Noodle Economics

Noodle Economics
CNN's Richard Quest visits a Hong Kong noodle shop for lessons in the economy, wonton making and chopstick etiquette.
Forget the Shanghai Composite and the Hong Kong Hang Seng. If you want to know what’s going on in the economy, go to l unch, and in Hong Kong that means noodles. Lau Cheong Kei’s handmade noodles have been a staple for decades, but even these cheap mid-day snacks are not recessionproof.
“So how much do people spend on average?”
“US dollar around three US dollar.”
“Around three US dollars, and fewer customers or same customers spending less?”“More customer but spend little.”
“Really.”
In Hong Kong there’s no such thing as a free lunch, learning the tricks of the trade, making these noodles is my task of the day.
“Ah! Something like that.”
“Something like that.”
It’s a lot more tricky than it looks.
“This is mine noodle, hello!”
“During the recession, have you been putting less in the noodles?”
“No…”
Portfolios are underwater, noodles are in boiling water and my noodles are ready. “Excellent.”
“Now of course I’ve been using chopsticks for many a year. But some foods are slightly more challenging than others when it comes to using them, for instance, green vegetables which are a little bit tricky to get hold of.”
“I’m potentially fatal for the shirt.”
This is fascinating because if you’re at a dinner party in the west and you start the discussion on how you use chopsticks, everybody has a different way of doing it. My way has always been like that with the finger on there. Bu t once you’re here, you realize actually it’s not the way to do it. It’s more like that, and that is a lot more difficult. But done properly seems to work better.
Getting the job done properly just like getting us out of this financial mess. Something tells me there’re some things that simply shouldn’t be shown on television, me eating noodles being one of them.
Vocabulary:
1. recessionproof: Unaffected by economic recession
2. tricks of the trade: special ingenious techniques used in a profession or craft.
3. underwater: The condition of a call option when its strike price is higher (or a put
option when its strike price is lower)than the market price of the underlying stock.。