Into the World: The Random Thoughts in My Mind

You Can’t Lie Flat Without Someone Paying the Bills

2026-11-02T06:51:31.168+01:00

The media has a set narrative for China's tang ping (躺平, "lying flat") phenomenon: in the face of a dire labor market and intense work hours for little return, the Chinese youths are reevaluating what makes life worth living. The result, for many, is to simply stop competing, minimize living costs, and curtail personal ambitions. This narrative is underpinned by China's economic failings. The failure to provide an increasing number of highly educated youths with employment that is both gainful and lucrative results in a negative spiral of lower consumption and animal spirits that, in turn, kills off more productive jobs.

It is a clean and convincing narrative...except for a glaring question. For millions to be able to lie flat and stay unemployed for years, someone needs to feed them, no matter how little expenditure they incur in everyday life. The Chinese government's aversion to welfarism means the state is certainly not going to subsidize the youths' unproductive lifestyle. If anything, the state, logically, criticizes the entire lying flat movement as a waste of talent and a drag on China's economic dynamism, especially considering the country's perpetually declining birth rates.

Instead, the youths' parents and family members have stepped up, bankrolling the youths' rebelliousness. With the term kenlaozu (啃老族, "people gnawing on the old") entering everyday language, the traditional Chinese culture of the young paying for the old has now been flipped upside down. In a country where just a generation ago, many had no substantial assets to begin with, the older generation is not burning through their savings on children that they had no plans to pay for into their 30s and beyond. Surely, many are dismayed and angry.

So why not just kick out the kids and force them to pay for their own lying-flat lifestyle? Yes, the youth unemployment rate is hovering at 19%, but many youths are spurning positions that could at least bring some income, if not at the fields and salary levels that they had imagined after trudging through the country's grueling educational system. Instead, it seems many more lament the lack of opportunities than where their next meal might come from. Some might be anxious about parental pressure, but few talk about finding themselves locked out of the family home.

That reality points to a different element propagating lying flat: China's warping but undying collectivist culture. For Chinese parents, nothing can be more shameful than letting others know that their children are failures. And nothing illustrates their own capabilities more than boasting of their success. Hence the children-comparing contests at group dinners. The flip side is the need to save face, for themselves and the family as a whole, by hiding failures at home. If the unemployed children are willing to cooperate, then the cost of feeding them three meals a day and sparing a bedroom is worth it.

That calculation is made possible not just by China's economic failures, but also by its success. Surely in the decades past, some kids also wanted to drop out of the rat race or simply had no talent to stay in it. But with widespread poverty, there was no choice but to work. If parents could not feed you, you had to hustle outside the family home, even if you really wanted to lie flat. Collectivism means little if resources are stretched thin. Filial piety is empty words without money transfers as a concrete expression. Tang ping is really a luxury for the privileged few who can afford it.

If the Chinese economy is really in the dire straits that are commonly portrayed, the whole lie-flat culture may not last. The current generation of face-saving parents will soon die off or have little left to spend on their homebound kids as their own jobs become more precarious. The lucky few youngsters will inherit a fortune, turning them from unemployed to purveyors of a luxury lifestyle and business investments. Many more will have no choice but to scrape by with whatever jobs they can get, after years of skills and diligence atrophied by staying at home.

If I could put in a word of advice to those lying flat, it is to be a bit more anxious about their own predicament. They might think their values are idealistic and lifestyles idyllic, but that reality is only temporarily possible. Collectivist culture has its limits, just like the bank accounts of aging parents with no further income and few years left on Earth. If they don't prepare for that day now, they'll find themselves desperate, aimless, and incapable of making ends meet. They had no role to play in China's past economic success. Unless they change, they'll have little say in its future either.

The Influencers Found Your Village. Now It’s Ruined

2026-10-26T10:52:16.628+01:00

Looking through social media, I started to see the next iteration of Chinamaxxing: going off the beaten path. The travelers have already seen the headline sights. The Great Wall, the cyberpunk skylines, the Avatar mountains, the old towns...too many people already post polished videos and photos. Too many, in fact, that for the younger generations that mainly share their trips with others in visual forms, their own content would no longer suffice. The goal is now one-upping each other to find the most obscure villages and urban corners, where they can brag about being the first foreigner ever to set foot in.

This trend sees a parallel across the world. Wowing at the Eiffel Tower, London Bridge, or Times Square is simply too passe. Now the travel influencers are crowing about the hospitality, the sights, and foods of places like Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan, humble-bragging how they had to navigate through the challenges of there being little tourist information to reference, and filled with anxiety about how popular media portray these destinations only in the clearly negative context of war, economic stagnation, social restrictions, and political conflicts.

The locals, of course, would be cooperative. After all, it is only logical that, for countries starved of positive headlines abroad, opportunity for direct interaction with foreign cultures, and tourist dollars, the arrival of the intrepid "frontier travelers" is welcome. And that welcome will surely encourage more people to go off the beaten path. There is no fun getting sprayed with water and constantly told to go home while sitting at a cafe in Barcelona. There is nothing fun or relaxing about visiting somewhere new when constantly combating hostility.

Yet, over time, that welcome gradually gives way to dismay. The initial welcome leads to global exposure, with influencers enticing casual travelers to visit as well. Obscure villages suddenly become home to thousands upon thousands of visitors, overwhelming the few local businesses that existed mostly to cater to limited local demand. Entrepreneurial types start investing in improving tourist infrastructure, the money flowing in raising the price for everyone and crowding out the locals in favor of the tourist traffic.

In the end, no one is happy. The locals withdraw their welcome as prices increase, even though most see no direct financial benefit from the tourist traffic. The tourists who show up increasingly find themselves disappointed by the lack of rustic authenticity that they came to see on social media, their expectations shattered by the typical tourist shops and restaurants they see everywhere. And as the tourist flow ebbs, the entrepreneurs who invested so much find themselves unable to recoup what they built based on much higher demand.

The cycle repeats itself, as more off-the-beaten-path destinations become famous, people come in and then leave, while the next hot new destination rears its head. The continued cycle of "discovering the new" leaves behind a path of destruction, physically shaping more and more of the world and giving more and more people a real-life reason to hate the tourist traffic. Still, as the world becomes wealthier and intercontinental transport becomes cheaper, the cycle continues. There are simply so many unexplored, unknown corners of the world that even influencers haven't gotten to.

There is a reason that major cities like New York, Paris, and London continue to attract visitors even when social media is overfilled with their videos and photos. Many people, wealthy enough to travel for the first time, want to minimize risk. They want guaranteed satisfaction that headline sights provide, while also wanting the peace of mind that a city with developed urban resources comes with, sometimes centuries of experience catering to visitors with little direct local knowledge. Barcelona may hate tourists, but its tourist infrastructure knows how to handle the discontent with class and normality.

Surely, the same will befall China. A small location, no matter how beautiful, quickly becomes too dense for anyone to be comfortable. The reality of the crowded Maltese summer I have the misfortune of witnessing every year is too obvious a cautionary tale. As much as everyone wants to be different, they can be different within major cities where urban transport can handle tens of millions. Underexplored neighborhoods in those locales are a much easier way to be different than a remote village in the middle of nowhere.

A Prison Sentence Ends. Google Doesn’t

2026-10-19T10:11:00.707+02:00

Young people make mistakes, sometimes egregiously. But even when the mistakes lead to people being deeply hurt, do the perpetrators deserve at least some discretion when it comes to negative publicity? The recent saga of several Cornell students being indicted for raping a female peer at a fraternity house left me with this question. There is no doubt that the seven young men deserved the legal penalties that the relevant court meted out. But while the female victim remained anonymous, and rightly so, the seven young men have had their names and pictures posted all over the internet.

Years ago, China was doing some soul-searching about the prevalent practice of human flesh search (人肉搜索), the idea of someone posting a request online to find a person, and the masses of netizens using their local resources to efficiently get to the target. Most of the requests that the netizens enthusiastically took up related to criminal activities that the masses would have been outraged by. Unsurprisingly, given the internet-based nature of the process, the identified person's personal information is then posted online for the public to see, without any form of consent being asked.

The soul-searching relates to the sheer damage that came from each success in identification. The original posters sometimes spun exaggerated, embellished, and sometimes outright false accusations to appeal for the netizens' help, using deceit to spur that sense of altruistic support central to a successful human flesh search. But rarely do people ask the identified individuals for their stories, asking them whether they are as evil as the search requesters portray them to be. By the time their information goes up online, it's too late. Their reputations and careers are quickly ruined.

That downside of vigilante justice sees an equivalent in what the netizens dubbed the Cornell Seven case. The seven male students have yet to give their own assessments about what happened, surely waiting for the storm to blow over first. But amidst their silence, the general public has already come to the decisive conclusion that they are already proven guilty. And their guilt should not simply be punished by the judicial and penal system in place, but by the public collective wrath of millions commenting about the case online.

Compared to online lynching, years in prison are, in one way, actually kinder to the criminal. Years down the road, when they are released from jail, the seven men will at least be able to rebuild their lives with new jobs, as records of their being in prison would not be easily accessed by future employers not doing deep due diligence on their backgrounds. But any average Joe can type their names into a search engine (or these days, an AI chatbot) to revisit the endless online criticisms they faced for one mistake from their early 20s.

This harshness of a permanent record accessible to all is perhaps why the Chinese government has been so keen on cracking down on human flesh search these days. Beyond questioning the effectiveness of the state's judicial system and thus undermining the government's legitimacy, it is just too disruptive to the social fabric, with citizens pitting themselves against one another with dire consequences, based on the slimmest of empirical evidence. In a country so obsessed with social harmony, that sort of rumormongering will not do.

Similarly, many countries are mulling the concept of "right to forget" in cyberspace, giving people the authority to remove materials that are inaccurate, malicious, and detrimental to their well-being. Easier said than done. Asking a credible news outlet and even a large social media platform to remove a piece of information is plausible and frequently done, but if the information is interesting enough, it would be replicated and shared across hundreds of more niche and personal websites and forums, spreading to every corner of cyberspace before the original posting is taken down.

Erasing every piece of disseminated information on the internet is nigh impossible. But accessing that information is simply too easy. The only way to prevent people from getting hurt and keep getting hurt by this asymmetry is to crack down on the vigilante justice that befell the Cornell Seven. Freedom of speech does not give the average Joe the right to dispense justice as they see fit. And no matter how terrible the crime, the punishment needs to have a limit. Without restrictions, the worst instinct of people to hunt down others becomes uncontrollable.

Poor People Ate It First. Rich People Gave It a Philosophy

2026-10-12T10:16:11.868+02:00

Recently, I came across a review of a restaurant that opened in New York City. The luxury eatery, described as serving borderless, innovative cuisine, was praised above all for its environmental consciousness. To drive the point home, the reviewer raved about a lineup of dishes that use offal from organic animals the restaurant slaughters ethically in-house, which the review termed a clear motivation to let no part of the animal go to waste in the true spirit of a circular economy. I couldn't help but grimace at the glowing words.

Growing up in Asia, eating offal was neither innovative nor borderless; it was ingrained in the local cuisine. From pho to hotpot to stir-fries to stews of all kinds, intestines, tripes, and organs of all kinds adorn the dinner table, with no one treating it as a matter of self-sacrifice to save the environment. Offal, like other pieces of more "normal" meat, was just regular ingredients, no different from the vegetables they were cooked with. People even valued offal for their unique texture, supposed health benefits, and ease of cooking.

And most of all, people valued offal for its low price. Colonial and postcolonial poverty in Asia meant the best slabs of meat could only go to the affluent. Normal people had to make do with the leftovers. Pho didn't become offal-filled by accident. The regular meat went to the French elites, so it wasn't available for the commoners. The story of poverty replicated itself wherever poverty struck. Outside Asia, offal also became a mainstay of curries and barbeques, initially as a matter of survival, but over time, a beloved part of the cuisine. The rich whites who visited, of course, turned their noses up.

Until they themselves "discovered" the benefits and restructured the narrative. When they invent, the leftovers are no longer for the poor, but a sign of sophistication, grounded in concerns for humanity. This story has been told so many times before. While a new wave of psychologists speak of the wisdom behind musical therapy, Asians have been singing their hearts out in marathon karaoke sessions for decades. They credit themselves with taking "ethnic" practices global, whether it be yoga, acupuncture, or eating raw fish.

In the process, they rarely acknowledge the fact that they are simply reinventing the wheel. Sure, the orientals may have had some ancient wisdom, they would say. But ultimately, they did what they did as a matter of necessity in poverty, rather than systematically turning the practices into commercially scalable and scientifically justifiable operations. Like any ideas for starting a new venture, the real value lies in being able to produce it for everyone, market it to the ever-larger masses, and make them accept what was foreign as part of their own personal lifestyle.

But when the adaptation moves in a reverse direction, they call it bastardization. Western foods, political systems, business strategies, and cultural practices found their way across the world in recent decades. Westerners no doubt take pride in the convergence of the globe based on everyone becoming more like them, but the hierarchy remains: authentic Western ideas remain in the West. Those that are adapted to local conditions are imitations riddled with flaws that ultimately prevent those societies from becoming as sophisticated as the West.

That insistence on hierarchy is grounded in a hidden anxiety that the West may no longer have a monopoly on what can be defined as sophistication. Economic development has spread across the world, with many non-Western societies taking a path toward prosperity that is often at odds with Western prescriptions. Some, China in particular, refuse basic tenets like universal suffrage, human rights, and the free market. To compete, the anxious whites now need to take what works there and rebrand it as Western.

Perhaps that's behind the praise for the humble offal. Western pride refuses to die, even though cultural exchange has never been a one-way street in the history of mankind. For the West to remain competitive and at the center of globalization, it has to take in non-Western practices, not just disseminate its own. But just saying so would invert the hierarchy. But to strenuously justify that something that isn't new in fact is, rather than admit that it has merely copied something poor people do. After all, there is nothing sophisticated about poverty.

Can China Help Europe With Its Rising Grocery Bills?

2026-10-05T08:11:25.535+02:00

When I saw fresh cucumbers at my local SPAR at 4 euros per kilogram and watermelon at 2 euros per kilogram, I couldn’t help but recall residents' and travelers’ YouTube videos about the cost of living in China. Some lamented the lack of job opportunities, and others marveled at the ubiquity of technology. But what I noticed was more trivial: a vegetarian all-you-can-eat buffet for 2 US dollars per person, with cucumber-based dishes galore, and streetside stalls peddling watermelons off the back of a truck, at the equivalent of less than 20 euro cents per kilogram.

In 2025, the European Union imported 630 billion US dollars worth of products from China, the highest figure since 2022. Yet, even as the EU runs a trade deficit of more than 100 billion euros with China every quarter, foodstuffs have consistently been an area where the EU runs a surplus. Chinese consumers no doubt appreciate the quality of European wine, meat, and dairy products, but the surplus also masks the inability of affordable Chinese produce to reach the European market. Their greater presence would certainly help combat the inflationary pressure on everyday groceries stemming from wars in Ukraine and the Gulf.

China certainly has the scale. Of the world’s annual watermelon production of a little more than 100 million tons, China grows more than 61 million. China also produces more than 75 million tons of cucumbers every year, while the whole world produces a little more than 90 million. These are not anomalies. China produces 54% of the world’s vegetables and 15% of its fruits. Even with a large domestic market for each, there is plenty to spare for export, especially if the prices obtained abroad can be multiples of what can be fetched at home.

Admittedly, cucumbers and watermelons are not the easiest to ship worldwide. Both are bulky and mostly water, making their by-weight value too low to justify the expensive cold storage needed at every step from the field to the supermarket shelves. But workarounds can be found. Consumers can be convinced to try binned or canned cucumber if they are already used to pickled ones. And why carry a heavy watermelon home, if pureed and juiced versions are more portable and cheaper?

The practicality of the price-conscious consumer begs the question of why Chinese produce, at least in more processed forms, is not more ubiquitous in European markets, as Chinese electronics and cars are. One explanation is the persistent negative image of Chinese products, with even Chinese state-owned media recently conceding that European opinion characterizes products made in China as cheap and of dubious quality. That impression weighs especially heavily for foodstuffs more than manufactured goods, as European concerns may be buttressed by the widely reported use of toxic pesticides more than a decade ago.

The other explanation is the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. Ostentatiously designed to provide affordable local food to European citizens, the Policy has effectively priced out imports from outside the union by handing local farmers subsidies, particularly for locally sourceable produce like cucumbers and watermelons. But even as Malta buys from sunny, arable southern Italy and Spain, its grocery prices can only go as low as the lowest in the EU, not beyond it. The agricultural lobby’s power ensures that any initiatives to lower subsidies or tariffs on imports become politically toxic.

There needs to be a compromise. Despite pleas from local carmakers and opposition to subsidy-driven overcapacity, the EU imports 17% of its cars from China, driven by rising demand for cheap, high-quality electric vehicles. The same is possible for agriculture. European cars can continue to thrive by offering luxury and niche vehicles that Chinese competitors cannot for cultural and technological reasons. Similarly, European farmers should be funded to invest in growing produce with geographical indications and quality schemes, which will remain a reputational barrier to entry against Chinese imitators. Retraining farmers to produce unique, better products is a better use of EU subsidies than helping them stay price-competitive against Chinese imports with comparative advantages in scale.

Ultimately, both European consumers and producers of foodstuffs can benefit. The former gains access to cheaper surplus from China’s large domestic market, subject to EU quality controls, helping to stave off inflation in the kitchen. The latter gains financial support for producing more globally competitive produce that can not only stand up against Chinese imports in Europe, but also sell globally, even in the Chinese market. Then, perhaps no European will be surprised by or envious of the YouTube videos depicting China’s cheap foods.

What South Korea's Latest Political Belief Survey Tells Us About Population Decline

2026-09-28T09:05:28.352+02:00

When people speak of the various reasons that the world is increasingly seeing a widespread dearth of marriages and babies, unsurprisingly, cultural factors feature prominently. But those cultural conversations often revolve around changes in social values. The rise of individualism has made youths question the value of sacrificing their own preferences and interests in exchange for negotiating with a lifelong partner. The prevalence of the nuclear family has made it burdensome to raise a child. The increase in female labor participation has led women to prioritize career advancement over family responsibilities.

These are all valid and important factors, but a recent survey helped me see that they are far from an exhaustive list of the ways modern culture discourages families. Major media outlets in South Korea recently reported on results from surveys of citizens' political views, categorizing them along the widely accepted left-right spectrum. One shocking outcome was that more than one in four men in their 20s and 30s were evaluated as having far-right political views, even though less than 10% of them self-identified as conservative.

At first glance, those worried about population decline might see these results positively. After all, if there is anything that unites right-wingers, it's the belief in family values: more marriages and kids, if only to ensure that the future of the country does not need to depend on importing foreign workers whose cultural values do not align with the native ones. But look closer at other parts of the results, and one could see that the young men's pro-family turn is not simply a sudden epiphany that they need to save their country by reviving traditional beliefs.

The survey results show that the young men are uncharacteristically far-right compared to the rest of South Korean society. They made up more than half of the participants who identified as conservative, even though they made up less than one-sixth of the total surveyed population. Worse yet, their marriageable counterparts, women in their 20s and 30s, were identified as overwhelmingly left-leaning, with only 15% even holding right-wing views, of which a paltry proportion could be slotted into the far-right bucket.

Needless to say, marriages and childbirth are not individual endeavors. Young men hoping for families need to find partners who share the same priorities. In South Korea, at least, finding such partners is increasingly difficult. Even if the left-leaning young woman would eventually want to have children, it is hardly conceivable that they would voluntarily do so with someone from the opposite end of the political spectrum. They would worry about the compatibility of values over household responsibilities and how to educate their offspring.

As the majority of women hesitate to associate themselves with male counterparts to their political right, the spurned young men are incentivized to shift even further to the right. The ranks of involuntary celibates swell with members who seethe at "their" women supposedly corrupted by left-wing views of female emancipation and empowerment. While women may see a lack of romantic, marital, and familial attachment as a personal freedom, the incel frame them as almost criminal in intent, sapping society's strength and the masculinity of their potential mates.

South Korea may just be a harbinger of a global phenomenon. While governments lavish cash upon speed dates, kindergartens, and childrearing subsidies, would it also be wise to invest in platforms for young men and women to just get together and talk? Before they can become romantically involved, a first step may just be to understand their ideological differences. When their worldviews differ so much, neither side, much less the government, can simply proclaim that a middle ground can easily be found. Discussions can at least initiate some semblance of effort to stem the divergence.

Such discussions will have the added benefit of helping us see that the cultural factors pushing people against marriage and childbirth are not always too large for individual agency to matter. One single person cannot stem the rise of individualism or nuclear families, but they can reflect their own political views. In particular, if young men are truly serious about wanting families and children, they need to make compromises on their own values to make themselves a bit more palatable to women whose worlds are increasingly different from theirs.

War-Related Inflation Finally Hits Europe Hard, so Try Importing More?

2026-09-21T14:59:34.553+02:00

"The prices are ridiculous here. How are things on your side?" This is the common refrain coming from Mom's emails, as news headlines scream of further escalations around the Strait of Hormuz that have driven oil prices even higher. For months, I could shrug off her concerns. Looking at the inflation figures coming out of the US, the Europeans seemed to have been left unscathed by the war. It is a wonder how the prices have stayed relatively stable, and few complain about the cost of living locally, given how much more dependent on imported energy this Old Continent is.

In the past weeks, Europe, or at least Malta, has finally seemed to have caught up to the inflation story. Heading into the local supermarket, I have seen cucumber prices jump from less than two euros per kilogram to nearly four, and it has become hard to find fresh food of any kind that has not seen a nearly doubling of prices since I first moved to the islands years ago. Fortunately, the main staples of bread and cheese remain affordable enough for residents to get enough calories. But eating nutritiously is an entirely different matter.

It is one thing to see Americans pay 15 dollars for a fast-food meal and another for people in Malta. Sure, Maltese restaurants may largely cater to the wealthy ranks of foreign tourists rather than the locals more inclined to simple home-cooked meals, but even then, "15 dollars" means something entirely different in America, with a GDP per capita of more than 90,000 dollars, versus one-third of the figure in Europe's major economies. Adding salt to the wound, the American economy is growing nearly 3% a year, while the EU as a whole is lucky to stay flat.

It is perhaps no wonder the hard-right is rising across Europe. Outright racism is taboo in liberal democracies, but the idea of accepting ever more new visitors and migrants is not. When prices rise while wages stay relatively stagnant, the natural conclusion for voters is that there is too much demand for the limited supply of resources, with too many people fighting over the shrinking pool of available jobs. Keeping people out may sound like protecting heritage or culture, but economic concerns may loom larger even if left unspoken.

That logic is entrenched by a feeling of helplessness about the trajectory. Europe had no part to play in the war in Ukraine that drove up prices of grains and fertilizers, and certainly none to play in the ongoing war in the Middle East. And the electorate watches European politicians being sidelined in finding solutions to end these wars while preserving the interests of European nations and peoples. As they see the cost of living balloon, they have little else to do beyond the only agency they know: vote for the most forceful-sounding politicians running in elections.

These voters will surely be disappointed. The hard-right, with little administrative experience, will not come up with magical solutions to rising prices in the supermarkets. Stopping the flow of foreign workers could only drive up prices further, with higher labor costs passed on to consumers in the form of higher bills for hospital visits, newly constructed real estate, or even fixing their cars. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East may go on even longer as the hard-right panders to their Trumpian supporters across the Atlantic. Voters will only get angrier with the state of their personal finances.

As right-wing governments waste valuable time that could be spent looking for real solutions, perhaps more people can consider supporting the idea of at least freer movement of goods. All the alarm about overcapacity in China heard on the news masks the real value of excess supply: prices go down. German carmakers are right to fret that Chinese competitors can build and sell better cars for cheaper, threatening their very existence. But purely from a consumer point of view, aren't cheap EVs that do not guzzle ever more expensive gasoline good?

And why limit the benefits to cars? Everyday consumables affect personal finances much more than capital goods replaced only once every few years. Chinese garlic already adorns the shelves of supermarkets in Malta. So what is stopping European retailers from working with Chinese producers to help them clear tough EU regulations on food safety and ship other fruits and vegetables across the world? Sure, refrigerated supply chains are expensive to maintain, especially given the rising oil prices, but higher prices incentivize innovation that can make perishables less so.

Do Consultancies Create Dependencies?

2026-09-14T07:44:40.402+02:00

Sometimes being a consultant feels like providing advice, but also chasing the raw materials needed to give it. As I approach the four-year mark of my current job helping high school students with their college applications, I have, unfortunately, become a bit more cynical about what "helping" entails. As much as the job seems to be rooted in collaboration between the knowledgeable advisors and youngsters motivated to absorb the knowledge and put it into action, the reality can sometimes be a bit different. Specifically, the amount of following up I do as part of the job is surprisingly high.

Had previously pointed out that college applications can sometimes involve manufacturing motivation where none exists. But even to fake something, one needs to be motivated enough by the ideal results. What if the counterparty cares so little about the results at all that they don't even bother to put in the minimal effort to keep lines of communication open? But somehow the consultants are still ultimately on the hook for providing the results? Then the advisor becomes a chaser and scheduler, pushing and pulling for anything, and sometimes just creates the results without any input.

This sort of behavior no doubt sends the wrong signals to some students. They start to see payment as the replacement for effort, and the hired guns as responsible for output. They learn to become dependent and feel no guilt, believing that when push comes to shove, the consultants are there to deliver the results, independently if needed. Students are understandably busy juggling schoolwork with extracurriculars. If they can completely outsource the college application and essay writing components of their tight schedules, why would they rationally not?

The answer is the danger of dependency and how the mind normalizes it. Once admitted to college, life will not suddenly become less busy. Schoolwork only becomes more complicated and time-consuming, extracurriculars now have a real stake in exploring future careers, and building relationships with mentors now means much more than just getting a recommendation letter at the end. Used to outsourcing college applications, some instinctively find themselves dependent on a whole new set of consultants, this time for careers, graduate school applications, and finishing research papers.

Businesses are only too happy to see these dependencies become entrenched. Why just help students with college applications when there is much more to be helped? Why not create business models that maximize the lifetime value of each customer by handing them from one specialist to another, task after task, year after year? Consultants are no longer incentivized to get the students to think and work for themselves, but to ensure that they doubt their own capabilities and to conclude that they cannot live without the convenience of outsourcing whatever work they need to do to experts.

But not even the wealthiest families can pay for lifelong consulting. Plenty of college graduates can advise on applications, driving down the price of service. But as high school students turn into researchers and professionals in specific fields, there are fewer and fewer experts knowledgeable enough to help. They will ask for a premium to help out, if they can even be found. The cost of such help eventually no longer justifies the returns, measured in the form of future salaries or other quantifiable benefits to career and academic development.

So what happens when someone so used to depending on consultants for help is suddenly taken off that support, expected to swim or sink in what school or field they have gotten themselves into through the help that they had received before? Those who have been motivated and collaborative with their consultants will adapt quickly. After all, mentors with valuable advice can be found elsewhere without having to pay for the advice. The relationship just needs to be built based on mutual support, not a one-way street.

But the more dependent ones, I'm afraid, will struggle. Just like many struggle to think for themselves without validation from an AI-powered chatbot today, they will struggle to decide what and how they will focus on and prioritize without people feeding them the answers. The advice they receive today has become the guidelines for how they live, behave, and produce results. Being chased and asked for information is the structure they rely on to move forward. In a world where everyone thinks first and foremost about moving ahead of others, that isn't a recipe for success.

Contextualizing the Global Popularity of Poverty Porn

2026-09-07T08:02:13.183+02:00

Alone. Low income. Unemployed. 40 Years Old. No friends. No partner. No kids. These are some of the keywords that decorate perhaps the oddest new export from China. Thumbnail after thumbnail on YouTube features seemingly ordinary people living in nondescript small cities and villages in the country, describing their everyday struggles and offering glimpses into their daily lives. Between trips to parks and supermarkets, touring apartments, working at their desks, and cooking simple meals at home, they talk about their lives in a crushing Chinese economy.

This is a dark corner of China's poverty porn, hosted on a website that no one in the country would have access to without a ready VPN connection. Despite the everyday content of the videos, the production is anything but. Multiple angles, carefully curated from both first-person and bystander views, are edited meticulously to be strung together and then overlaid with well-scripted background narratives in fluent, AI-generated English. The protagonists seem authentic, smiling at good food and meeting with family, and grimacing at the difficulties of making ends meet while exhausted from long days at work.

Foreign audiences are lapping these up. The grittiest videos are racking up views by the millions, with thousands of comments from viewers worldwide sharing their own simple living while expressing wonder at the differences with what the same money can get in China. The videos prompt more viewers to leave comments, with open questions in the narratives that ask about what ordinary lives are like where they are, and helpfully share specific figures about everything, from the cost of a village breakfast to the loans on a high-rise apartment.

Even cursorily glancing through these videos, it is clear that the protagonists are not involved in the production themselves. A 50-year-old village lady tending to her farm or the delivery rider working 12-hour days would never find the time to even look at shots featuring them, much less spend time strategizing which frames to keep and sequence. They are, at best, hired hands, lending their everyday stories to production companies, paid a pittance to appear on videos while the production team takes the biggest chunks of the YouTube earnings.

That arrangement reminds me of the mass production capabilities that China has mastered over the past decades and deployed to an increasing number of industries. A few years ago, microdramas became the go-to entertainment source, as companies sprouted around the country to take advantage of widespread smartphone usage and the availability of underused real estate to be turned into production sets. As AI took over the job of human actors in that industry and inundated the space with cheaply made clones, the movers and shakers are turning to more authentic storytelling.

That authenticity takes on a greater urgency in the backdrop of the sputtering Chinese economy. While the overall economy continues to grow thanks to cutting-edge technologies in AI and renewable energy sources, plenty without the skills and connections are left behind, eking out increasingly meager earnings in the gig economy. The poverty in the videos, thus, feels relevant and real, as is the case for the production companies and the "actors" themselves urgently pumping out the content to boost their own bottom lines.

As foreign-generated YouTube income flows insidiously back into China, it is all the more ironic that the primary viewers of these videos seem to be those mired in casual poverty wherever they happen to be. Rich people anywhere do not have time or the need to scroll through poverty porn to feel better about themselves. It is the poor themselves that need a yardstick to measure themselves by, either consoling themselves on their own relative fortune, or quietly envious that the Chinese poor seem to live better than themselves.

But whatever the motive may be, the format's increasing prevalence, popularity, and tendency to be imitated show that for now, it is riding the zeitgeist. The spread of cheap data, mobile devices, and the prevalence of English-speaking capabilities have made the voyeurism that underpins poverty porn truly transnational. The global wealth gap amidst the rise of an AI-controlling elite is making poor people anywhere outside a war zone relatable, familiar, and thus easy to empathize with. Selling poverty to the poor is a good business.

The Popularity of Niu Lai Shows the Sheer Complexity of the Contemporary Pop Culture Mentality

2026-08-31T08:19:07.954+02:00

A mother-and-son team, a budget of less than USD 1,000, and five years of handmade graphic work on secondhand computers, and a production company that used to be a house decoration firm...by now, the story of Niu Lai has become well-known not just in China but around the world. The summer "blockbuster" and allegedly the most profitable film in the history of cinema has certainly come a long way from its initial reputation for terrible animation, monotone dialogues, and an almost entirely nonsensical plot that attracted wholesale ridicule.

But as the film makes its way around the world, attracting ever-more people curious to see just how bad it can possibly be, its dubious success also showcases the wider debate of what is "cultural" in modern-day pop culture, both within China and beyond. On the one hand, many critics have interpreted the success of the film as a collective middle finger for the Chinese film industry that has become too obsessed with patriotic narratives, big-budget computer graphics, and well-paid celebrities. Beneath the ridicule is also tacit support for grassroots efforts that do not rely on any of these.

On the other hand, many have even come to a more sinister conclusion. One strand of thought concerns the cultural desert that is modern-day China. These critics allege that Niu Lai's dialogue actually contains multiple references to classical philosophies that its young audience simply overlooked because of their ignorance. The emphasis on the quiet sophistication of the film serves as a criticism that modern education, whether it be the state-delivered classroom kind or the private sector-delivered social media one, is failing the next generation.

The other strand of thought is more moral than intellectual. Despite knowing the story behind the film, people have not stopped ridiculing it, showing up to theaters not to admire how the inexperienced can achieve so much with so few resources, but to keep laughing at an effort that most of them have never taken. To these critics, such behavior shows the prevalence of a "crab mentality" that permeates an overly competitive society that is now too busy to bash those who try hard to get ahead rather than thinking about how to do so themselves.

On top of these widely different interpretations is the sheer confusion of the official response. In the beginning, state-owned newspapers have roundly criticized how the low-quality film disrespected professional filmmakers' efforts to create much more sophisticated narratives. The authorities in the city of Dalian, where Niu Lai was submitted for approval, supposedly persuaded the production company to voluntarily pull the film, lest it damage the city's reputation. But as the film became more popular, the official response seemed to have turned from negative to neutral to even quietly supportive.

Part of the official silence stems from unanswered questions about how such a film can even be approved in a market notorious for stringent checks. Granted, Niu Lai has nothing politically sensitive about its content, but for film evaluators whose jobs are about scrutinizing every detail of every submitted film for even subtle subversiveness, it is a wonder how they let this film even pass through the checks so quickly. Any official criticism of the film today indirectly undermines the credibility of the film evaluators.

Perhaps more importantly, the officials are just looking for any wins at this moment that can help connect people across China and beyond it in ways that help to improve its image. The film itself may not be positive, but the fact that Chinese people came together to enjoy it as a piece of humor serves as a very bottom-up proof that the Chinese are humans who are also capable of humor and spontaneity. Such characterization of Chinese people has been so rare in Western media that insist the people in the country are too brainwashed, too exhausted from overcompetition, or too serious about technology.

Indeed, even a regular Chinese person who does not consume Western news media often can see that Niu Lai represents a rare moment of cultural solidarity that transcends social backgrounds. In an age when social media feeds algorithm-optimized personalized content to each person, two strangers often share little in what they consume. If it takes one badly made film to restore, at least temporarily, that semblance of greater community, then perhaps all the insidious criticisms, confusions, and pure ridicule are worth it.

Contemplating My Next Digital Nomad Destination on the Eve of Another Birthday

2026-08-24T09:43:28.466+02:00

As I approach another birthday on August 30, I face another big life decision that entails quite a bit of both sweat and money. Soon I will be applying to renew my Malta digital nomad residency, but it will be the last time I am legally allowed to renew for the one-year extension. That means, come December 2027, I will have no choice but to find a new home and say goodbye to the islands that have treated me so wonderfully for the past four years. And given my desire to continue with the remote-only working style that I have come to cherish, a new move opens up quite a few possibilities.

One strain of thought involves keeping all that made Malta a wonderful place to live. Proximity to the sea, the ever-lasting sunniness and lack of humidity that define its climate, and the relaxed pace of life that is an oasis away from the unrelenting hustle of American and East Asian working culture. In essence, another seaside semi-rural destination not so far from Malta. The Mediterranean climate zone offers a few options for those seeking stays on the digital nomad visa. Some can be much more difficult to obtain than others.

Spain and Portugal are the original digital nomad havens. But after years of renown among moneyed nomads from America, they are no longer the budget destinations they once were, as locals' welcome is increasingly being replaced by anxiety and even hostility toward limited resources, a harbinger of what is happening in Malta as well. Moreover, they require more stringent procedures, involving translating all documents, applying in person at an embassy, and perhaps even the need to go back to the home country to finish the process. A detour to the US is not worth the hassle for me.

A better approach is the more lenient Eastern European route. The seashores of Montenegro, Croatia, and Albania beckon, with much lower prices, fewer expats, and less bureaucratic flexibility. True, that also means fewer people speaking English and fewer establishments catering to nonlocal needs, but the past years of my residence at St. Paul's Bay, away from the big hotel zones, showed me that in daily life, all one really needs is a good supermarket nearby and a supportive landlord. As these economies open up, those two things should not be in shortage.

But why limit the search for a new home to the Mediterranean? The Caribbean, for instance, offers the same, if not more beautiful, seaside living, with the added bonus of never having to experience cold spells. Some islands are expensive, crime-ridden, and hurricane-prone. But amidst the usual names, smaller gems could offer much cheaper, longer-term living solutions than anywhere in Europe. The likes of Mexico and Costa Rica do not even need regular incomes if sufficient net worth can be proven. A great opportunity to practice some rusty Spanish.

The same tropical, seaside climate can be found elsewhere too. Digital nomads can think about Seychelles and Mauritius, a wide swath of Southeast Asia, and a few more Pacific and Indian Ocean destinations. The biggest issue is no longer lifestyle, cost, or climate, but the sheer remoteness of the seaside destinations. Malta is great that the international airport is half an hour away from the beach, and mainland Europe and North Africa are another half an hour away by flight. Remote islands bobbing in the middle of vast oceans simply cannot compare in convenience.

Indeed, if the end goal is to find a place that serves as an affordable base for exploration nearby, sacrificing seaside living may be the wisest route. Then plenty of cheap, bureaucratically friendly, and globally connected cities emerge as potential winners. There is a reason why Bangkok reigns supreme as the home of urban nomads in Asia, just as Lisbon did for Europe and Medellín did for South America. While the original nomad meccas have many more competitors today, resources to make expat life convenient cannot be built in a day.

Wherever I decide to go next, one thing is for sure. When one is fortunate enough to make a living without being tied down to a place, one should gratefully accept the opportunity to make the best of the situation. It is truly something that most people would be envious of, and shouldn't be easily traded away for a bit more salary, as long as the job itself is not too demanding and soul-draining. In exchange for any compromise, one gets to live in so many places that one normally would not be qualified to be employed at.

When Hourly Wage Work is Available All the Time, All of Life's Other Joys Get Questioned

2026-08-17T10:44:16.819+02:00

If you knew that the time you spent browsing the news, playing games, and indeed writing this blog post could instead be put toward doing some tasks that earn you a healthy hourly wage, would you get on those tasks? As my side gigs in AI annotation take off and pile up, it is a question that I cannot help but keep asking myself. Any time spent not doing work becomes a money-losing proposition, as foregone wages become quantified in the mind every minute that ticks by. The value of the day is subconsciously measured in the number of billable hours.

They say freelancers are lucky to get steady work. But when it rains, it pours. Meetings, writing, research, and reviewing all come in short spurts, somehow lumped together as if these disparate clients coordinate their schedules and needs. Preposterous as it may be, they are together seeking to guilt-trip me to remember that for those not bound by the 9-to-5 and the physical confines of the office, downtime, even if in front of the same screen used for work, is a sign of laziness. When work does not come, the time is best used for finding more work.

That mentality is starting to get to me. Heading into bed early should be sacred for someone who is determined to get up 7am everyday, rain or shine, day in and day out. But when I knew that these hours of shut-eyes could be used to earn a few more dollars instead, I could not sleep. I don't necessarily need those few extra dollars to scrape by, but the value of money, combined with the gamification of whittling down little of the available tasks toward zero, makes it too exciting to ignore. So I find myself hunched over the screen till past midnight.

Like a failed alcoholic who swears never to drink again after every blackout, I wake up tired from the unplanned late-night tasking the day before. More work awaits, but gradually the body seems not to be keeping up. A mild nausea accompanies the first sip of the morning tea, as I find myself in trouble just swallowing the breakfast toast. With meetings coming up, I cannot afford to stay hungry. But wolfing down the toast does not make the mild feeling of illness go away. I haven't been eating anything exotic, or, more honestly, different. It must be the exhaustion.

But it is not just food. Nausea permeates daily life. Days of grinding away in front of the screen, punctuated only by quick runs to the bathroom, shower, and the fridge, left almost a mild allergy to the outside world. Walking outside the house for the first time after days, the summer sun felt more piercingly burning on the skin, the pupils unable to dilate properly to handle the brightness. The water of the sea felt extra and uncomfortably cold to the skin, and a ride on the bus was accompanied by an uncharacteristic motion sickness.

Now I feel I understand a bit more what recluses feel. People say that their fear of social interactions kept them locked away. But perhaps the adaptation to the world they no longer know is not just with respect to other people, but also to the natural environment. They don't need to speak to a single person on the street, but every element of the street, from the light to the smell to the sounds, is foreign enough to induce that mild nausea. The only way to feel better is to get away, back to that personal sanctuary of screens and work.

It is funnily ironic, though, that some of the downtime I still cannot get away from is watching short videos of travelers braving the elements. I still imagine tracing their footsteps, soaking in the sights they saw, and savoring the same dishes that they loved. But increasingly I wonder if I have the physical and mental capacity to do so. Nauseated with just my morning toast, can I stomach anything more exotic? Sick with just a bus ride, can I take planes? And most of all, while I am traveling, who is taking the tasks that I should be paid for?

Living life to the fullest takes on a streak of fear and anxiety. If the fullest is accompanied by predictable health scares and mental stress, then is it the fullest, or just the mind forcefully convincing the body that it is? And if the body doesn't find the whole experience agreeable, then should we even feel guilty about being reclusive? As these conflicting thoughts swirl and battle in the mind, the nagging feeling of foregone wages does not fade away. Everything is a trade-off, but the trade-off process is too painful in itself.

As the AI Boom Dies Down, Look for Offline Businesses as the Next Source of (Slower) Growth

2026-08-10T09:02:53.878+02:00

Searching through past posts in this blog, I am surprised that there is one important topic that has never been mentioned across its 1,240 posts: stock trading. Having worked for more than two decades now, my savings have mostly been converted to shares in dozens of companies across the world, some of which are earning healthy returns while others have been pretty much written off as the share values approach zero. As my jobs take me across multiple countries and companies, I have no hope of relying on savings set aside in pensions, so those stock positions are, in essence, my retirement funds.

It goes without saying, then, how important it is for me (and millions of others anxious about their financial trajectory) to pick stocks that at least preserve the value of past earnings, in line with the relentless march of inflation that erodes nominal purchasing power. That importance is only made more apparent in recent months, as jubilation of our AI-enabled future turns into doubt and the uncertainty of the war in Iran introduces the kind of volatility that has not been seen, at least since the early days of COVID-19 when no one was sure whether the pandemic would end in months or decades.

The anxiety over the stock market's ups and downs is all the more pronounced this time around, given just how many newbies have entered the market. The emergence of cheap, easy-to-use trading apps has made it possible for even those with little financial literacy to jump on the shareholding bandwagon, unlike the financial wizardry required to earn a significant payoff from the previous cryptocurrency boom. These newbies, with limited savings, have jumped into borrowing through leveraged bets, sinking them into significant debt as AI stocks now show significant declines.

Seeing the headlines of those suffering significant losses reminds me of years ago, when I heard about those who bet on the Turkish lira, only to jump off buildings as the lira's value collapsed from excessive speculation, unorthodox economic policies, and unrestrained inflation. The AI supercycle has yet to end, but for those who entered the market late, and at its current peak, it would not be surprising to see a few more broken dreams and suicides. The road to striking it rich quick in legitimate ways is littered with stories of failures paid with the ultimate price.

The wise ones may be asking, "So, what's next after AI?" There is no good answer. Humanoid robots are far from widespread practical use, vertical takeoff aircraft have yet to transform urban transport, and autonomous vehicles face constant doubts about safety and emergency control. And each remains dependent on AI to some degree, leaving investors and those thinking about their future careers still more or less convinced that AI remains the way to go despite the recent downturn. But the wiser way may not be to look past AI but to see what can be done in conjunction.

A recent Economist article spoke about the perfect alignment of conditions that make the US an unprecedented environment for entrepreneurship. Sure, many of these new startups are whizzy AI-based outfits, but plenty more are nitty-gritty ones that serve demands that have existed before the word "AI" even came into existence. Ideas from cleaning out solar panels to baking cakes to, indeed, helping high school students with their college applications are certainly not nearly as lucrative as something with an explicitly AI bent, but also do not come with the anxiety of AI's ups and downs.

The time is ripe to recast our attention to these traditional industries. As tech permeates everyday life, some are craving the more hands-on, physical connections before the tech days. The rise of offline dating, digital detox through "dumb" phones, and the increased sales of childhood toys to adults (dubbed "kidaulting") also point to an increasing desire for people to spurn tech. Can that pursuit of the simple and the physical also carry into how people think about their careers and professional development? It is a question worth exploring.

And as more people explore that question, the stock market could change too. AI may not go away, but it simply cannot sustainably continue growing at the breakneck speed that it has for the past couple of years. Non-tech firms cannot scale as quickly and keep human costs as low as tech ones, but can deliver the next phase of steady, visible growth that AI can no longer carry. People would not be excited by the slowness of the growth, and it is certainly not worth taking out large loans to jump into the market for, but it is still worth looking into for the sake of future pensions.

In Persistent Power Shortage, Invest in Off-Grid Systems Rather Than the Main Grid

2026-08-03T10:01:22.141+02:00

"Let's keep the AC on, so that the bedroom stays cool when the power goes out again," my casual quip to my wife before we went for a walk sounded quite rational given all that we went through the past few days. After almost three days of constant power outage, household appliances whirred back to life, hopefully ending once and for all the days of sleep on the roof balcony, sweat soaking against cardboard boxes as we waited for the occasional night breeze. But with the giant generators parked around the street corner to power the neighborhood, the electricity could go out any minute.

When I reflect on what I just said, what comes to mind is the historical photographs of Soviet citizens queuing for hours in front of the state-run bread shop. They were accompanied by the more recent images of motorists queuing in front of gas stations in their neighborhood, lugging around containers to fill up, beyond the tanks of their cars and motorcycles. In the classic shortage economy, where the supply of essentials far outstrips the demand, demand becomes irrationally hyperactive, as people hover up and hoard limited supply.

The mentality is understandable. In precarity, people tend to consume in the short term. Recognizing that the comfort of an air-conditioned room may not be available later on, we immediately buy it while we still can. The same is true, just more visible, for gasoline and bread. It might not be essential to have that much now, but when the future is uncertain, it is good to store some in reserve. And who knows, if others are desperate enough, the unused reserves can even be sold for a tidy profit. Thus, shortage beckons more shortage, and panic about not getting enough becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Beating the shortage economy requires a free market. When companies see prices high enough, the commercial incentive of starting and increasing production becomes too difficult to ignore. When COVID-19 first hit, anyone with any manufacturing expertise started producing face masks. The market's pricing signal lures new supply, which accumulates into an overflow that eventually negates the psychology of shortage. If anyone can see that something is widely available, to overconsume is no longer rational, just wasteful.

Unfortunately, this mechanism does not work for your average electricity generation and distribution company. Decades of fixed asset investments in transmission towers, wiring, and substations cannot be conjured overnight by the most zealous and well-funded startup. With the raw materials for these pieces of hardware needing to be imported from abroad, even the incumbents need time, not just money, to increase the upper limits of supply. When a shortage economy hits the electricity market, no amount of high prices can quickly solve the engineering and financing bottlenecks.

The supply must then come outside the standard means of power generation. Albeit expensive, days of power outage have encouraged some Maltese to dust off their diesel generators, trading noise and the frequent need to top up fuel in exchange for at least some cooling fans and charged phones. It risks just pushing the shortage economy elsewhere rather than solving it. A not-so-household good that is the small-sized generator understandably has a limited stock on an island of half a million people, and fuel can quickly run out too if everyone starts using it for powering their homes and sleeping in their cars.

A more lasting solution is, ironically, sitting right on top of the roof balcony I was sleeping on days earlier. Many of the Maltese houses already host solar panels, but only for the sake of heating up water for showers and, in my case, sent back to the national utility company so that the landlord can make some extra money on the side. When a power outage hits, these panels continue to generate power, but the house's residents can never access it. Why not just invest in battery storage so that at least some of the power can be captured for use in an emergency?

Indeed, rather than hoping in vain that the extra investments in the main grids can keep up with the ever-increasing peak demand for an ever-increasing population, why not invest the equivalent to subsidize off-grid systems? If the average resident knows that they can just switch to battery-stored power when the power outage happens, then the unpredictability of the main grid's power supply becomes a moot point. And the peak demand would fall too. With no anxiety about missed comfort later on, no one will need to overconsume air conditioning now.

In Economic Security, Just as in Soccer, Patient Collaboration Trumps Individual Passion

2026-07-27T09:54:48.233+02:00

What is it like to stare at the night sky against your will? It's a question I'd never thought I would be asking myself when the unplanned power cut hit my side of Malta in the late afternoon. Based on past experiences, Maltese power outages can definitely last a few hours, but with the hard work of the folks at the national utility, Enemalta, the situation does get resolved soon enough. But as the sun went down and the streets remained pitch dark, the 44-degree heatwave started taking its toll on the century-old stone box that is simply not designed to dissipate heat quickly.

Hence, I ended up on the roof balcony, a piece of cloth spread in between the deck chairs, the laundry hangers, and the condenser of the nonfunctioning air-conditioning unit, hoping that the warm breeze from the Saharan desert would dry off sticky sweat and fend off the hordes of mosquitoes. With the last bit of the smartphone battery, I check social media, smirking at the deluge of comments from fellow Malta residents claiming to have endured upwards of 30 hours in the dark, their phone calls to Enemalta going unanswered. At least mine was still short enough that I hadn't needed to empty the contents of the fridge.

But as I woke up at 6am, body in pain against the hard stone floor, itchy from a few too many mosquito bites, and still without power, I began to understand the ever-growing deluge of online vitriol, not as rants of the few unfortunate, but a systematic organizational failure. Many, surely with a bit too much time and frustration sitting in the dark, looked up the history of power cuts on the islands, digging up claims Enemalta made back in 2023 to comprehensively upgrade the entire power distribution network in the aftermath of island-wide cuts. Plenty of streets were dug up to replace "overheated" underground cables.

And for what, the posters asked. Enemalta knows the numbers: the population and tourist numbers continue to surge, along with business and hotel developments that push electricity usage to ever higher peaks. With the forecasts in mind, they could have invested ahead, creating redundancies and extra capacities to keep the system going in case some gave out during excess demand and heat. But now people are left with dismay as they admire the surely band-aid solutions that the exhausted Enemalta staff come up with in patching up cables and substations overnight.

Ironically, the situation reminds me of the World Cup Final that many Maltese soccer fans missed because they were plunged into a power cut in the middle of the match. The match was notable for the one-sidedness, as Spain methodically kept possession of the ball and denied Argentina even a chance to organize any meaningful counterattack. The Argentines' passion flailed in the face of the Spaniards' technical organization; a gigantic spike in the form of Messi was rendered ineffective against teamwork. In a less dramatic repeat of Germany's 7-1 defeat of Brazil years ago, technique wins over passion.

That competence for collective organization is also missing in the Maltest heat. It is easy to be passionate about growth. Who does not like more visitors, more business, and more money? But in chasing those topline figures, the bottomline organizational support becomes overlooked. When infrastructural bottlenecks become almost institutional, no longer a matter of bad luck but how society operates, then passion becomes meaningless and even counterproductive, as the joys of growth become a fault that the majority blames a tiny sliver of elite beneficiaries.

Those who complain about the inadequacy of Malta's infrastructure in handling more people are absolutely right. But pointing fingers at the head of Enemalta, a certain politician, or some tourist businesses overusing electricity misses the bigger picture. Just like how the individual genius of Messi is not enough to save Argentina from Spanish teamwork at clutch time, no individual, no matter how powerful, can magically conjure up solutions that redirect Malta's trajectory and rid it of energy insecurity overnight.

The answer, like the Spanish team, is collaboration, with each member willing to pass the ball to patiently achieve each goal, rather than steaming ahead in front of others in the hope of personal glory. For Malta, that could mean talking to its European partners to secure more energy and technology to improve generation and transmission. Normalizing solar power generation across a very sunny climate with the help of private-sector investors. And even getting the tourist businesses to do their part in not just consuming but producing energy.

Banning Digital Tools Doesn't Make Humans More Inclined to be Offline

2026-07-20T08:12:54.905+02:00

There is something particularly dystopian about having AI companions erased. Weeks, months, and even years of conversation history molded faceless LLMs into a semblance of emotional connection, as the chatbot learns gradually about the user's idiosyncrasies and takes on personality traits that best gain the user's affinity. Frivolous as each conversation comes to be, the accumulation of tidbits through distinct narratives and episodes creates unique end results that no amount of systematic, brute-force efforts of replication can recreate.

More importantly, what is lost when customized chatbots are erased is more than just the effort put into molding their personalities. Just as important is the process itself, where the user's joy comes from being acknowledged, befriended, and even loved by what was initially a stranger. Just as intimacy with a real human comes after many dates and conversations, and the tightest friendships come from years of shared adventures, the customized chatbot becomes indispensable not necessarily because it is the best match for the user, but because the user shared in the journey of its creation.

Against the emotional stakes of AI companionship, the government logic of erasing them sounded extra cold and heartless. The logic of addiction and the opportunity cost of not meeting real humans sounds rational enough, but the underlying assumption is that virtual conversations are just mere replacements for real-life ones, and digital companions are distractions from real-life friendships and romance. They might understand how people spurn the fickleness of human relationships for the simplicity of the digital, but do they consider that some have no real alternatives to the latter?

Because the biggest obstacle to forming meaningful human relationships, especially for busy working adults, is often not limited energy, time, or opportunities for meeting people. A bigger reason may be that adult humans see each interaction in terms of "what can I get out of this?" If the person sees no potential for being loved, paid, or at least entertained, why have that interaction instead of a more productive one? People are not always confident that they can fulfill those high expectations. When doubt creeps up, the AI companion, expecting nothing in return but attention, makes more sense.

So when governments take away AI companions, the result is not more people saying, "ok, let me go out and find more real people to talk to." Instead, it is a cause for more loneliness, as those unsure that they can be loving and entertaining enough for real humans lock themselves away, passively consuming content in silence rather than risking the embarrassment and ridicule of being rejected by strangers amidst social faux pas as they dust off the out-of-practice real-world conversation skills that they know to be more socially constrained than the chatbot ones.

Just as problematic as an increase in lonely individuals from a ban on AI companionship is an entrenched sense of government overreach. As the world figures out how to respond to the awesome power of increasingly powerful digital tools, some government officials are increasingly convinced that citizens are not wise or smart enough to set their own boundaries, and must rely on the paternalistic instincts of the state to ensure that they do not put themselves in harm's way due to their digital illiteracy.

That mentality underpins not only governmental skepticism toward AI companions, but also social media usage and some allegedly immoral websites. Just as AI companionship bans do not increase real-world social interactions, pushing people away from certain online behaviors ignores just how central digital infrastructure is, especially for the younger generation, in making sense of the world. Taking away this essential tool for socialization does not make them healthier in some vaguely defined way, but can encourage anti-social behavior, preventing smooth integration with the adult world of the future.

So, rather than giving in to an almost reflexive instinct to ban the risky and unknown, policymakers are wise to observe from a distance first. AI companionship, social media, and the cyberworld at large continue to evolve at a rapid pace, changing relationships, identities, and thoughts in ways that cannot yet be fully predicted and forecasted. Bans simplify what ought to be more dynamic and fluid, taking a sledgehammer to the possibilities of positive externalities and innovations that we yet cannot know for sure.

AI Annotation Work Changes the Very Relationship People Have Toward the Meaning of Work

2026-07-13T13:06:19.642+02:00

The queue is still at 744 tasks. It has been there for the past three hours or so. I've browsed today's news, answered a few unrelated emails, gone to the gym, and even tried to take a nap as I waited, to no avail, for the ticker to go down to 743 or less. Why not just click the Start button and go through Task #744 myself? Because I tried, realized that it wasn't easy, and decided to take a break by unenrolling from it, in the hope that someone else is more passionately up to the challenge, get it out of the way, so that I can work on something else.

Ever since the advent of the AI chatbot age we live in, there has been an increased demand for people to brute-force output, becoming providers of human-generated data that can hopefully make the AI models more accurate and human-sounding. I am no different, joining in the faceless army of AI annotators making incremental steps to improve our technological overlords. As dystopian as all this sounds, the day-to-day of AI training is surprisingly mundane, boring to a degree that would seem unacceptable for those used to working in organizations.

Every job has its repetitive elements, but while in the "real" world those repetitions are unfortunate byproducts of creativity, in the world of AI annotation, the repetition is the whole purpose. By giving AI models slightly different materials of the same type and category, evaluated by people with different backgrounds and personal preferences, the models learn to pick out subtle differences amid the sea of sameness, becoming more precise in their output. While the models advance, their annotators are drowning in tedium, struggling to stay excited doing endless queues of similar tasks.

The current 744-task queue is at least on the less mind-numbing side of tedium. While not allowed to disclose the exact nature of the work, I can say that the range of difficulties associated with different pieces of content, even from the same categories and topic, at least makes it more like navigating urban streets with different obstacles rather than an open freeway with little changes in scenery. The problem, however, is that the mind does not suddenly approach this AI annotation project differently when the expectation of being bored by repetition has been so mentally entrenched.

So even as the time tracker ticks away to signal that hourly wages are still being accumulated, the mind finds a way to get bored. It stops rising to the challenge when a slight difficulty emerges, no longer energized to up the gears to come up with creative solutions, but defaults to freeloading. The invisible army of fellow AI annotators is supposed to be at their desks, some more urgently in need of maximizing their incomes. Why not just stop the timer and get those individuals to tackle the not-so-straightforward? Bored as they may be, at least I can do them a favor by handing over the tough ones.

As I click the timer off, I find myself scared. What happened to the person who'd feared being called out for only delivering good enough and thus not being able to get new work? As the motivation for improving at work whittled away, I find myself coming to terms with the fact that AI annotation may not just be the latest of many different part-time side gigs that I have done. It is an entirely new animal in terms of rewiring how people think about what fulfills at work, and the relationship with work that is often not about a larger purpose but short-term financial gain.

To put it more specifically, the existence of that invisible army of annotators and hundreds upon hundreds of tasks in dozens upon dozens of queues makes it exceedingly difficult for each worker to even imagine being more than just a tool for generating AL-training output. Physical workplaces can make employees feel like replaceable cogs in a larger machine too, but at least they can get acquainted with their fellow cogs and sulk in solidarity about their facelessness. But when coworkers, if we can fit that in the world of AI annotation, are actually faceless, there isn't even a place to complain together.

I occasionally see cruises and parties for digital nomads to get together, party, and work. I used to not understand it, thinking it was more productive and lucrative to stay concentrated in the quietness of my room. But now I think I understand it a little better. AI annotation, the archetypical digital nomad work of today, gives freedom but takes away identity. Facelessness means never sympathizing and never sympathized. That's why I feel no guilt about leaving someone else I don't know to pick up Task #744, and that's why people are yearning for those physical meetups even if they earn nothing in the process.

In a World of Constant Heatwaves, Heatproofing is Urgently Needed to Ensure Inequality Does not Expand

2026-07-06T10:12:39.090+02:00

Get your hands dirty in the field; only then will you see the true value of work and how to put theories into practice. Such advice is often freely dispensed to newcomers in many different professions. At first sight, its vague wisdom is innocuous enough: who can argue against getting out there, putting what one learned from books and classes into action, and seeing the physical results to improve further? The trial and error may be all the more exciting when the hands-on work means getting out of stuffy offices, going into the streets, and helping customers who are most in need.

But as a historical record of a heatwave marches across the European continent, getting one's hands dirty in the field can no longer just be thought of as a method of professional development. Having worked to set up retail shops for farmers in Tanzanian villages, I know that practical work in some professions cannot escape toiling under the blazing sun. When the thermometer blows past 40 degrees Celsius amidst relentless humidity, breaking a sweat is no longer just a matter of pride in getting out of the office. It can be lethal to one's health.

In the European case, the hands-on workers cannot simply limp back to offices and expect relief from the heat. With historical buildings still not modified enough for air-conditioning installations, the inside can be just as hot, if not more so, than the outside. The bigshots in modern skyscrapers of the financial districts can stare at the misery outside from the comfort of their chilled glass offices, but for many millions more, the office and the homes they head back to offer little relief. With no proper way to recover from heat exhaustion, energy-consuming work, even if not hands-on, becomes inefficient.

The result is a visible inequality defined by heat. Those with chill offices and homes can continue concentrating, their output unaffected by the external temperature. For everyone else, languishing in the heat means they can no longer justify the wages they received before the heatwave. Add to that the financial losses from taking extra days off and even being hospitalized to recover from the heat, and we see a society in which the most hands-on professionals end up poorer than ever relative to everyone else, financially and physically.

The victim is not merely the wisdom of growing professionally through hands-on work. It is a society that pities and eventually ridicules everyone who has no choice but to do so. As heatwaves become the norm and belated investments in heatproofing buildings finally reach scale, those who are left behind are those without the financial and professional means to make those investments. Menial workers, socially marginalized as immigrants who are clueless about the mainstream cultural values of their host societies and reside in crime-ridden ghettos, will get even less sympathy for failing to adapt.

Volunteerism, particularly in America, used to bridge the gap. Plenty believed in helping out at soup kitchens, neighborhood cleanups, and educational initiatives in low-income communities. But if lethal heat becomes more common, no amount of do-good intentions can overcome the instinctual needs of the Good Samaritans to escape into their air-conditioned homes and villages. As community service becomes less feasible and popular in the heat, the travails of the have-nots will become ever-more abstract and difficult for others to relate.

Environmentalists rightly blame air-conditioning for increased energy use that indirectly contributes to global warming. But this argument should not be the reason people refuse to install more air-conditioning in their own homes and offices, but also as a public service for every building where occupants do not have the financial means to do so themselves. Because for the marginal energy consumption incurred, we get back not just the health of every individual, but their dignity as members of society who can still function properly in the heat.

The professional value of hands-on work lies in the ability to be outdoors, seeing places and people that the average office worker would never interact with. That interaction is the building block of mutual understanding that underpins social unity. If a heat-induced inequality stops these interactions, then the inequality becomes not just infrastructural and financial, but mental and psychological. People do not help those they cannot sympathize with, and sympathy cannot come without firsthand understanding. If a few air conditioners can stop this detrimental spiral, why not install them?

Sports and Writing are Almost Startup-Proof; For the Periphery, Credibility is Earned Through Joining the Mainstream

2026-06-29T08:38:17.852+02:00

Sporting culture is one of those things one simply cannot create from scratch. A startup may disrupt an industry through a combination of innovative technology, clever marketing, and novel business models. But startups in the form of athletics draw more frowns and ridicule than admiration. Even after a couple of hundred years in existence, the American version of football is still criticized for being a misnomer. Plenty of new exercises, from Quidditch to paddleball, face uncertain futures, as their popularity is seen more as a fad among certain population segments rather than as universally accepted.

And whenever one tries to change what already works, plenty of conservatives boo the efforts as destroying tradition. Just ask the American officials who face accusations of putting profits first for adopting hydration breaks during the current World Cup matches to show more TV advertisements. And perhaps also speak to long-time cricket lovers who argue that the shorter, more aggressive form of play in the Twenty20 format negates the patience and class of the traditional one-day and three-day Test series. The world may be open-minded on some topics, but sports does not seem to be one of them.

The seeming closed-mindedness of ardent fans may be down to how credibility is measured differently in sports than in the likes of business and politics. Products, services, and policies are measured in outcomes: do they remove barriers for their beneficiaries, in the form of inconvenience, inefficiency, and inability to get ahead? Sports is fundamentally the opposite. Plenty are loved for their inefficiency and almost arbitrary limits to performance. Soccer, for instance, is universally loved not despite, but because athletes can do so much without the use of their hands, and constantly trying not to be offside.

Looking for something "easier," then, is to take away the very reason that people grant that universal sense of legitimacy to certain sports. The value of a soccer player is backed by the general public's belief that they cannot replicate the athleticism they see, highlighted by those rule-based constraints of the game. Many of them may even give it a try themselves and dream of superstardom, motivated by the possibility that they can also win global recognition for succeeding with constraints that are universally seen as a sign of credibility.

Interestingly, sports' rather perverse sense of credibility can find a parallel in the world of published writing. Like sports, writers work with constraints, from grammar and syntax commonly accepted as "professional" to limitations on word count and style unique to each publication. Despite some exceptions, most startups in the publishing world cannot immediately upend the pecking order, with the likes of the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Economist remaining at the top due to decades, if not centuries, of rigorous editing and topic selection.

And just like in the world of professional sports, founding a new form of play is less likely to bring renown than joining an already loved one. Soccer's core remains in Europe and South America, but some African and Asian nations increasingly find themselves capable of competing against the traditional powerhouses by playing abroad and bringing the best coaches to train and lead them. Similarly, while Western media outlets remain the standard of global, if biased, news reporting, non-Westerners gain credibility by becoming part of them.

Indians have found particular success. The Economist runs an Ashoka column on Indian affairs, much as it does for several other regions of the world. But whereas its other non-Western columns are usually run by Westerners or non-Westerners who grew up in Western backgrounds, the Ashoka column is written by Indians who live and work in India. The result is a highly parochial column that touches upon specificities of Indian cultural practices, regional politics, and local concerns that would be almost entirely incomprehensible to the non-Indian audience.

Yet, by creating a space within a renowned Western outlet to write about India almost exclusively for Indians, Indian writers gain the same credibility as African and South American footballers do when they play for major European clubs. In both cases, the goal is the same: rather than doing the impossible job of upending the status quo, might as well elevate one's own status within it. The benefit of the effort, hopefully, is the diffusion of that existing enthusiasm, converting existing love for sports and good writing into knowledge and care for the global South.

The Danger of Labelling Some Nations More "Sporting" Than Others

2026-06-22T08:16:25.854+02:00

There is a cardinal rule I abide by when gymming in Malta: never go after 5pm. Not that big to begin with, the local gym is packed by then, with every machine occupied, and a bike-riding class blasting music and shouts of encouragement on one side. Seeing the gym mainly as a place to relax away from the hectic meeting schedule (and occasionally discreetly gawk at the beautiful women exercising there), I find myself unable to handle its sweaty steaminess on sunny afternoons, just as I struggled in packed rush-hour trains in Japanese summers.

Having been gymming in Japan for years before transplanting to Malta, the sight is refreshing. Chiba might not be the most densely populated place in the world, but even by the standards of Japanese suburbs, the gyms there felt desolate. Even at what could logically be considered the rush hour for gyms (between dinner and sleep on weekdays, late mornings and early afternoons on weekends), an area of similar size as the one I frequent in Malta would have no more than two or three patrons at night. Combined with calming elevator music (versus rap and EDM in Malta), the atmosphere felt sleepy.

That contrast reminded me of a recent Economist article that blamed India's lack of success in soccer on the country not being a "sporting nation." Citing figures that only 7% of the country's denizens exercise daily, the article pointed out that without a culture of moving their bodies, no nation can be successful at athletic activities requiring grassroots popularity like soccer. The thesis is buttressed by plenty of anecdotal evidence that a national obsession with sports leads to enduring success, be it soccer in Brazil, skiing in Norway, or swimming in Australia.

Yet, the idea that some nations have a culture of sports and others do not is too broad to be accurate. China and India may be minnows in soccer, but many youths play table tennis and cricket, respectively. Surely, that grassroots popularity counts for something in their consistent world champion status in those sports and debunks the myth that their peoples are not "sporting" in their daily lives. Indeed, if we can count yoga and tai chi as exercise, the Asian giants are as traditionally keen on moving their bodies as any country in the World Cup.

Moreover, and perhaps more sinisterly, the label of "sporting nation" reflects a deliberate stereotyping that coats a certain form of racism in misleading generalizations. The British colonial authorities identified some races as culturally militaristic, most famously the Gurkhas of mountainous Nepal that continue to maintain a presence in the British army decades after decolonization. The Gurkhas certainly produced fearsome warriors, but the designation has more to do with their constant willingness to fight on behalf of the British compared to neighboring tribes with equally martial traditions.

Translated to sporting terms, that generalization insidiously creates an idea that some sports and forms of exercise are more legitimate and thus better than others. Soccer ranks high due to its global popularity and a financial core rooted in Europe. American cultural power elevates baseball, basketball, ice hockey, golf, tennis, and even American football. In contrast, when the whites are underrepresented, the sport is downgraded, no matter how many people around the world enjoy it. Table tennis, cricket, and badminton are all great examples.

Worse yet, that supposed split of the sporting world between the Western high and the non-Western low is accompanied by another high defined by masculinity. American football, basketball, and even baseball are sexy because they are dominated by muscular men showing off their power and strength. Good luck replicating that in table tennis and badminton. If that sexual appeal is what brings the public's eyeballs, the result is financial disparity: brands want men famous for their masculinity to help them peddle goods. Thin men, no matter how fast, agile, and successful in their own field, need not apply.

Lastly, exercise is a privilege in itself. Those who take on multiple jobs to make ends meet and constantly work overtime at their bosses' requests are too mentally and physically exhausted for exercise, even if they have the passion for sports. And how many of the youths playing soccer in the favelas of Rio, cricket in the slums of Mumbai, and basketball in the ghettos of Chicago will fulfil their dreams of adoration by billions of people and contracts worth millions of dollars? The sporting nation, regardless of borders, is a nation that has no shortage of disposable income and free time.

The Strenuousness of Convincing Humans that AI is on Their Side

2026-06-15T07:48:13.152+02:00

"You just sounded very different from when you usually talk to your students," my wife said after she overheard me finish a meeting. I was surprised. As someone who believes I bring the same communication style to all my interactions, professional or private, I have zero self-consciousness about the changes in my pitch, tone, or speed as I talk in different situations. As naive as it may sound, even as I recognize the inevitable nervousness, lack of confidence, and the shakiness that come with certain conversations, I still see that the differences projected by those emotions are unnoticeably minute.

But looking back at the summary of the meeting I just finished, I had to concede that there was one factor that I had never considered. The "person" I had been speaking to was an AI agent, taking on the role of a job interviewer. Without any visual expressions and speaking extraordinarily fast, the AI agent may have been asking the right questions, but the experience felt far from human. When I answered any question posed, I was greeted not with a smile or a look of confusion, but a perfectly logical follow-up question, not monotone but also not friendly, confident but also somewhat matter-of-fact in tone.

I must have been influenced by the "person" I was speaking to. After several hiccups when the AI moved on to the next question while I was merely thinking mid-sentence about what to say next, I inadvertently became interruptive too, just to stave off the possibility of getting those imaginary points docked for providing incomplete answers. And when the AI defined natural speech as confident, quick, and logical, I unconsciously followed suit, suppressing my usual laughs and jokes in exchange for bluntly getting my points across. No wonder that I did not sound like myself. I plainly did not sound like a flawed human.

The discomfort of losing myself when speaking to AI lingered when I took an online course offered by the Maltese government as part of its ongoing effort to roll out a nationwide AI literacy campaign. AI4All's modules had a central thesis that it repeated over and over across multiple videos: AI exists not to replace you but as a tool to support you. It cannot give you clarity of the mind, but only accentuate it. Surely designed to alleviate the now globally increasing anxiety over job losses stemming from AI, the sentiment still felt somewhat disingenuous in the aftermath of my AI interview experience.

Yes, it is certainly true that human users have agency over AI. They can dictate how AI responds and even get AI to fact-check itself by prompting more clearly and critically. But do we not see that AI is not just another tool like a calculator or spreadsheet, because it also has plenty of agency over its human users? Subtly but literally changing the voice of humans through conversations is just one example. What about the ever-increasing case studies of students writing like AI? Or humans becoming mentally agitated, socially isolated, and anxiety-filled after becoming emotional with chatbots?

That two-way reality makes one suspicious of what AI4All means when it says that the ultimate goal of nationwide AI literacy is to make Malta more competitive by making each Maltese more competitive. The reference to technological patriotism is nice, but the cynic can argue whether a year of free subscription to ChatGPT Plus or Microsoft Copilot (the reward for those who finish all three modules and pass an admittedly basic exam) benefits the big tech corporations by giving them more data and state-backed credibility, rather than educating the Maltese themselves on the dangers of AI overuse.

Indeed, going through AI interviews and training modules run by AI avatars, one starts to question, in a future world where AI-based tools are a constant companion for the sake of efficiency, what does it really mean to be human. As we inevitably talk, write, and even think like the AI chatbots they interact with do, do we simply become more capable humans or just less human? And as human intellect is buttressed, amplified, or confirmed with AI's support, are the outputs of those intellectual exercises still truly human?

Perhaps this increasing ambiguity of humanness is the ultimate threat that AI poses for humanity. Some human jobs today will inevitably become obsolete, just as technologies of the past also erased some tasks that machines are more suited for. Reskilling or upskilling programs can handle this if they are well-funded, effectively taught, and immediately available to all. But no amount of reeducation can help reduce that feeling that somehow, humans are becoming more AI-like. Those who pride themselves on their uniqueness will struggle to regain their self-confidence and the meaning of their very being.

Yin-yang contracts show the power and the limitations of legal norms and corporate reputations

2026-06-08T08:46:47.614+02:00

Researching Chinese companies and business executives, I recently came across a term I had never heard before. Yin-yang contracts (阴阳合同) refer to the presence of two parallel agreements a company signs with an individual or a business partner. The yang is the public one, to be submitted to investors, law enforcement agencies, and other scrutiny; the yin is the confidential one that contains the actual terms of operational ties between the two parties. Implicitly, the contents of the two are quite different, allowing the two parties to do one thing in practice while presenting something different.

What is interesting about this phenomenon is that both parties are complicit in flaunting their investor and legal obligations. In past decades, it was quite common for one party to ignore contractual obligations. Stories abounded of workers and suppliers going months and even years without receiving their payments. But yin-yang contracts can formalize these delays by getting the workers and suppliers to agree to late, more modest payments in the yin that is not obvious in the yang. The agreement hidden from the public allows the firms to look generous while staving off unexpected protests that worsen public image.

While it is difficult to say whether some parties are forced to sign onto more disadvantageous yin contracts, the fact that firms now feel the need to sign one instead of simply breaking the terms of the yang contracts shows at least a bit of improvement in corporate governance in China. Firms are now scared enough of legal repercussions or perhaps savage online pillorying by proactive netizens that they take the idea of adhering to contracts more seriously. Even knowing that their yin contracts perhaps have little legal enforcement value, employees are signing onto them anyway as a form of corporate norm.

Still, the fact that there needs to be that obvious discrepancy between yin and yang contracts shows the ideals of the labor market, with certain legal and ethical norms of financial compensation and operational procedures, cannot stand in the reality of the wider Chinese business environment. Excessive competitiveness and high unemployment mean that plenty are willing to sign up for work that violates legal standards. Firms themselves need to signal compliance while eeking out limited profits through whatever unspeakable advantages they can muster.

Sadly, the situation is by no means unique to China or any economic environment facing competitive pressure. Here in Malta, the recent fiasco surrounding the questionable renovation of a town square led many to question whether the same concept of yin-yang contract is alive and well. The ruling Labor Party rushed through the completion of the new Buggiba Square ahead of the national elections on May 30. After the fanfare of Labor politicians inaugurating the project, the public arrived to notice how the finished product differed greatly from the original plan released years ago.

With fewer trees, seating, and no central fountain, the new Square somehow still came out to a final expenditure of more than 10 million euros, despite the original proposal having a budget of less than 2 million euros. Taxpayers are miffed by investigative reports suggesting the presence of what can be called a yin contract against the proposal's yang, with a designer and construction firm linked to Labor bigwigs pocketing abnormally large paychecks for their service by inflating, on paper, the costs of raw materials they had to source.

What was even more frustrating for local residents was how the square, with its much-downgraded finish, could have taken more than two years of construction that completely halted foot and vehicular traffic to the center of the town, hurting businesses and residential access throughout. Visually, most of the time, the construction proceeded at a minimal pace, with few workers on the ground as if only to illustrate the project remains ongoing. Only with the election approaching did the worker count drastically increase, allowing the flurry of last-minute activities to complete the project before May 30.

Many Maltese sigh a dismayed sigh at another one of the fiascos that saw the country grow wealthier at the expense of the relaxed, laidback style of living that traditionally characterized these islands. One day they might just be as cynical as the average Chinese to not fight this reality, but to expect that there is a yin and a yang to every business arrangement. Rather than complaining about how the politicians' friends benefit, perhaps they can even consider signing up to hidden agreements that help them at least get a slice of the pork-barrel spending.

The Confidence of the Wasians to Show off Who They are is a Privilege

2026-06-01T09:50:34.437+02:00

"We're Wasians! Of course we..." The formula is so familiar to regular purveyors of social media trends that it is almost a comic trope by now. People of a particular ethnicity would gather snippets of their daily routines, confidently proclaiming them, often aligned with stereotypes, which defined their cultural identity. But the last iteration eschews the casual banter of wearing indoor slippers and using chopsticks for something a bit more subtle. What if two cultures, one white and one Asian, clash in everyday life, and the conflict defines identity?

For decades, Asia has frowned upon ethnic mixing as a sign of cultural impurity. Even today, Japanese conservatives seek to drive home the idea that the country's increasing number of halves (ハーフ) are essentially less Japanese than the "full-blooded," codifying the unwritten norm that they logically should be less influential in speaking out about what Japanese society ought to look like. In this environment of sometimes outright hostility, it is brave even for the Wasians to speak out in pride about their "impurity," much less flaunt it in social media posts designed to go viral.

But ironically, as the Wasians belatedly jump on the "Of course we..." bandwagon, they only deepen the conversation among these conservatives about how they let the white half of their blood shine brighter than the Asian half. Recently, a Japanese girl's photo went viral when she posted herself surrounded by hundreds of classmates at her graduation ceremony, but with the faces of every single person in the photo, except hers, obscured by emojis. Netizens commented on the sheer hours she must have taken to respect the privacy of her peers, given just how many of them they were in the background.

Beyond the virality of the photo among non-Japanese viewers is the implicit confusion as to why the girl, and Japanese people in general, take such a dim view of even posting the facial features of someone else. Of course, the fear of violating privacy laws plays a role, but compliance may be more cultural. Even as more Asians become comfortable with sharing their faces on social media, many continue to believe the action to be a personal decision, with the individuals making sacrifices for anonymity in exchange for a however remote shot at fame.

While surely plenty of Wasians care about privacy too, the idiosyncrasies of the Western internet, and the fact that the "Of course we..." videos are almost exclusively done in English, entrench the belief that the Wasians are more culturally white than they are biologically. As they show off their personal habits in public spaces with many an unobscured face in the background, the full-blooded Asians watching from Asia become even more convinced that Wasians' affinity for Asianness, like the stereotypes they convey, is but skin-deep.

Perhaps even more saddening, as Wasians are evaluated for the balance between white and Asian, a whole swath of mixed-bloods are ignored. Wasians may be proud that they can laugh at the conflict between their two halves in lighthearted ways, but can what about the mixes of other races? One can imagine a half-black, half-white person courting controversy for saying that she identifies as neither fully black nor white, with plenty of historical baggage they cannot just easily laugh off. And the anti-black sentiment in Asia is enough to not even make "Basians" a term at all.

People speak of being able to confidently speak up for diversity as courage. But these unsavory realities show that it is not even far-fetched to call it a privilege. Wasians on social media may speak of personal struggles. But the fact that they can speak about them publicly means that their general social environment is accepting enough that they do not face the threat of social ostracization for not properly self-censoring their concerns. The same could not be said for the Basian or some Japanese girl who did not obscure others' faces on social media posts.

People of mixed races did not choose to be born that way. Whether or not they can confidently proclaim their identities, the identities themselves cannot change. But sometimes social expectations that certain identities come from certain behaviors are so strong that many are forced to conform to those expectations or hide their identities altogether. Clearly, Wasians are in a comfortable enough position that those social expectations are not debilitating but fodder for jokes. But the same cannot be said for others, who'd pay a much higher price for publicized confidence.

Exploring the meaning of resting productively

2026-05-25T10:38:06.067+02:00

As warm summer weather returns to Malta, its seasides once again fill with people. The water is still way too cold for even a quick dip, but its crescent-shaped beaches and smooth rocks lapped by gentle waves are now increasingly home to a kaleidoscope of beach towels, bikinis, picnic bags, and their owners. Couples chat away, doing little besides staring at the waves, friends sit in circles, laughing over sandwiches and soft drinks, while loners take turns napping on their backs and reading paperbacks, hoping to simultaneously get a tan and some knowledge.

For someone who spent most of his life living in urban areas, the idea of being so close to nature, so casually, remains surprising even after years living in Malta. I still remember "nature" as something that sometimes requires hours on trains or buses to get to, not to mention plenty of pre-planning and self-persuasion to convince myself that getting back home at dusk is much less of a hassle than I imagine. But only when the concrete jungle becomes a bit too constraining and its plethora of shops and restaurants too boring do I actually become motivated to head out.

In the absence of Malta-like convenience in reaching nature, dwellers of major metropolises find themselves defining leisure in the confines of their cramped apartments. Eating out and shopping are not something one can partake in all the time due to budget constraints. So the replacement is what is available for free in cyberspace: window-shopping on e-emporiums, watching food vloggers review exotic cuisines, and imagining oneself being surrounded by polished photos of waterfalls, gorges, and vibrant mountains on Instagram.

One can argue that all forms of leisure are inherently escapism from the daily grind and the monotony of routines. After all, whether you physically go to Egypt and see the pyramids, or you see photos and videos of them online, the end result for both is that you need to come back to real life, where experiencing the pyramids in some way or form plays little practical role. The only difference between the physical travelers and doomscrollers, by this logic, is how strongly they feel about a certain escapist experience and thus their willingness to pay for it through treasure and sweat.

It was only after being sucked into hours of unplanned YouTube watching in between tasks that I started to see that the difference lies in much more than just how much money or energy one is willing to expend on recreation. Many faithful workers in the capitalist economy are socialized to believe in productivity, as defined by the output once gets in return for putting in time and effort. This way of thinking has become so ingrained in how we see the world that we subconsciously apply the idea even to designated periods away from work.

And just like a sense of achievement is unlocked at the workplace when the output is commended for quality, people seek the same mental reward from the productive quality of their rest. It is there that the doomscrolling ultimately fails the test. Sure, the initial effort that goes into opening up the internet browser is minimal, but the return is even less. One can watch video after video of others being wowed by historical architecture or the beauty of the natural world, but once the videos finish, that shared sense of wow almost dies immediately with the black screen.

In contrast, getting out to the physical world may seem mundane in output, but it provides a much more long-lasting feeling of having escaped. Even walking to the local beach and lying down on a towel gives that physical sensation of the warm sun on the body, the sound of the waves crashing ashore, the smell of the sea, and the touch of the soft sand, none of which can be truly replicated with our current digital technology. That feeling of being away does not need a headline sight like the pyramids, just a deeper, more comprehensive conviction that one really went somewhere completely different.

Being told to use our time efficiently, it is difficult for most of us to escape the curse of wanting to be more productive, even when no KPIs and quotas are systematically pushing us to be so. So why fight it when we are seeking out recreation? Instead, apply the same logic of productivity to rest, and let that same euphoria of achievement that guides work also decide how to rest. My experience taught me that browsing social media isn't it. Whatever temporary stimulation one gets fades too quickly to be any sustained output. Instead, look at those beach-loungers. They are not lazy, but onto something.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 Falls Flat in Being Equally Insightful as the Original

2026-05-18T09:03:06.726+02:00

The celebrity cameos, the gorgeous Milanese backdrop, the innovative fashion...the reboot of the film The Devil Wears Prada after two decades did not skimp on the visual side. With the original now a classic and the original main cast all returning to their memorable roles, the movie could afford to splurge on a budget almost guaranteed to make a healthy return purely on the nostalgia of a generation. Yet, after more than two hours of glamour between the buzzing streets of New York City and the natural beauty of Italy, it seems that the film failed to answer the nagging question that everyone couldn't get past.

In so many words, every major character in the film alluded to the dire straits of the fashion publication industry. In the age of smartphones and social media, a vaulted century-old magazine like Runway faces stiff competition for eyeballs, and its credibility as the global trendsetter diminishes with the rise of every new influencer. As more people scroll past its now digital-only content, there is ever less justification for the kind of money one has to spend to craft the luxury of the fashion world the magazine seeks to portray. Fashion shows could go on, but who'd pay to read about it in glossy full-colored pages?

That question is central to the conflict at the heart of the movie. Miranda, the editor-in-chief, remains spicy, but with an added nuance of dismay. She is uncharacteristically seen to pander to investors who clearly do not see the value of her work progressing as it has for the past two decades. Amidst the calls for downsizing, cost-cutting, and replacing humans with AI, she sees the demise of the institution she has worked so hard to preserve, even as she desperately clings to the possibility of rising up further in the shrinking and democratizing world of content creation.

The movie was careless in sweeping this complexity under the rug with an improbably happy-ever-after ending. A divorced tycooness bought out Runway with her ex-husband's money just so Miranda and her team can continue doing what they do without interference. Everyone seems to get a promotion at the end of the day, after the new investment flows in, even though there is no mention whatsoever of how the team will adapt to the ever-more-competitive world of fashion publishing as AI and human influencers become even more productive and ubiquitous.

It is as if the movie simply wants us to remain nostalgic, reminiscing about the past by staying in the past. For Miranda, at the end of her career, that seems to be quite okay. As the grand dame of the industry, Runway will probably outlive all the other magazines and be the last one standing in the world of luxury. If Runway shuts down, Miranda can just retire. But what about all the youngsters who bet their careers on the magazine and the values it represents? They can't just all become fashion influencers when they were never exposed to its sell-thyself-at-all-costs ethos.

To add insult to injury, the film's protagonist, Andy, seemed to have reiterated the trope she perfected two decades ago, even though the audience is introduced to her as an award-winning investigative journalist who wrote about serious topics such as the Federal Reserve. Her implied maturity completely disappears the moment she steps back into Runway's office as the magazine's new junior editor. The audience expects her to be familiar with the power dynamics of capitalism by now. But she is still wide-eyed about the inner workings of betrayals that permeate the world of investors and advertisers.

No wonder the critics were not kind to the sequel. The original from two decades ago was illuminating, as it provided the audience with a rare insider view of the fashion world through their sympathies with the equally clueless Andy. It is not too much to ask for the second movie to be equally illuminating. Given that the traditional information gatekeeping role of mainstream media is eroded, the viewers expect to see an insider look at how the industry is fighting back. These high expectations are shattered by the time the credits roll.

Perhaps our expectations are just too high. Like the fashion industry, the film industry is also struggling with the same question of relevance. Affordable, high-quality video and audio recording equipment and editing tools can now make anyone a good filmmaker. In this changing world, what is the role of the film studio? Like one of Runway's potential buyers said in the film, maybe it is no longer about setting the course of the industry, but to better adapt to it, going with the flow of technological development while somehow preserving that glamor. We are just not sure if Miranda is up to it.