Paul Krugman was my PhD advisor when I was a graduate student at Princeton. I first got to know him (in person) when he taught me the PhD course on international trade. I had many lively conversations with him in class, which inspired me to seek him out as my thesis supervisor. He accepted my request. However, given his status as a columnist for the New York Times and public intellectual, he was scarce on time. People often ask me what it was like having him as an advisor. Although he has a reputation in the profession as someone that can be abrasive and confrontational (especially with people with whom he disagrees), he was always nice to me. It was a routine when we met at his office for him to rifle through the many books sent to him for his critique and comments, and he would pass many of them on to me -- including copies of his own books. As a mind, he was amazingly brilliant and able to offer insights and solutions to problems in a matter of seconds, when I had struggled for days or weeks on them. Regardless of anyone’s opinions about his politics, the…
This is my (extended) family in our ancestral village. We were Chinese peasants. I was literally born on the streets. China was poor in the 1970s. I nearly died because of bad health conditions as a toddler. My family immigrated to Canada 43 years ago today (17 April 1979). We are not a “tiger family”. No one in my extended family went to university (other than me). None of us played musical instruments or had tutors. None of us are doctors or engineers. I was arrested twice as a teenager and mostly raised myself. We were part of the Cantonese immigrant underclass in Canada. Although I left the village decades ago, I still have many vivid memories of it, including the day that my hamlet got its first (communal) black & white TV. The world has changed a lot in the four decades since my family emigrated from our country of birth. China is now prosperous and I live a privileged life crisscrossing the world. Nevertheless, the village – now a part of greater Guangzhou -- remains basic and a throwback to a bygone era, a reminder that development is neither uniform nor universal. 
