The real-life crazy rich Asians of Netflix’s new hit reality show Bling Empire are constantly shown hanging out in opulent mansions, high-end designer boutiques, or public places that they booked out for their own private parties.

However, Singaporean cast member Kane Lim’s favourite hangout spot when he comes back to the Lion City is a lot more down-to-earth.

“I love hawker centres, they’re my favourite!” Kane chirped in a Zoom interview with 8days.sg this afternoon (Jan 21). Other than Newton Food Centre, which is near where he lives in Singapore, the devout Buddhist and vegetarian also goes to the hawker centre next to the Guan Yin temple at Balestier, which only serves vegetarian dishes.

Of course, it’s been a while since the 31-year-old had his favourite local fare, no thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic getting in the way of his twice-yearly visits home. Kane has been based in Los Angeles for the past eight years, where he invests in companies that deal with real estate, hospitality, wellness, and renewable energy.

Despite coming from an affluent background, the entrepreneur is adamant about crafting his own empire — or should we say, bling empire — instead of relying on his family, which, by the way, he is fiercely private about.

So private, that we were reminded that questions about them and what they do are off limits before we even began our chat. In the first episode of Bling Empire, his co-star Kevin Kreider says Kane’s family dabbles in oil, shipping, tanking, and real estate, and that they supposedly own “the shopping malls that you go into in Singapore or Thailand, all of Southeast Asia”.

In short, they are a big deal, although you certainly won’t see Kane shouting from the rooftops about them anytime soon. What we did manage to learn from him is that his father sits on the board of charity organisation Sian Chay Medical Institution, and that Stefanie Sun and Vivian Hsu are family friends.

“You know Asian parents,” he sighed. “I could tell that everyone read my messages, but there was no comment, so I deleted them. I was a bit disappointed, but I’m used to it. (Laughs) The funny thing is they told me that their friends are proud of me, but I’m like, ‘I don’t care what they think, I want to know what you think!’”

It was only after he unsent his texts that he finally got a response that said: “Oh, what an achievement.” “But now it sounds fake!” he chuckled. “You can put all of that on 8days, I hope they read it! (Guffaws)”

He continued: “I hope what Asian parents can take away from this show is how to express their love to their kids more openly,” said Kane, using how close fellow cast member Vietnamese-American DJ Kim Lee and her mum, as an example.

That’s not to say Kane’s folks don’t care about him at all — they just have their own unconventional way of doing it.

“After over 20 years, I finally figured out how my dad shows his concern for me,” he shared. “A lot of American fathers will be like, ‘How are you, son? How’s school today, son?’ My dad’s way of saying ‘How are you?’ is ‘How’s business? How’s your project going?’ So now I know that’s his way of bonding with me. He comes from a very traditional Chinese upbringing, so yeah.”

Perhaps that is why Kane’s childhood was more humble than what most people might expect. The Anglo-Chinese School alumnus (he went to ACS at Barker Road and then ACS International) recalled that while his wealthy schoolmates were “chauffeured in Rolls-Royces”, his father dropped him off at the bus stop so he had to take the bus to school.

“I was like, ‘Dad, we have money!’ But at the same time, I appreciate that he did it ‘cos it made me decide that I wanted to do something for myself.”

While most reality shows have a reputation for being fake and staged, Kane reassured us that this was absolutely not the case for Bling Empire (fun fact: he told us that he was previously asked to be in another Netflix reality show, Singapore Social, but he turned it down).

“It’s 100 per cent not scripted at all,” he said. For instance, there is a particularly memorable scene where two of the cast members find a sex toy in someone’s bathroom. “I asked Kim if the producers planted it there, and she said no one planted it there!”

Even Kane’s impromptu flight to another state with Kevin to track down Kim’s long-lost father was not planned. “My friend Xiaxue was like, ‘How can that be!?’ but the producers were really like, ‘Let’s go and find the story. If there’s nothing, whatever, let’s call it a day.’”

We’ll leave it to you to find out what happened in the end.

Bling Empire is now available on Netflix.

Photos: Kane Lim/Instagram, Netflix