Offshore Observations Part 1 – The Upper Echelon of Gated Communities
When I was young, my grandfather introduced me to the 1998 film The Truman Show. It came at a time when I was questioning my own reality, yet I struggled to find the words to express it in a way that would be respected as a valid perspective. The Truman Show, written by New Zealander Andrew Niccol, depicted the world of Seahaven, a place roughly based on a Floridian retirement village. It portrayed the idea of an idyllic, controlled reality. Little did I know that 24 years later, I would find myself in a similar realm.
Living in a gated community in South East Asia is like asking Morpheus for the red pill, but with the caveat that you'd like to remain in the Matrix for a bit longer. This creates an unusual duality whenever you leave your house, or "unit," as they say here. Growing up in a hamlet where Barbour jackets, pheasants, double-barreled shotguns, and John Deere tractors were the norm makes this experience even more fascinating from an anthropological perspective. Sir David Attenborough may have his Planet Earth series, but I have my "integrated development," which I like to call the Integrated Matrix—strategically built on a township spanning over 4,000 acres that bans pubs, discos, and lottery businesses. I don’t mind these exclusions, as they help maintain a sense of peace. The area has many positives, among them its cinematic, idyllic quality. It provides a serene setting for deep thought and self-reflection—a perfect mental space while sipping my morning creatine before sprinting on my 8kg carbon fiber road bike, free from the stifling noise of the wokified Western world. But like any matrix, there are glitches—and I started encountering them as time went on.
Just like in any new community, you're initially met with a warm welcome—a premium package of social niceties and invitations. Conversations often revolved around topics like, "Look at my wainscoting," or "Check out my sintered stone kitchen worktops," alongside comparisons of external water filters designed to keep your water from looking like afternoon espresso. I was also presented with an art show featuring a neighbor's intense, relentless dedication to drawing fruit as realistically as possible. However, when I tried to share my own creative pursuits—one of which included a futuristic NFT film I created at the start of the crypto boom—the conversation quickly hit a dead end, much like Prince Harry telling his family he wants to support his wife’s thought leader career.
One conversation did make me laugh, though. A neighbor enthusiastically presented their three kitchens. It's common to have both a wet and a dry kitchen—at least, that's what I understand. The dry kitchen is normally for making sandwiches and your morning coffee, while the wet kitchen is where you can really let loose with liquid ingredients and splash about a bit. However, this neighbor went a step further and achieved a third, complete with Aztec tiles, which they told us 'was going to be for cutting up a big fish'—though we never saw either of them or a big fish again. When we complimented their trifecta of kitchens, quietly imagining their culinary proficiency, we were met with a response that suggested they thought we were implying they were just full-time cooks. This kind of compliment doesn’t sit well in an affluent gated community, where any recognition of a neighbor’s practical or domestic roles is often seen as an insult. I thought these innocent chats were the start of something consistent and exciting, but as time passed, I realized they were not.
The theme of blacked-out windows occurs during my daily dog walks, which consist of eight outings a day. The midday walks are the most interesting, as you sometimes feel like a pre-ASBO Will Smith wandering through a post-human existence. The contrast of being the only human on the block, holding a bag of dog shit while a $600,000 McLaren 720S slows down as it passes you by, is quietly humorous. Yet, most of the time, it’s the white Toyota Vellfires or Alphards—Japanese family vans with blacked-out windows—that drive aggressively, like a cross between a dust ruffle and a Korean fridge hurdling over speed bumps, like Colin Jackson looking for a post-athletics career at the BBC. Every time I seem to be picking up dog truffles, I'll see a fleet of two or three of these cars passing by, slowing down as if I’m some kind of zoo animal in the wild. It reminds me of my childhood, when my grandparents would drive us through Woburn Safari Park, as long as we stayed in the car.
The long, descending road, lined with speed bumps and transitioning between two architectural styles, leads toward the heavily guarded entrance, complete with giant curfew gates at the end. The sight of white buildings against the blue sky, surrounded by trees, is beautiful and always reminds me of the scene in The Truman Show where Jim Carrey greets all his neighbors before heading off to the office. The crispness of the contrasting blue, green, and white provides a positive view to wake up to while doing sled pulls with two golden-hair breeders. One morning, things took an unusual turn when I noticed one of my neighbors, a pale middle-aged man a few doors down, trying to film my dog with his smartphone. After making eye contact, he disappeared into thin air. According to his mother, he was afraid of dogs. This was surprising, given that the only "threatening" trait of my dog is its capacity to hump you to death. Over time, I learned that this individual had a reputation for filing formal complaints about other neighbors. Sadly, I haven't seen him outside since that day.
After many morning walks, my skin became quite tanned, and a friend began wondering why I walked under the sun. This was post-pandemic, so getting adequate vitamin D was a priority for me. However, most people in this community rarely leave their houses unless it's Halloween or when they need to set off fireworks or firecrackers. Most of them will only leave their air-conditioned units with one-way windows to get into their air-conditioned cars, which also have blacked-out windows. It’s as if everyone on the compound attended a Sam Fisher (from Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell) training session to enhance their stealth abilities. In nearly three years, I've never seen my neighbors take out the trash, bring in groceries, or carry in bottled water if they don’t have a water filter out front. These water filters resemble SpaceX Starships awaiting launch, parked in the front garden. When you do see someone exit the house, it's usually a maid or helper collecting their food delivery. In fact, I’ve never seen the neighbors opposite me in 18 months.
This made me wonder about the cultural norms of a gated community where a small population seems to have teleportation abilities when getting from their houses to their cars. Nearly every garden in the community is landscaped by migrant workers from Bangladesh and populated with trees that are typically inspired by one house that dares to trim outside the lines when it comes to foliage types. You will never see anyone watering or tending to their garden, as doing so is considered an exhibition of financial deficiency. We installed a few bonsai trees when we moved in, and it didn’t take long before others mysteriously bulked up their front lawns with similar trees, sometimes even from the same garden center. It makes me wonder how they discovered our "secret," but the slow-moving cars that take their sweet time doing U-turns were probably taking notes behind their concealed blacked-out windows.
If you're out at the same time as others, it’s usually a case of, “Do I say hi, or will they?” Most of the time, I opt for the latter. This lack of curiosity and basic social etiquette of acknowledgment seems rare. It's as if all these wealthy people who studied abroad in the UK, Australia, or the USA discovered a wormhole where they completely skipped over that part of our social norms. All of this creates a spectacle when you hear the morning prayer from the mosque, miles away, soaring over the trees.
The reality is, most of the people living in the compound are Chinese, and they have a distinct way of life. After a week, you quickly notice the living patterns. One thing that is truly unpredictable is Halloween. During this time, there is a sudden enthusiasm for a holiday I consider somewhat meaningless. It's when you see nearly everyone on the streets—kids dressed as Casper the ghost and parents who seem like it's the first time they've seen sunlight. It's truly a sensory experience how pale all the parents of the ghosts look, their complexions almost ghostly themselves, as if they are also facets of the surrounding architecture, especially when drifting down the street like a wall of lard.
Another time of high activity is Chinese New Year, one of the most important times to drown out fireworks with equally loud music. It’s the time when I’m grateful for Mack's Silicone Putty Earplugs. I don’t know why, but every year it becomes so repetitive. The fireworks continue until the monotony is broken by the sound of a drum. Sometimes I wonder if some wealthy person decided that, in order to flaunt their wealth, it would be a good idea to bang on pots and pans for an hour to justify their hard work.
As for my neighbors, the ones opposite me are practically nonexistent, with the last time I heard from them being a WhatsApp message asking if their colored pencil drawings could be converted into NFTs. On either side, I have contrasting neighbors. To the left is a woman with three giant SUVs, including a Porsche Cayenne bought on finance. She told us the Porsche isn’t for driving; it’s there to showcase her success. The large black Toyota Land Cruiser, a "Black Bison," does the same—it’s parked in the driveway and rarely moves more than 10 feet from it, often serving as an outdoor lounge. Her Lexus, on the other hand, is the car she actually drives daily, mostly for short trips like picking up chicken and rice. She means well but is one of those "copy-and-paste" types; she even bought two giant statues of dogs shortly after seeing my retrievers. Since then, we've adopted a strategy of not sharing any new additions to the interior or exterior of our house—otherwise, you become the week's mood board. To the right is a house where we had to construct a 5-foot wall to block out their untidiness. They weren’t happy when we confronted them about it, but the reality is that empty paint pots and pajamas hanging out to dry don’t juxtapose well with our bonsai trees.
The original concept of the compound was to be open-plan, an idealistic vision of the developer who imagined a picture-perfect Seahaven-style sanctuary, as described in The Truman Show. But as I mentioned before, glitches happen, and things didn’t unfold as planned. Some neighbors throw large fruits into others' gardens, all in the name of tradition, while one guy likes to test his superbike down the road to the point where a speed bump was installed right outside, ensuring no parent would ever let their kids play on the road.
Overall, it’s been a fascinating experience—one that would certainly make for an intriguing extraterrestrial documentary. But it’s also a revealing litmus test for how wealthier Chinese interact with one another. Beneath the surface, there’s an underlying sense of apathy toward anyone outside of your immediate family or close friend group. It’s perfectly fine to focus on your inner circle, but when it comes to open-plan living, this mindset feels like a sledgehammer to the very concept. It makes me question whether open-plan living is actually superior to houses that are completely gated. One thing is certain: South East Asian gated communities are far from ready for open borders, much like the majority of Americans. As the world becomes increasingly digitally connected, our physical connections seem to grow more distant. In reality, most people just want to control their interactions with the world—much like replacing weeds with plants in a garden. They prefer to decide when to "turn on" or "turn off" their social responsibilities, all at their own convenience. As a landscape designer once told me, many Chinese dislike the irregularities and spontaneity of wood grain, which is why they prefer to paint over it.
Whether the perception of wealth is an illusion or a carefully constructed reality for some, I come from a Western country in decline, where open-mindedness has reached such extremes that common sense seems to be disappearing. Against this backdrop, I hope South East Asia can learn from these mistakes.