Random Beijing-ness

Unfortunately due to a freak accident (falling from a table), my beloved camera has been put out of commission indefinitely. This means I have to now shop and haggle for a camera in Beijing. In the meanwhile, here are some pictures for ya'll that I took before said accident.

Picture from Cindy's farewell dinner with Cindy, Ariel, Fulton, Zhang Sheng and Me. Alas now only Zhang Sheng and I remain in the office

Entrance to the office! Its a quaint little hutong...surrounded by many migrant workers

Working hard

Midnight bike ride through Tiananmen....gorgeous

LSE Alumni event with Cherie Blair (Tony Blair's wife)

And in my awesomeness, I created a pretty cool spreadsheet to keep track of my expenses. This whole breakdown totally makes me look like an alcoholic. In my defense, drinks here are much much more expensive relative to food, haha.

Awesomest video ever

I absolutely cannot stop watching this video. Save for the horrible grammar (this guy is Polish, give him a break), it is ridiculous. Not going to lie, I may have shed a tear while watching this (okay, an obvious exaggeration, as it is a biologically proven fact that Jason does not have any tear ducts). But seriously, check it out:




You know how most people remember where they were and what they were doing during a historical/memorable moment? Well let's take a stroll down memory lane as I recall where I was during all of these great Laker moments:

The historic comeback against Portland in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals - This was their first title run, and my first time ever watching every single Laker game of the entire season (no joke). So I was really angry when the Lakers were down and it looked like their title chances were over. I remember actually getting mad and hitting my coffee table...upon which I received a harsh scolding from my dad. Haha. The Lakers then made their historic run and I quickly became a very, very happy kid.

Robert Horry's 3 at the buzzer to save elimination from the Sacramento Kings - Was my spring break of my junior year in high school and I was up north visiting colleges with Jennifer, Derek, Sam and Cary. We had just gone on tour of Stanford and got back in the car when Sam turned on the radio to ESPN and we listened to the final seconds as Robert Horry nailed that 3 to seal the series.

Derek Fisher's incredible 0.4 second shot at the buzzer - "One lucky shot deserves another" - Shaq. Was watching it at home with my mom. Such an incredible moment.

Kobe scoring 81 points against the Raptors - Was my junior year at Penn and just hanging out with my roommates when Jonathon Seigler runs in the room and yells "dude! Kobe just dropped 81". I scream like a little teenage girl and run to turn on ESPN. For the following week I cannot for the life of me stop watching replays of his god-like performance that night.

Kobe nailing that buzzer-beater of the Suns in the 1st round - As with most playoff games, this was during finals week. I had forced myself to stay in the library and had given myself a restraining order to stay away from any TV in sight. The great thing about the 21st century though, is the internet. =) So instead of studying, I ended up just watching the ESPN Gamecast play-by-play on my laptop in the library. When the score was too close in the 4th quarter, I couldn't take it anymore and RAN home to catch the final minutes (so much for studying). Together with my roommates, we oo'd and aah'd as Kobe caught the ball in midcourt, weaved his way down to the right elbow of the key, and hit that shot over 2 Suns. The fist pump as he strolled down court afterwards was stuff made for the ages.

Lakers winning the 2009 NBA Championships - Watched the game at home with my mom. As soon as the Lakers won and the festivities were underway, I get a text from Amy saying, "hey! wanna go to the riots?"... I jump out of the couch, run to throw on my Pau Gasol t-shirt and we both headed off to Staples. Good times!


Share with me your stories!!

The pursuit of happyness

Shane and I had a very interesting conversation over dinner the other night where we talked about our views on happiness, the abstract concept of "utility" and why we both consciously choose to live a high-paced/challenging lifestyle. A very good question that came up during our talk was:

"What do you think is harder? Figuring out what makes you happy in life? Or actually doing it?"

Thoughts?

My chances of becoming a billionaire

Penn ranks 3^rd among all world universities in the number of current billionaire alumni with 18 current billionaires (27 before the financial crisis wiped out a lot of their savings).

…just some quick back-of-the-envelope math:

Penn has only been around since the late 1700s-ish, but for the sake of our current calculation (and the fact that a "billionaire" is a fairly recent phenomenon), I'll only take the last 50 or so years into calculation (this is assuming the oldest living billionaire is probably around 70 years old and so graduated 50 years ago) This is also assuming that we're talking absolute amounts of money and not about purchasing power.

My graduating year had approximately 2,500 graduates, give or take? I couldn't find (was too lazy to look) actual Penn alumni numbers, so we'll just use the actual population growth rate over the past 80 years...which on the high end averages about 1.15% according to the U.S. Census Bureau. We'll assume that this number rough holds true for the past 50 years (a big assumption, I know, but let’s make it for the sake of simplicity). And of course, we're also assuming that Penn's student body size has grown in proportion to the US population.

We’ll start with the equation for CAGR (compound annual growth rate)

.

First solve for Penn’s 1959 graduating class size, where:

Final = 2500

n = 50

CAGR = 1.15%

Thus Penn’s 1929 graduating class size is approximately: 1427.

The next step is to find the summation of every year’s graduating class between 1959 and 2009.

First we manipulate the CAGR equation and get:

Then the summation:

Solving for this shows that there have been a total of 95,751 undergraduates in the past 50 years at Penn.

We’ll take the post recession number of 27 Penn billionaires. And so 27 divided by 95,751 yields 0.000282…

In other words, according to my calculations and historical trends, each Penn graduate has approximately a 0.0282% chance of becoming a billionaire!

Wow. How depressing.

If it’s any consolation, here is a major thing to take into consideration:

-By making the assumption that we’re talking about money in absolute terms and not in purchasing power terms, we’re essentially ignoring inflation. This can’t really be ignored because if you compare the purchasing power of the dollar 80 years ago and now…there’s a HUGE difference (in addition, the power of a dollar now versus in 40 years when I will become a billionaire will also be different too). Because of this, the millionaires who lived in the 1960s and 70s could also be counted as “billionaires” by today’s standards. In a similar manner, assuming inflationary trends continue, it will technically become easier for me to become a billionaire in 40 years than it will be for me to do so at the present time (although being a billionaire then will mean less in 2049 than being one in 2009). To take this all into consideration and to calculate my future chances of becoming a billionaire may require some more complicated math that I don’t quite feel like doing. But the general gist is that it will definitely increase my chances of becoming a billionaire (albeit probably only very very slightly).

-Bsingh also adds that to improve my chances, I should isolate just those majors that have a higher probability of making it big (i.e. business, engineering, law, med, etc). But then again, Steve Wynn was an English and Cultural Anthropology major at Penn...so there goes that logic...

Oh well.

(note: I probably could have gotten a much more accurate number had I had Penn’s almanac numbers at my disposal)

My Favorite Penn Pics: 2004-2009

This is by far my favorite Penn picture:

- Hey Day 2007 -

I got a little bored and nostalgic, so I compiled a handful of my favorite Penn pics from over the years into an album on Facebook. Take a look!

I know, I know, so far not too many China pics. Will take some and upload them soon, I promise!

Aung San Suu Kyi Sentenced for 18 Months

Really sad, but unfortunately a very expected sentence for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's pro-democracy leader. The junta will basically use any excuse to keep Aung San Suu Kyi imprisoned, and this stupid....STUPID American, John Yettaw, practically gave it to them on a silver platter.

This sentence has drawn international criticism from many of the world's leaders, eliciting public statements from the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton, Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, Ban Ki-moon, and so forth...but really, its more of the same story over and over again. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years! What is going to bring about change? What can bring about change? So long as the junta is in control and has a strong grip on the Burmese people (a grip perpetrated by fear and disgustingly inhumane treatment, I might add), no amount of international criticism, words, or sancations will do anything for the situation in Burma.

Ugh, I wish I could say there is something...some incentive: economic, social, or otherwise that would drive towards change. But there hasn't been for the past thirty-plus years, and nothing has changed since then. In fact, things have gotten much worse. The Burmese people have had a long and sad history of colonialism and despicable military rule...where's the tipping point?! This is so frustrating.

Some futbol action and how I almost died

Yesterday Zhangsheng, my coworker, invited me out to play a "friendly" game of soccer in Chaoyang Park (潮阳公园).

I say to him, "You know I never play and am nowhere near competent, right?"

He responds, "Oh yeah don't worry neither are we, we're just all there to have fun"

Right.
So we arrive at the park and look for the pitch that we reserved, and Zhangsheng then talks to the manager of the fields to ask which one we'll be playing at. The guy responds with something like, "Oh yeah you guys are on field 11, playing against the Italian Embassy team, right?"

...

The other teams show up. Turns out it was actually 3 teams in total: one from the Italian Embassy, one team from the Spanish/Portuguese/Turkish Embassies...and one ragtag team of Americans, a Chinese, a Ugandan and a Brit (i.e. us). Our opponents were legitimate "we're-European-so-we-learned-how-to-play-soccer-before-we-learned-how-to-walk" types of dudes...and so I'm thinking, what the heck did I get myself into...

Actually, it was a ridiculous amount of fun! It had just rained hard, and so the field was all wet and slippery. Everyone was in shape so there was a lot of running back and forth, and though my touches and handling were beyond horrible, it was at least an awesome workout for me. By the way, I still maintain that I'd have been an incredibly futbol player (I have the right body for one...disproportionately huge leg muscles) if it weren't for my mom who forbade me to play soccer when I was a kid--for fear of me getting injured...thanks mom!! (just kidding! love you mom!). Instead I was an awkward fish out of water (yeah, literally) on the pitch, running back and forth trying to chase down Italians and Spaniards who seemingly danced around me with the ball.

Here's a funny story though. And it was a great roommate bonding moment with Shane.

Because we had no real goalie, I had volunteered to step in the cage for a bit of time. Shane was playing defense, and with his brilliant skills, managed to touch the ball with his hands (although to his defense it was hardly obvious and shouldn't have been called at all). Which meant...penalty kick time.

...gulp.

So here I am alone in the goal, with absolutely no experience in playing soccer or goalie for that matter. The Italians select their biggest guy to take a shot against me. This dude is at least 6 foot 4 and 200+ pounds with legs the size of tree trunks, and you just know from the looks of him that he's probably killed a man or two with his shot before. In what feels like slow motion, he puts the ball down, takes a long step back, and pauses...a long time.

I shoot Shane a glance that pretty much says "thanks a lot dude. real nice of you."

At this point, my life flashes before my eyes. Okay, so not exactly my entire life, but just a harsh reminder of my buddy Edison who got his front tooth completely knocked out because he was playing goalie at a "friendly" company soccer game last summer. I wonder for a second how good the dentists are in China...

Right before he shoots, I vaguely recall my dad making a comment about how with penalty kicks, goalies should just pick a direction and go for it. So as he begins to shoot, I cross my fingers, say a quick prayer and dive left. Except the shot is pretty much dead center. I jerk back and succeed in tapping it, but it still ends up in the net.

Good news: I survived (with all of my teeth still intact)
Bad news: We ended up losing that game 2-1 (I blame Shane)

Fun times though!

Pics:

At the gate of Chaoyang Park there's a HUGE statue of Shaq! How cool!

Biking in Beijing

One of my favorite things to do in Beijing is to bike around. Its really fun, but for those who have been in the city, you'll agree with me in that it could also definitely be considered an extreme sport. Cars have no regard for bikers or pedestrians, and other bikers are always cutting through red lights and going in every which direction. Either way, its awesome...its really fun, it allows me to get around fairly quickly and also explore the city much more than I would be able to on foot.

Some recent bike stories:

-Almost got hit by this dude who was trying to text while biking (and you thought California was bad). I dodged him and then gave him the very classic, passive-aggressive Beijing scowl and grunt

-Was biking to work today when all of a sudden...torrential downpour. We're talking about raindrops the size of golf balls. I had to quickly whip out my umbrella and bike with an umbrella up (btw...I think I'm pretty awesome that I can do that), but man, by the time I got into the office, I was totally drenched. Good thing my laptop and phone stayed dry

-I was caught on the wrong side of a merging bus one time, and thought I could speed up and pass it on the front. And then I realized how stupid of an idea that would have been, so just let it pass me instead

-Was successful in being able to piggy-back my coworker a couple of city blocks without either one of us dying

-Bike totally comes with a sweet bike-bell. And you know me, I'm having lots of fun with it! (to the annoyance of anybody around me)

-There's a saying that you're not really a true Beijinger until your bike gets stolen. Any bets on when mine will?

How this global recession can help Asia in the long run

Key word: can

I read this great article on the current economic state of Asia by Brian Klein and Kenneth Neil Cukier in Foreign Affairs that talked about how this recent economic downtown has affected Asia and what steps they should take to emerge stronger from it.

For the most part, all of the coverage and blame for this recent recession has been directed at Western economies—their consumption binge, the dramatic collapse of the real estate bubble, the lax issuances of risky assets (i.e. subprime mortgages), over-levered banks, etc. And more or less this is all pretty much correct. What has become apparent, however, is that as the recession unfolded, it was more than just the Western economies that suffered. As a result of increased globalization, many other regions of the world suffered—and suffered tremendously indeed. Asia, for example, was hit exceptionally hard. According to this article, Taiwan’s exports and industrial production shrank by a percentage larger than the United States experienced during the Great Depression. In addition, Japan is showing its first trade deficit in 30 years and Singapore’s economy is expected to contract by almost 10 percent, which is the largest decrease since 1965.

Now compared to the contraction seen in many Western economies, this may not seem overly excessive. Yet what is so surprising about these numbers is that this was not supposed to happen! Many of Asia’s financial institutions avoided much of the risky assets that plagued their Western counterparts. In fact, as a result of the lessons learned during the recent 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, most of the governments in the region displayed fiscal integrity and many corporations kept healthy balance sheets. Now add the region’s traditionally high individual savings rate, and this should all be a recipe for economic stability—especially given the circumstances that led to this downturn.

So why was Asia hit so badly? This is why: this recession showed, if anything, how overly dependent these Asian countries are to their export driven economies. Even amidst such aforementioned fiscal prudence, Asia suffered simply because their economies are skewed too much towards exports. To hear this is definitely no surprise. For the last 60+ years, Asia has developed into the export powerhouse of the world. Starting from Japan’s success story, then emulated by the Asian “Tigers” of Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore, and now with the awakening of the “Sleeping Dragon” (aka China), Asia has developed a very strong export-driven economic culture. Don’t get me wrong, Asia’s export-led growth is still an incredible success story. It has lifted billions of individuals from the lowest of poverty levels to (in some cases) living standards that now rival the West. Except now it has become apparent that this model needs to change.

It is never good for an economy to be as heavily skewed towards one element. When this happens, as with the case of Asia’s export-led growth, it significantly affects incentives—which then lead to huge economic distortions. An unbalanced focus on exports means that corporate investment, government spending, and foreign direct investment all flow right into exports and not into other industries that may benefit the domestic economy as a whole. For example, programs that would increase social welfare, such as education, healthcare, unemployment benefits, and social security will get overlooked. As a result, the infrastructure for these social programs is not existent, and as a result, recessions are significantly exacerbated. Many will point at the traditionally high household savings rate of the region and attribute that to a cultural norm. This may be true, but another reason why Asians need to save so much is that because of a lack of social programs such as education, health and social security, there is more of a necessity to “save away for a rainy day.”

Not only do social programs suffer, but skewed incentives in this case lead to a huge income disparity between the rich (those involved in export-industries) and the poor. This in turn has significantly affected domestic demand, which is practically nonexistent in Asia. Although Asia is now a manufacturing powerhouse, the majority of the population cannot even afford the goods that it produces. Now couple that with the high household savings rate, and you begin to see why domestic demand is so low in the region.

This global recession can help Asia in the long run simply because it has exposed much of the region’s economic weaknesses. As the West struggles to emerge out of this recession, it will continue to de-lever itself for years to come. In fact, household savings has already reached record highs. In other words, the West will be in no position to continue its spending binge, and the East will certainly suffer. I think this can be good though. If Asia’s governments recognize this and begin to take steps towards increasing domestic demand and improving social services, this may be the push that the region needs to rebalance its economy. It won’t be easy or painless for the region to apply the brakes and shift away from the model that has provided it with unbelievable growth in the last half-century, but I believe that this is an absolutely necessary step for future of the region.