertino, California. She was raised by a single mother, real estate agent Kerry Chu.

Rachel attended Stanford University where she met her best friend Goh Peik Lin. At the beginning of the novel, Rachel has been dating history professor Nicholas Young for over a year. They were first introduced by Rachel's good friend and colleague Sylvia Wong-Swartz.

It is later revealed that Rachel was born in Xiamen, China as the lovechild of Kerry Chu (Ching) and Bao Gaoling, whom Kerry knew as Kao Wei and would later go on to become a prominent Chinese politician. She also has one paternal half-sibling, Carlton Bao.

Novel
The novel begins with her boyfriend Nick inviting her to meet his family in Singapore. Rachel in fact knows nothing about her boyfriend's family, and is completely unaware of what is in store for her.

Upon arriving in Singapore, she meets Nick's friends, Colin Khoo and Araminta Lee who take her out to a local Singaporean food court. The next day, Goh Peik Lin, her best friend from their time at Stanford, takes her to visit her home. Rachel is blown away by how friendly and down-to-earth Peik Lin's family are. Her parents, Goh Wye Mun and Goh Nenna, welcome her with open arms and have her join them for lunch.

When it comes time to meet Nick's family, Rachel is shocked by how rich they are. She finds herself not being liked by Nick's overprotective mother, Eleanor, who believes that she is not worthy of being with her son. She also faces scrutiny with his grandmother, Shang Su Yi, who also believes he could've done better with a woman from their family's inner circle.

Only Nick's cousin, Astrid Leong, gets along with Rachel and asks her cousin, Sophie Khoo, to keep an eye on her during Araminta's bachelorette party.

While visiting Nick's family again, Rachel is shocked when she finds out that Eleanor has hired a private detective to gather information on Rachel's family, which she later attempts to use to drive Rachel out of Nick's life, but ultimately results in her son freezing her out of his life. Rachel is shocked when she learns who her father, Zhou Fang Min, is and leaves to stay with the Gohs. Eventually, she and Nick suffer a falling out with each other. Nick tries to convince her to stay in the relationship with him, professing that he no longer cares about what society and his family expect from him. Rachel doesn't believe him, claiming that no matter how much they try to ignore his family's legacy, they know they may not be able to. She tells Nick that she wants her children to grow up treasured and loved by their relatives like her own family has done, not be raised with a family whose primary concern is their own wealth, family legacy, and the kinds of rich people they know. Rachel breaks up with him as a result and Nick realizes she's lost to him.

At the Goh house, Rachel calls her mother and has a falling out with her. She demands to know why Kerry didn't tell her about Fang Min being her father. When Kerry tries to explain that he was abusive and she had to save their lives, Rachel blames her for her actions and hangs up the phone. Before leaving for New York, Rachel asks if Wye Mun can help with the red tape for her visit to see her birth father in prison.

As Rachel and Peik Lin are preparing to leave to meet Fang Min, Nick stops them from leaving, revealing that he's brought something from China to her. To Rachel's anger, it's her own mother that he brought to Singapore. Annoyed with Nick for preventing her one chance of meeting her father, Rachel tells Kerry off: she doesn't want to see her again and wants her to just let her meet her father. In desperation, Kerry finally reveals the truth about her real father: it isn't Fang Min, but a man nicknamed Kao Wei. Rachel decides to listen to her mother and learn about the abuse she went through with Fang Min, including how Kao Wei saved her life by helping her escape to America where she stayed with her relatives. Upon realizing how abusive Fang Min was to Kerry, Rachel is remorseful for her earlier behavior and reconciles with her mother. Nick and Peik Lin take her and Kerry out for some satay. After this she decided to talk to Nick and he proposed to her, he offered to break off all contact with his family and be with her but ultimately she rejected the offer saying that no matter how much they tried they would never be able to be uninvolved with his family. After this, she met with Nick’s mother Eleanor Young and told her about what happened while playing a game of mahjong and this is when Eleanor Young stopped being against her relationship.

Film
There are some minor differences between the film and the book.

China Rich Girlfriend
In the series' second installation, ‘China Rich Girlfriend’, the story took place 3 years later. Rachel and Nick Young are at their wedding in California when Nick Young’s semi-estranged mother Eleanor Young crashed their wedding in a helicopter with Rachel’s long-lost father Bao Gaoling. It was then that he invited her to China for their honeymoon, and Nick’s relationship with his mother was somewhat repaired.

When they went to China for their honeymoon, Rachel’s stepmother Bao Shaoyen was extremely displeased, preventing Bao Gaoliang from housing his "bastard" daughter in their home. Meanwhile, Rachel, who was at the restaurant she was supposed to meet him at, was alone with Nick when she got picked up by Carlton Bao and his girlfriend Colette Bing. They went to dinner at Din Tai Fung, and partied as they got to know each other and became friends.

The next day they went to Colette Bing’s home and met Jack Bing and Mrs. Bing, Colette's parents. Later while they were having dinner, Bao Gaoling came, and this was the only time they met during their stay in Shanghai.

Rachel, Nick, Carlton, and Colette then went to Paris with some of Colette’s friends and went on a shopping spree (Rachel and Nick only bought a few things). The next night during a party in Colette’s honor, she was proposed to by one of her many on-off boyfriends, Richie Yang, but she turned him down. This resulted in an argument and fight between Richie and his rival for her affections Carlton. Soon after Richie challenged Carlton to a drag race, betting $10M, which Carlton accepted. Colette then desperately called Rachel, hoping she would hold back Carlton, and inadvertantly informed her about how a couple of months ago Carlton was in a car crash which resulted in a girl being crippled along with another girl dying on impact, which Rachel was previously unaware about. Rachel spoke to Carlton and it was revealed the real reason her father wasn’t seeing her as he promised was due to the influence of his wife and her stepmother Bao Shaoyen. Rachel's sudden appearence in their lives was putting a strain on the relationship between Bao Gaoliang and his wife. Rachel managed to calm Carlton down and he apologized for what he said and wanted to make it up to her.

The next day in Shanghai, Carlton tried to set up a lunch with his mother, father, and Rachel to make up for their mistakes and so they could get to know her more, but she refused and went to Hangzhou with her best friend Goh Peik Lin, where she fell ill. Rachel's condition quickly detoriated and her organs began to fail, so she was quickly airlifted to Hong Kong in critical condition with the help of her Nick's family.

It is later revealed that she was in fact poisoned by Colette’s assistant Roxanne, who did so because Colette found out about Carlton potentially being disinherited by his father Bao Gaoliang due to his reckless behavior. Roxanne, seeing how distraught over this Colette was, believed that Rachel was partially to blame, and paid someone to poison her.

After the poison was identified and treatment was given, Rachel recovered, and later went to Nick’s cousin Edison "Eddie" Cheng’s house to have dinner with Eddie, Nick, and her father. While having dinner, they received a call from the Hong Kong police department about suspects being in custody. Rachel identified Roxanne, who admitted that she had arranged the poisoning, but insisted that she did it solely on her own without orders from Colette.

A couple of days after Colette had lunch with Rachel and begged her to forgive her and help repair her relationship with Carlton, as he wanted to break off relations with her due to the poisoning. Rachel refused, saying she didn’t want to interfere, resulting in Colette flying into a rage, insulting her and accusing Rachel of being jealous of her all along. Rachel responded by saying she didn’t care about her father's inheritance and was proud of the life her mother gave her. It turned out a bystander recorded the argument and posted it on WeChat entitled "Spoiled B*tch Epic Takedown", which went viral with over 9 million views.

The book ends with Rachel and Nick left China and returned to their life in New York.

Rich People Problems
To be added...