Survival of the prettiest: Competition is the key

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

Smith’s famous quote seems to suit the demand and supply of well looking ladies and gentlemen in our living world as well.

While no one can assure the definition of being beautiful and handsome due to its subjectivity, everyone can give surety to the meaning of being ugly, I’m sorry, not good in looking. It is a fact that everyone seems to complain the shortage of good looking humans in our country and most of us (at least for Chinese if not other races a well) seems to agree that foreign countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan or Japan are populated with much more better looking humans.

I’m really annoyed by this raw opinion. Are we born to be less attractive compared to Hong Kongers? Is it a fact that local Chinese guy are destined to be the frog while the Taiwanese will always be the charming prince? Don’t be stupid please, especially to those 15 to 18-year-old “Kawaii” ladies.

It is competition that causing this phenomenon.

The famous English naturalist, Charles Darwin once proposed the theory of sexual selection, defining it as the effects of the "struggle between the individuals of one sex, generally the males, for the possession of the other sex”. One example of intersexual selection that we might know is the female peahen chose to mate with the male peacock that, in her mind, had the most beautiful plumage. Indeed, modern human choose its mate in a similar way. Love, an immeasurable variable which is as old as the history of mankind, has been playing less and less role in explaining the complicatedness of relationship nowadays. Now, most human must pay a premium called “good looking” or “face value” to be in relationship.

Just like the theory of free market, if each consumer is allowed to choose freely what to buy and each producer is allowed to choose freely what to sell and how to produce it, the market will settle on a product distribution and prices that are beneficial to all the individual individuals of a community, and hence to the community as a whole. This is essence of the most famous metaphor in the 300-year-old dismal science called “Invisible hand”. Adam Smith himself believed that population or specifically saying, the size of the market would determine the price, quality and hence, the welfare of the society.

By joining the theory of intersexual selection and invisible hand, it means that the more good looking humans (competitive) that a country has in current time, the more good looking humans they will produce in future. Human will compete to get its mate, and the more aggressive their rivals are, the more aggressive they will be evolved- the survival of the prettiest and handsome-est. But, how are we going to measure the aggressiveness of being pretty or handsome, and also its competitiveness? The answer would be on population density.

Let’s just put Malaysian Chinese as our main focus. There are approximately 4.5 million Chinese in Malaysia (assuming foreign Chinese immigrant and local Chinese emigrant equal to zero). Meanwhile, there are about 7 million citizens in Hong Kong alone. This is not a small figure but it doesn’t really matter since population density would be the most crucial factor.

Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world. In year 2009, the Cantonese land population density stood at 6480 persons per square kilometer. In contrast, Malaysia population density was 780 persons per square kilometer in year 2010. In other words, in average, a Hong Konger would see 8.3 people more than a Malaysian per day which also means that, competition would be higher.

Not mentioning yet Malaysia is a multiracial nation, and there are other races that form Malaysian community. Well, looking from a typical Chinese perceptive, the melting pot situation actually makes Chinese more “precious”. During steamboat dinner, nobody would value a slice of beef more (situation in Hong Kong). However, when we have a plate of mixed steaks, we would value beef more (situation in Malaysia). Of course, why a Malaysian Chinese would put so many budgets on make-up gadgets and spend so much on dresses since competition is less. On the contrary, the competition is so fierce in Hong Kong that cosmetic surgery would be perceived as a norm. And what’s more, they have to compete with the fox fiend and the husband stealers from mainland China.

We are in under-competitive market. However, it seems that Malaysian ladies especially the Chinese are not really appreciate the luckiness that they have.

Tey, the Milk bottle : A tribute to a dedicated educator

Milk is an essential liquid for young mammals before they are able to digest other type of foods. Getting the milk isn’t really a big deal in dairy industry. The hardest segment of it is the storing and therefore better distribution of milk to the households. Of course, when we say storing, the first object that comes to our mind is milk bottle. In fact, milk bottle wasn’t invented in an easy path. The introduction of milk bottle had gone a long and stiff way since the Industrial Revolution until now.

The story of milk and milk bottle reflects the education system in Malaysia. Milk symbolizes the knowledge while milk bottle are the educators. And needless to say, the milk drinkers would be the learners of knowledge. Pointing fingers to the education system, criticizing how dreadful and immobility the modern children are, telling somebody off that students nowadays speak English that only the Aliens would understand – Malaysian’s habit as always.

Maybe the metaphor being used here is quite unconnected but in my humble opinion, Malaysia never lacks macro thinker- speaking the overall performance of the economy, political system and education system, criticizing the big issues and so on. Maybe by doing all these, they think they can gain better recognition and self-serving esteem. What we truly need is the perceptive micro thinker, focusing on tiny details and able to analyze things from microscope rather than a geographical map. I would say that Malaysia produces too much of big-mouth gentlemen rather than operation-oriented engineers. Hence, instead of paying too much attention on getting the milk either from a New Zealand cow (teaching in English) or an Indonesian cow (teaching in Malay), why not observe more on the quality of milk bottles?

Anyway, I know a very good milk bottle named Professor Tey Nai Peng in University of Malaya. Graduated with a Bachelor of Economics degree (majoring in statistics) from the University of Malaya in 1974, obtained his Master of Science (population planning) from the University of Michigan, USA in 1982 and probably the best demography economist in Malaysia.

His contributions towards national demography and socio-economic studies were enormous. He was the principal investigator for 20 national and large scale surveys/studies on population, family and socio-economic issues, funded by the Government of Malaysia, Rand Corporation (USA), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Health Organization (WHO), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Ford Foundation and ASEAN-Australian Population Programme. In addition, he was a researcher in more than 30 population and socio-economic studies.

He has provided consultancy services to several international and government agencies, private sector companies and NGOs, including the NPFDB, Ministry of Rural and Regional Development, Federation of Reproductive Health Associations, Malaysia (FRHAM), UNFPA, United Nations Social and Economic Commission for West Asia (ESWA), ESCAP, WHO, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Futures Group International, Synergos Institute, Asian Parliamentary Forum for Population and Development (Malaysia), Sepang International Circuit, Macrowork Sdn Berhad, Drainage and Irrigation Department, Tenaga Nasional Berhad, Citibank (Malaysia), Chemical Company of Malaysia and Women Development Centre.

He is a Board Member of the NPFDB, Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies and Community Support Network, a member of the Evaluation Committee of FRHAM, Malaysia and the local representative for Asian Population Association. He was the Deputy Chairman of the Commission for the Inquiry of Service Workers in Sarawak, Ministry of Human Resources (in 2002-2003), a Committee Member of SPSS User Group and Publication Secretary of the Economic Association of Malaysia.

Despite all his previous glory and achievements, he still consciously knows a fact that education is the key of continuous improvement. If education fails, it means all the things the previous generation have done would fail as well. And this exactly why he is still teaching survey methods and sampling designs, data analysis, application of demographic techniques, statistical methods, basic statistics and econometrics.

Frankly speaking, many undergraduates faced plentiful cocky lecturers who would say “Do you know this” and “It is pathetic that you don’t know this”. But goes back to the very objective of education and nevertheless a duty of a lecturer, isn't it a task of educator to minimize the knowledge gap between students and a teacher? Anyway, the quality milk bottle that I know here would say “Do you know this” and “Haiya! You don’t know this ah!!! Let me explain!!!”