[Singapore] My Millionaire Neighbours - 백만장자 동네주민 (English & Korean)

동네 동생이랑 자전거를 타고 이코팍에 갔다가, 돌아오는 길에는 이코팍이 아닌 동네 차도를 타고 왔는데, 마운트배튼 쪽에서 동생이 자기가 좋아하는 한적한 길이 있다면서 같이 가자고 하더라구요. 따라가 봤더니 그 길엔 주르륵 대저택들만 자리하고 있었어요. 그 중에서도 정말 왕이 살 것만 같은 궁전같은 집이 있어서 입을 떡 벌리고 쳐다봤더랬죠.

My friend and I went to East Coast Park by bicycle and came back to home not through park but through residential area. My friend suggested me to go through A special roa which is lined with luxurious houses. Especially there is a huge palatial house in the middle of the road and we couldn't help but drop our jaws as we appreciate that palace.

바로 81 Wilkinson Road 에 위치한 아래 집입니다. 사진보다 실물이 더 어마어마해요. 사실 제가 사는 카통지역이 좀 부촌이어서 그동안도 꽤나 좋은 단독 주택들을 많이 봐왔는데 Wilkinson Road에 있는 아래 집을 비롯한 주택들은 그 규모부터 집 디자인까지 혀를 내두를 정도로 엄청나서 꽤 충격을 받았습니다.

Look at below pictures of this palace. This house is located at 81 Wilkinson Rd in Singapore. You must be amazed by the size and decoration of this fancy house if you got a chance to see this in person like us. Actually, the area we’ve been living around is a quite wealthy town and it is not a big surprise at all to see nice houses for the last 2 years. However, some residences including below palatial house that located at this road are beyond our expectation.

대체 얼마나 잘 살아야 저런 집을 짓고 사는거지? 궁금증이 생긴 저는 바로 구글서치에 들어갔습니다.

Naturally this question just popped in to my head: “How much money should we get to own this kind of posh house?” I googled it to find who is the owner.

이 사람이 어떤 사람인가, 하고 찾아봤더니 Arecelor Mittal 의 CEO 이자 회장(대주주)이고, 가장 부유한 인도인이자, 영국에서 가장 부자이며, 세계에서 5번째 부자라고 나오네요. 역시... 엄청난 사람이었어요. 싱가포르 뿐만 아니라 영국, 인도 등지에 있는 집은, 싱가포르 집보다 훨씬 더 더 더 대궐같더라구요.

Below is Lakshmi Navas Mittal’s profile (Wikipedia) :

Lakshmi Nivas Mittal was born on June 15, 1950 in Sadulpur, Rajasthan, India and is presently the CEO & Chairman of Arcelor Mittal. Lakshmi Nivas Mittal was listed in the Forbes List of Billionaires in 2006 as the richest Indian and the fifth richest man in the world with an estimated wealth around of $25.0 billion and is the richest man in the United Kingdom.

Young Lakshmi Nivas Mittal spent his first years in Sadulpu before his father moved to Kolkata. Lakshmi graduated from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. He founded Mittal Steel in 1976, which soon became a global steel producer with operations on 14 countries. His success mantra lies in the identification, acquisition, and turnaround of many loss-making steel companies all over the world.

In 1994, he took over the international operations of his family's steel business. Arcelor Mittal is presently the world's largest producer of low and mid-grade steels, with operations in Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, South Africa, Poland, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and many other countries. Mittal is considered to be close to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and has donated large sums of money to the Labour party coffers. He bought his residence at 18-19 Kensington Palace Gardens from Formula One car racing boss Bernie Ecclestone in 2004 for 57.1 million ($105.7 million), the highest-ever price paid for a house.

His son Aditya is the CFO(Chief Financial Officer) of Arcelor Mittal. Mr. Mittal has been nominated as a member of the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan, the International Investment Council in South Africa, the World Economic Forum's International Business Council, besides being a Director of ICICI Bank Limited and being on the Advisory Board of the Kellogg School of Management in the United States.

사실 싱가포르는 백만장자가 많기로 유명한 도시(동시에 국가 - 도시가 하나밖에 없기 때문에)이기도 합니다.
그렇다면 싱가포르에 백만장자 총 수는 얼마나 될까요?

Actually, Singapore has a reputation that the number with wealth above US$100,000 is six times the world average. Then you might want to know how many millionaires​ are in Singapore:

검색해보니 약 154,000명의 백만장자가 싱가포르에 있고, 현재 싱가포르 총 인구수가 약 5,600,000명이니까 전체인구의 약 2.75%가 백만장자인걸로 계산되네요. 길가다가 만나는 약 37명 중 1명이 백만장자라는 뜻이니 충격. 게다가 2020년까지 백만장자 수가 188,000명까지 오를 예정이라고 하니... 이렇게 되면 2년 뒤에는 길가다가 만나는 약 30명 중 1명이 백만장자가 되겠네요.

There were about 154,000 millionaires here and Singapore has a total population of nearly 5.6 million people - so we can say that approx. 2.75 percent of the population are millionaires, which means 1 out of 37 should be a millionaire. OMG. On top of that, it is said that by 2021, the number of millionaires here is estimated to grow 4.2 percent​ per annum to 185,000, which means 1 in 30 Singaporeans will be a millionaire​ by then.

제가 언젠가 싱가포르에서 친구를 한 300명쯤 사귀면 (확률로 따지면 10명은 백만장자여야하는데) 그 중에 적어도 한 둘은 백만장자일 가능성이 있을까요? 아니면 끼리끼리 논다고... 제가 친구를 많이 사귀어봤자 그 나물에 그 밥일까요? (하하)

Let's say if I will make 300 Singaporean friends here, is there a possibility that one or two friends of them might be a ​ millionaire? or nobody will be a ​millionaire​ as reminding me of saying - Birds of a feather flock together.

FIN.