Dining in Strachan Hall

My mum used to collect vegetables tossed in the dumpster of a wholesale produce warehouse near our home. I also used to go to my sister's workplace, a flower shop in Toronto's financial district, and collect the carcasses of chickens in a large black plastic bag from an adjacent fried chicken takeaway shop to cook at home. These were done for practical reasons, rather than necessity, but they coincided with the worst of my family’s financial hardship back in the 1990s. The vegetables that my mum collected were fine to consume. If they were leafy greens, such as cabbage, we would just peel off the top rotten layers. Else we would simply chop off the bad parts. Likewise, the chicken carcasses were freshly cut and of good quality. There was still plenty of meat on them. My sister knew the butcher at the chicken shop, and they would otherwise be tossed out. In my first year at Trinity College (University of Toronto), I used to "sneak" into the posh resident dining hall (where students were required to wear a black academic gown to dine and meals were served by waitstaff). I was a non-resident at Trinity and non-res students were…

Hsin Kuang Restaurant

My father built the Hsin Kuang chain of restaurants in Toronto. It was a high-profile brand from Hong Kong, and when it was introduced to Toronto in the 1980s it made a splash in the local community. Its flagship location was on 346 Spadina Ave in Toronto’s downtown Chinatown. It was notable for its bright yellow and green Chinese architecture. The brand is no longer around. The Hsin Kuang on Spadina later became the Bright Pearl in 1997. In 2018, 346 Spadina was demolished and replaced by a condominium/ office complex. There are many intriguing stories about the old Hsin Kuang Restaurant building on Spadina, including tales of it being haunted. Prior to it being a restaurant, it served at one point as a funeral parlour. Stories abound of mysterious knocks on the bathroom stalls, or of sightings of a female floating around the restaurant. My dad once had an employee who was too scared to work there on night shifts when it was under construction. He had to threaten to fire him to get him back on task. Some people assume that my family must have been doing well financially given that my father was the contractor that built…

INSEAD

I was a Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD (Innovation & Policy Initiative) at the Abu Dhabi campus from 2015-19. In that role, I collaborated on scholarly research and supported the institution's academic commitments. INSEAD bio: Dr Kai L. Chan Distinguished Fellow, INSEAD Innovation & Policy initiative Dr Kai L. Chan is a Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD Innovation and Policy Initiative. He is also part of the senior management team of a Montreal-based technology (cloud software) company. Previously Dr Chan was a special adviser to the UAE federal government on competitiveness and statistics, where he focused on that country's positioning on global performance indices. He was also a member of the Dubai Expo 2020 bid team. Prior to moving to the UAE in 2011, Dr Chan served as an associate and the in-house economist for a consumer finance merchant banking firm in Manhattan. Before that, he worked in the Singapore office of a global management consulting firm with assignments in Asia and Europe covering risk management and strategic planning for banks. Dr Chan’s expertise/research cover education, income distribution, migration, government & policy, and performance measurement. He is the creator of the Power Language Index, Gender Progress Index, and Intelligence Capital Index. His works…

Princeton University

At Princeton University I taught the calculus camp for MPP students at the Woodrow Wilson School (WWS) and served as a lecturer and preceptor (teaching assistant) for various graduate and undergraduate economics courses (development economics, macroeconomics, microeconomics, public economics). Additionally, I served as the assistant master at Butler College in 2002-03. (This role was akin to a dean of student life position.) This is also where I earned by master's (MA) and doctoral (PhD) degrees in economics. My dissertation was entitled "Three essays on monetary policy in small open economies" and my PhD supervisor was Prof. Paul Krugman. I was also fortunate to count three other economics Nobel laureates as professors. Woodrow Wilson School (WWS) calculus for MPP students: Pre-examination Homework assignment 1 Homework assignment 2 Homework assignment 3 Homework assignment 4 Homework assignment 5 Final exam Final exam suggested solutions I served as a teaching assistant for the following classes (and professors): Introductory macroeconomics (Prof. David Colander) Public economics (Prof. Harvey Rosen) Introductory microeconomics (Prof. Uwe Reinhardt) WWS development economics (Prof. Dean Karlan)

Beer league hockey

October is normally the start of beer league season. But as there is no men's league hockey in Riyadh, I will be missing out on it this year. It has otherwise been a tradition for me the past 15 years. For someone who grew up in Canada, I was a late bloomer when it came to (ice) hockey. Coming from a poor immigrant family, sports was not a priority. Also, being from a demographic not generally associated with hockey, as well as being undersized, the stars did not naturally align to push me towards the sport. But I loved hockey anyhow, and even started my own league to play floor hockey at the gym of a local church when I was a teen, since ice hockey was out of reach. I learned to skate at age 13. I then played (pick-up) hockey occasionally -- mostly off rather than on – until I was in my thirties. My first experience with organised hockey was in Manhattan. I joined a beer league there by happenstance at age 34. Since then, I have played regularly and been on several beer league championship teams. I have been fortunate to have shared the ice with…

My first arrest

My first arrest happened when I was 16 years old in the last week of June 1991. A short time earlier, I had befriended someone from Chinatown who had connections to the triads (Chinese mafia). We got along well and came up with the idea of shoplifting and then on-selling designer clothes to them. It was not about the money; it was about winning their favour (and, for me, gaining their protection). On the day that I got arrested, my friend and I went in the afternoon to a downtown Toronto department store. I had a “booster” bag which I would use to conceal the goods. My friend was there to keep a watchful eye. All went smoothly. However, as we exited the store, we were approached by two buffed persons who identified themselves as security. I looked at my friend, panicked, and yelled “run!” I ran onto the street as fast as I could and dropped the bag, and thought that would be that. However, security continued to pursue me (allowing my friend to flee). After a chase of about 50 metres, I felt the arms of one of them grab me from behind. I fought him with all…

Toronto 25 years later

I left Toronto 25 years ago. First to pursue graduate studies in the United States. Then onto a global career that has made me a legal resident over the years of five other countries (USA, Germany, Singapore, UAE, and Saudi Arabia). In that time, I travelled to 50+ countries, got married, became a polyglot, and won (hockey) beer-league championships in three cities. I currently split my time between Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and Abu Dhabi (UAE). My transition into a global citizen is quite remarkable considering that I had previously never travelled or left Toronto (with the exception of a few visits back to my ancestral village). But that all changed in the summer of 1999 after I had graduated from the University of Toronto. I arrived in Canada at age four. I grew up in South Riverdale. The area now goes by the name Leslieville, and is considered one of the trendier neighbourhoods of Toronto. But back when I lived there ('80s and '90s), it was an industrial working class district. My parents paid a pittance (relative to today's market) for our house back in the early 1980s. The factories of Eastern Ave and Carlaw Ave are now replaced by…

77 River Street

77 River Street in Toronto is the address of my old probation centre. I had bimonthly (twice a month) meetings there from age 16 to 18 back in the 1990s. The probation officer that was assigned to me after my second case ("PV") had recommended to the Crown that I spend six months in closed custody. PV had a bachelor's degree in criminology & psychology but held many misinformed views about me. When the judge ruled to allow me to perform community service in lieu of jail time, PV felt affronted. When I was assigned a community service officer (CSO), both PV and the CSO (who was part of PV's network) doubted my ability to complete the hours on time. I "volunteered" at a Red Cross office. The manager (who did not know that I was doing my deed as part of probation) liked my work and provided highly positive feedback of me to the CSO. I finished my hours quickly. PV did not show up for the last several meetings I was supposed to have with her. I had completed all the requirements of probation long before then, and each subsequent meeting made her eat the proverbial crow. In…

Unlikely journey towards the PhD

Twenty-five years ago, I started the most unlikely of journeys towards a PhD. My path was rather random and improbable: I was born on the streets of a third-world country to peasants; raised in poverty in Toronto; arrested twice and spent a brief time in prison as a teenager. Higher education was the last thing on my mind when I was expelled from high school. Nevertheless, I eventually managed to earn the highest academic degree -- and under a Nobel laureate supervisor. I am not supposed to be a holder of a doctorate. The PhD is, in many ways, a luxury for the well-off. The median time to acquire a PhD in economics at North American universities is about 5.5 years and with a 40 percent incompletion rate. (Median time from completion of bachelors to PhD is about 8 years, and median age at graduation is 31.) Years of forgone/ reduced income and career progression is a steep price for a person trying to escape penury – especially if academia is not the goal. Moreover, insomuch as there is a thing as the opposite of a “tiger family”, that would be mine. We were part of the Cantonese immigrant underclass…

High school sojourn

It took me six years to finish high school. I graduated at age 20. I started and finished at Riverdale Collegiate in Toronto, but in between bounced around three other schools. However, I often tell people that I went to five schools. This is because the second sojourn at Riverdale was, for all intents and purposes, a different school. Riverdale was completely torn down, with the exception of its façade, and rebuilt anew during my absence. (It stayed open and functional during that time.) I originally left Riverdale on my own volition. I would be subsequently expelled from the next school. When I tried to go back to Riverdale my ex-VP was aware of my expulsion. When I was in his office applying to get back in, he told me, “The day you get back into this school is the day I quit!” He then threw my transcripts on the floor. I was rejected by all the high schools I applied to in the following year, including at Monarch Park Collegiate – a school that enrolled 30-year-old “mature” students. (Ironically, the professor at the University of Toronto who encouraged me to pursue a PhD was a student at Monarch Park.)…