After a couple of days in KL, I took the train to Butterworth, then the ferry across to Penang. The ferry crossing offers that slower nostalgic feel compared to crossing via bridge, like HK's Star Ferry.

🇨🇳 The soft power of overseas communities

The overseas Chinese diaspora is a quiet advantage in China's global push.

Across SE Asia, they've been here for generations but maintain mainland ties. No language barrier --> easier business relationships.

Much less explicit than formal diplomacy, this soft power leverages the shared ethnicity, language and business networks. I imagine India has a similar asset here.

🚽 Micro-econ musings on price discrimination

In the mall below the Kuala Lumpur (Petronas) towers, I found a rather curious case of paid toilets and free ones upstairs. The free toilets were clean—this had me thinking about price discrimination and offering a "too satisfactory" base product.

In theory, product tiers let consumers self-select --> they get a more suitable choice, and firms capture more $$. But companies can also degrade the base product to push upgrades.

Some markets have a floor (eg flights have minimum safety standards). Others don't.

🤔 Question:

When does a "low-end" product stop being the same product entirely?

ie—At what point is a bad e-bike... just a bike?

🚂 Next stop: Bangkok 🇹🇭