2008-11-02 | Why did we not have fresh mushrooms twenty years ago? Over the lunch table, my wife remarked that the fresh Shiitake mushroom we had had become available only in recent years. Indeed, twenty years ago, fresh Shiitake are unheard of in Hong Kong. Only preserved/dehydrated Shiitake mushroom were available.
I cannot resist asking why there was such a change in recent years. Later, I confronted a group of kids (aged 9 to 14, and none of them had Economics before) of this question. To set the stage, I asked them to assume that fresh Shiitake mushroom are valued the same today as in twenty years ago. In other words, the demand for fresh Shiitake mushroom has remained the same throughout these twenty years.
Almost immediately, they knew that the biggest difficulty of having fresh Shiitake mushroom in Hong Kong is the difficulty of transporting the fresh mushrooms to the destination before they get rotten. Here are their answers. First, the improvement of transportation and logistics have shorten the time to ship the fresh mushroom from the place of production to the place of consumption. Second, the improvement in freezing and refrigeration technology has allowed the mushroom to remain fresh after a long trip. Finally, the genetic modification might have make fresh mushroom survive a longer trip, even without refrigeration.
Well done!
2008-02-23 | Dialogue is preferred to monologue. | 2008-02-13 | If I were a single unemployed old man who lives on Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) | 2007-12-17 | Is forecasting a pure guessing game? | 2007-12-16 | I want zero emission of CO2! | 2007-11-30 | How would I choose universities for exchange? | 2007-11-28 | Excuse me. Can you write a recommendation letter for me? | 2007-11-12 | No pain, no gain! | 2007-09-14 | Teaching is to be enjoyed, and so is studying. Grades should only be secondary. | |