Electric rice cooker

On the occasion of International Rice Cooker Day (Decemeber 10th): I was “made in China” in the 1970s. China at that time was in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, which rendered it poor and in disarray. My family was able to escape our destitution to a better life in Canada in 1979 by grace of its family reunification programme. My granduncle (paternal grandfather’s brother), who ran a successful business in Toronto’s Chinatown (and left China during the chaos of WWII), sponsored us. We would otherwise not qualify to enter into Canada, which normally selects its immigrants via a points-based system. When we emigrated from China, our first port of call was Hong Kong (which back then was a British colony). This was the only point of travel connecting China with the West back then. It was there that we also first experienced modernity, and my family took advantage of this to buy an electric rice cooker. (We bought the iconic National rice cooker; National later became part of Panasonic.) We were peasants and had previously cooked rice back in our village using a wok over a hay or dung fire. This was a new and cherished possession for us.…

Mr Monette

I was arrested twice as a teenager. (No criminal record by grace of laws pertaining to young offenders.) I grew up at a time ('80s and '90s) in Toronto when youth gangs were prevalent in my neighbourhood. However, up until age 16, I had mostly avoided that subculture as I had gravitated towards church when I was young. My first arrest was related to a shoplifting incident that morphed into a bloody affair after trying to run away from mall security when I was confronted for my deed. The second arrest was for an incident at school where the victim was hospitalised and I was expelled. I was held briefly at a youth detention facility on my first arrest. I was initially frightened when placed there, but it turned out that half of the other people detained with me were childhood friends or friends of friends. I was represented in the courts both times by Mr Monette, my Legal Aid-assigned lawyer. The Crown (prosecution) sought six months closed custody upon my second conviction, based on the recommendation of my (unsympathetic) probation officer. However, my lawyer pushed back. His strategy was to seek a more lenient sentence by submitting positive character…

Carlaw doughnut shop

The Jamaican beef patty is a Toronto staple food. I have many fond memories of how it played a big part of and enriched my life. I grew up during the ‘80s and ‘90s in Leslieville/ South Riverdale before it got gentrified. My go-to place for beef patties back then was Donut Express on the northwest corner of Carlaw Ave and Gerrard Street East, just a few blocks from my childhood home (and where my parents still live). Unfortunately, it closed many years ago, but I still fondly reminisce about their patties. I left Toronto in 1999. When I go back to visit, the Jamaican beef patty is on my list of obligatory Toronto foods to indulge in (along with ketchup chips, butter tarts, bloody Caesars, and siu mei (Cantonese BBQ)). Donut Express was an unpretentious 24/7 doughnut shop that was popular with working-class folks and sleepless youths looking for a place to pass the night. Most notably, the establishment had a video poker machine adjacent to their food counter (where the patties were made/served), and a jukebox with a selection of music from that era. As a teen and young adult, I worked late at a restaurant job. Therefore,…

Duk Shing coffee shop

Back in the early 1990s, I used to frequent a coffee shop in East Toronto which was a popular hangout for troublemaker teens. It was a bit of a lawless place. Illegal cigarettes were sold under the counter and there were constant rumours of gambling on site. The air inside was always thick with smoke as it was a popular place for delinquent students to take their cigarette breaks. I had a few memorable incidents at this establishment, which made me well known to the proprietor and the regulars. I first gained notoriety at Duk Shing when I — at the time totally removed from the miscreant scene — went inside the shop to confront a group, led by "Big Brother", that had been “rolling” my friends (i.e. robbing via threat of assault). The plan was for my friends and I to confront BB inside Duk Shing and make it known that we would not be pushed around. A rival faction, who had their own beef with the group and was friendly with us, waited outside in full view from inside the shop as our backup. I had hitherto never entered Duk Shing, but mustered the courage to take a…

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…