Economics (of Dating) 101: Pt I -- Scarcity, Choice and the Production Possibility Frontier

Introducing a new series where I attempt to explain basic economic principles through the dating scene in Hong Kong. Rule #1: Don't take anything I say too seriously.

Q: What is economics, anyway?

Explained in Gen Y terms, economics is simply the study of how one confronts FOMO (“fear of missing out” for you non-millennials). Young professionals, armed with idealism and Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, want it all—careers, love, family, friends, parties, vacations, spiritual enlightenment…but alas, physics is real and time waits for no one. Unlimited desires are constrained by limited time, money and our slowing metabolisms. As the three-dimensional body gradually acknowledges its impermanence in the space-time continuum, it gazes up at the universe of infinite opportunities and….freaks out. And thus economics steps in—how can we make the best choices? How can we make the most of our youth? Or, according to the self-help book my mom once bought me, how can I know if someone is worth pursuing in two dates or less??

Q: Sounds useful. But how does economics relate to dating?

Ah, it comes down to scarcity, scarcity, and scarcity. Scarcity is the root of all economic problems. Take this scenario at some swanky bar in Lan Kwai Fong, for example: 

Girl: Hm…there aren’t enough cute guys here above 180cm who are well-educated and have a good job, are funny and ambitious and loyal and kind and SINGLE.

Guy: There aren’t enough cute girls here who are not overly aggressive and ambitious and slutty and psycho. Man, I just want a sweet girl to take home and show my parents.

Because of the scarcity of resources, choices must be made. Expectations must be adjusted. Trade-offs must be considered. And this brings us to the next fundamental principle of economics—opportunity costs. In making a choice, we essentially give up the benefits of pursuing the next best alternative. If a guy spends $1000 on a nice watch, the opportunity cost would be $1000 worth of Michelin-starred meals he could’ve had to impress his date. If a girl spends her Friday night watching Disney movies with her best girlfriends, the opportunity cost would be a Friday night she could’ve spent going on Tinder dates and possibly meeting her real-life Prince Charming. Of course, these opportunity costs are relatively trivial, but as young professionals we do have to consider the significant opportunity costs of going to graduate school, committing to a stable relationship, having a successful career, pursuing a low-paying dream job, moving somewhere new, even getting married. 

Q: TLDR. I heard economists love charts. Where are the charts? I want to see some charts.

Okay, okay. Let’s talk about the production possibility frontier (PPF). The PPF shows the maximum possible output combinations of two goods/services an economy can achieve given fixed resources. Here’s an example of a PPF curve in the context of your life:

Moving along the PPF curve from B to D, we see that the more hours we spend on sleeping, the less hours we have for socializing, and vice versa. Points B and D illustrate “specialization”—a person at point B would be an expert socializer, one of those people with 7000 Facebook friends and is the life of every party, but tradeoffs incurred include severe sleep deprivation, dark eye-circles, and high risk of liver disease. On the other hand, a person at point D would reap all the physical and emotional benefits of an 8-hour-daily beauty sleep routine, but would celebrate these benefits alone in his room.  Point C would be an appropriate compromise, a path that most people take—give up some sleep and some socializing so that we can have an adequate amount of both. Point A shows an inefficient allocation of resources—this person is under-utilizing his time and doing too little of both! (ex: playing Candy Crush, reading celebrity gossip, watching Netflix, etc.) It seems that basic economic theory seems to agree with the “YOLO” principle—you only live once, so please live at full capacity and make the most efficient use of your time and money! Lastly, Point E is outside the PPF and is thus unattainable—there are only 24 hours a day after all. This could change with technological progress or if you get your hands on Hermione Granger’s Time-Turner.  

To illustrate the prevalence of opportunity costs in our daily lives, here are some extra PPF graphs explaining some common tradeoffs we make:

 That's all, folks! Tune in for Part 2 at some point in the future--we still have lots more to cover!

Remains of the Day: Ping Shan Heritage Trail

When I first moved to Hong Kong, I didn't think much about how long I would stay. I was a restless 22-year-old hungry not for home but for adventure--for youthful, bittersweet memories that would belong in a Jack Kerouac novel, where characters burned furiously and brightly, longed for everything, and saw life as a blank canvas of infinite possibilities to be painted with new encounters and experiences. Three years later, the urge to "move fast and break things" has more or less dissipated, replaced by a yearning for something certain in this uncertain world. I used to think the transience of Hong Kong was romantic and full of opportunities, but now whenever another friend leaves, a petal of romanticism falls, blown away by a gust of desire to build a life somewhere I can call home. 

Home: the idea of home has always been more abstract than physical for me, as I've never felt that I belonged to one place or another. Perhaps this ambivalence was inherited from my ancestors--migrants from China who became fishermen, taxi drivers, educators and businessmen in Singapore and Indonesia. In these new lands, home was not an inheritance passed from one generation to the next, but a fragile thing you had to build on your own through determination and hard work. Growing up, I greedily ate up any tales of my ancestry, eager to form a coherent narrative regarding my scattered identity--my ancestors were scholars in the Qing dynasty! My great-grandfather was tortured by the Japanese! Some of my ancestors came from a man-eating Indonesian tribe! My confusion was further compounded when my family moved to Taiwan for new opportunities and I somehow adopted an American accent along the way. All this moving around might explain my reluctance to view any one place as a permanent home, but also the deep-seated longing for a clear heritage I could anchor myself to.

Maybe this is why I really enjoyed visiting the Ping Shan Heritage Trail in Yuen Long, New Terrorities. The trail passes through shrines, temples, ancestral halls, study halls and walled villages constructed by the Tang Clan, one of the earliest and most important clans in the New Territories. The first generation Tang Clan ancestor moved from Jiangxi Province to Guangdong sometime in the 11th century, while the 7th-generation ancestor moved to Ping Shan in the 12th century. Strolling around the Tang Clan Ancestral Hall (built in the 13th century), I was in awe and even envious of the fact that the clan could trace their heritage back more than 800 years, amid various wars and dynasty changes. The brick walls and buildings in the area were heritages in the purest sense--properties passed down for generations. Imagine watching TV in the same living room where your ancestor studied for the imperial exams under candlelight! It was amazing to see these old relics still standing in Hong Kong, a land where "old" often refers to the club or restaurant that opened last year, or to any woman in a bar who's not a summer intern or exchange student (half kidding...). 

After the walk, I returned home--an expat-filled apartment built in the 21st century on reclaimed land. I was still uncertain about my future in Hong Kong, but it was encouraging and refreshing to find out that someone wanted to make Hong Kong his home once--and did so for 800 years. Maybe instead of waxing poetic about the lack of permanence in Hong Kong, it was time I followed in the footsteps of my ancestors and stubbornly try to build a home here for myself anyway.

Inside the Tang Ancestral Hall

Exterior of Tang Ancestral Hall

One of the various study halls

An alley within the walled village

Earth God vs Door God

Peng Chau Island: Different rhythms, different souls

Rhythm: a recurring pattern organizing music, dance, and life. 

Playing piano growing up made me aware of different rhythms early on. I practiced pages and pages of the driving rhythms of the Baroque period, the regular rhythms of Classical music, the tempo rubato of Chopin. Life imitated art, and my childhood moved along like an ambling but certain rhythm of a classical waltz, carefree yet controlled, as I leisurely skipped to the routine beat of doing homework, playing with my friends, and going to Sunday school. Then came the confusing, polyrhythmic teenage years. I guess teenage angst could be explained as playing triplets over duplets, trying to reconcile two different rhythms and identities--the uncompromising idealism of youth and the steady beat of family and tradition. These days, I aspire to live to a jazz rhythm, swinging along and exploring life outside of the conventional beat, but still evolving along a backbone of my fundamental values. 

Life moves forward with rhythm, but rhythm can ultimately be restrictive. A poet once said that music "is spirit, but spirit subject to the measurement of time." Our lives--be it beautiful, bittersweet, or tragic--are lived subject to mortality, time, culture, environment, upbringing, habits...with so many constraints, are we as free and flexible as we think? It's frighteningly easy to be completely attuned to and controlled by the same repetitive rhythm. Our actions, thoughts and even heartbeats become in sync with the world we live in, and gradually we find our lives dictated by the flow of the environment. Maybe this is how people drift apart; as their lifestyles and values change, they become out of sync, joining different schools of fish and swimming with their respective groups towards different directions in the infinite stretch of sea. 

When I moved to Hong Kong, I learned to adapt to the frenzied, fast-paced rhythm of the city. My breath and footsteps began to speed up. Working in finance, I started to think in terms of headlines and bullet points, becoming impatient whenever anyone rambled on without a main point. Soon I was just another note in a never-ending symphony, marching hurriedly with my head down, checking my phone(s) every two minutes, making a living amid the roars and alarms of buses and cars, the ominous drones of construction cranes, the manic shouts of angry merchants and drunken revellers. Like myself, most Hong Kong residents are products of their frenetic environment, souls trapped in shoebox apartments and tight schedules, seeking transcendence from the loud and relentless pulse of the city. 

And thank goodness that transcendence can be found. I encountered a surprising new rhythm when I visited Peng Chau on a whim last year. Peng Chau--the oft-forgotten, mostly residential island, a 40 minute ferry ride away from HK island. Barely any tourists roamed the island, because there were barely any tourist sights. For the first time in a while, I meandered--along the narrow streets of its traditional market, along the rolling paths bordering Finger Hill (Peng Chau's highest peak), along the spacious seaside promenade dotted with relaxed, cycling residents. I strolled into a gallery of a local artist, a store selling various gemstones (the owner's husband was a geologist), another store selling vintage-looking furniture. Serendipitously, I bumped into a friend who happened to live on the island, and was invited to afternoon tea on her sea-view balcony (which was bigger than my bedroom). Time was slow on this island, but the space between each beat was rich and meaningful, like the reverberating hum of a Tibetan singing bowl. Instead of car horns and loud voices, Peng Chau's rhythm was dictated by rustling leaves, creaking bicycle wheels, barking dogs and chirping birds. I was transfixed and refreshed by this foreign rhythm, a fish happy to be out of the water. 

As the day neared its end, I was called back to the city cacophony. On my way to the ferry pier, I passed by a candlelit banquet for ghosts--the older residents of the island were celebrating Hungry Ghosts Festival. It was quite a sight, and a reminder of disappearing generations and traditions. Customs come and go, but I hope that the tiny island of Peng Chau will always preserve its peaceful, hypnotic heartbeat, welcoming city dwellers in need of a break from routine. 

View from Finger Hill (highest peak), with Lantau in the background

Houses melting into trees

the French are everywhere

                                                  

                                                              

 

 

Tung Po Kitchen: The Drunkard's Dai Pai Dong

There's only one thing you need to know about Tung Po Kitchen: don't bother going there if you're not going to drink beer. Perhaps "drink" is too civilized a verb; I mean aggressively chug local beer out of porcelain bowls, one bowl after another, toasting to friendship or to not losing your phone by the end of the night, in between rowdy conversation and finishing as many fresh Cantonese dishes as you can. Tung Po is not so much a hidden gem as it is an institution, where people find respite after a stressful day at work in the form of comfort food, drunken laughter, and thumping electronic music (in a uniquely Hong Kong turn of events, this place has even become a pre-game spot for many).  

Some final words of caution--

What not to expect: peace and quiet, comfortable seating, patient waiters, and good hygiene

What to expect: an excellent night and questionable decision-making

With that, I leave you with a motivational quote from none other than Charles Baudelaire: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

"Victory," or so the bowl says

Rice steamed in lotus leaf

Fresh razor clams

Honestly don't remember what this is, but it was good. Fried..meat..?

Signature squid ink noodles

Extremely delicious clams

Tung Po
2/F Java Road Municipal Services Building
99 Java Road, North Point 

Old School Cool: Oi Man Sang Kitchen

Is it the cold weather or the holiday season that makes me more sentimental this time of the year? We sat outside on some street corner at night, surrounded by loud Cantonese men, ordered 6 large bottles of Tsingtao beers and wolfed down each dish in between catching up and downing our beers. As expected of a 50+ year old Dai Pai Dong in a working class neighborhood,  the servers were old and rude/non-existent, the hygiene was questionable, but the food was simple, delicious and direct. How did these down-to-earth chefs channel the essence of each ingredient so well? How can sweet & sour pork taste so different from my American Chinese takeout expectations? How can a shapeless gray slab of minced pork possibly be this good? I think I was probably a bit drunk by then. But let's just say the warmth I felt was genuine. My God, I love cheap local food. And I love my friends. And this city isn't so bad right now. After dinner it was time for whisky and more conversation, and my bad week turned out alright after all.

Sweet & Sour Pork

More Pork

Beef & Mushroom

Intestines

Squid

Veggies

Oi Man Sang Kitchen 愛文生
215 Lai Chi Kok Rd
Sham Shui Po

A Cuppa on the Dark Side: Cafe Hideouts in Kowloon

Sweaty teenagers holding hands, clutching cellphones, snacking on sticks of curry fishballs. Tourists lugging oversized Rimowa suitcases, paying their respects to 21st century shrines: Prada. Chanel. Louis Vuitton. Cartier. The imposing bouncer lets them in one by one, and they emerge anew, baptized in the name of American Express--and it's on to the next god, maybe Hermes next time if you're lucky. On Nathan Road, the street hawkers echo--Prada. Chanel. Louis Vuitton. Cartier...and who could forget--iPhone 6. Then there are the old people. White-haired aunts and uncles who just don't give a damn, living the dream of a Hong Kong forty years ago, reading their newspapers with 7am dim sum, reminiscing, always reminiscing, while barking at you to get out of the way like bulldogs guarding their territory. All the while there is a relentless dripping sound, as water free falls from air conditioners to the ground, or onto some poor soul's head, reminding him of all the things he can't control in life.

Welcome to the dark side, baby.

Welcome to Kowloon, or at least the busiest parts of it--my neighborhood, my home. I could write a whole book on the people, the food, the nooks and crannies, but this rambling post is dedicated to what keeps me sane in this urban jungle--my favorite cafes in Kowloon. Most of them are tiny, but that's enough to provide some peace of mind for a couple hours before venturing back out into the crowd. If you ever find yourself in need of refuge in Tsim Sha Tsui/Mong Kok/Yau Ma Tei/Olympic, feel free to hide in these cozy cafes.

1. Craft Coffee Roaster (Olympic/Tai Kok Tsui)

Address: 29 Tai Kok Tsui Road, Tai Kok Tsui

Facebook page link

 

Sandwiched between local Cantonese diners and grocery stores, Craft is a tiny cafe with quality coffee. If you live in Olympic, you probably work in finance and have no time to explore your neighborhood, but give it a try and you'll be surprised by the vibrant life outside of the huge family-friendly malls. Craft is the perfect place to spend your weekend mornings (if you can snag a seat), reading and smelling freshly ground coffee before spending the rest of your day in the office. A slight improvement, but an improvement nonetheless...

2. Knockbox Coffee Company (Mong Kok)
Address: 21 Hak Po Street, Mong Kok
Website link

Mong Kok is a ridiculously crowded place. It's where you go to experience herd mentality in the flesh--as you are helplessly stuck in a crowd with no choice but to follow the general direction, you will understand why individuality is a foreign concept in some places. Everytime I come here I vow never to return, but then I need to buy a new phone or deposit a check, and resign to give this place another chance. That's why I'm very grateful for Knockbox Coffee Company, a quiet cafe (on a quiet street) that only wants to serve and teach Hong-Kongers about good coffee. Set up like a bar, Knockbox wants to give its customers the perfect coffee experience, and I sat in awe as I took in the aromas of my single origin Ethopian coffee and watched the barista patiently brew my cup of coffee. Serving only single origin, direct trade coffee and banning decaf/soy/syrup, Knockbox might seem pretentious from the outside, but its sincerity is evident and I find it beautiful that it celebrates purity and clarity amid a neighborhood of chaos.

             

                

 

3.  N1 Coffee & Co (Tsim Sha Tsui)

Address: 34 Mody Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Facebook page link

I'm typing away in this tiny cafe right now, having chugged one Americano and one Chai Latte, and no one has tried to kick me out, even after three hours. So this is what an urban oasis feels like. Being in N1 Coffee & Co is like borrowing someone's small, whimsical dream world for a couple hours--and that world just so happens to have good coffee. I'm not going to ask why there's a merry go round horse hanging out across from me, and they won't dare to ask why I just wasted half my day in this hole. Our worlds overlap for a brief moment before it's time for me to head back out into the real world.

 

4. Kubrick Cafe (Yau Ma Tei)

Address: Shop H2, Cinema Block, Prosperous Garden, 3 Public Square Street, Yau Ma Tei

Website link

If space is what you crave, Kubrick Cafe is the biggest cafe on this list. I don't go there for the coffee (honestly it's not that good), but to read in a space with high ceilings, to smell the scent of lavender tea mixed with new books, to kill some time before catching a movie at the cinema next door. Kubrick is both a film bookstore and a cafe, its name proudly derived from the famous director and evoking an independent spirit, similar to Broadway Cinematheque next door which hosts film festivals and screens independent and foreign films. Located in a historical district in Yau Ma Tei (surrounded by a 100-year old fruit market, the only remaining pre-WWII theatre in Kowloon, and the first hospital in Kowloon), Kubrick represents both nostalgia and modernity, comfort and excitement.