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.