The shark fin soup incident occurred twenty years ago today. As I wrote in a previous blog post, I learned many things as a result of our family trip to Hong Kong and China in March of 2000. But the lesson of the shark fin soup lunch remains to this day our family catchword for missed opportunities.
I didn’t know a thing about shark fin soup at the time. In order to make this trip with young boys, I had to surmount dozens of practical issues. Researching shark fin soup fell off the list. I now know that it is a cultural and environmental controversy (akin to bringing home chunks of the pyramids in your suitcase) but at the time, I had bigger fish to fry, so to speak, while I negotiated Game Boy playing time on the 18-hour non-stop flight.
Our trip was a huge adventure, planned with both anticipation and anxiety, and costing, as you might imagine, a good chunk of change. One noon, a couple days after we arrived in Hong Kong, we lunched in a highly recommended and authentic dim sum restaurant. Lo and behold, shark fin soup was on the menu—for $25 per bowl! Don’t ask me how he knew about such things, but for weeks prior to our departure my oldest son had been pestering me about trying a bowl of shark fin soup when we got to Hong Kong. This was the first time we had seen it on a menu, and his eyes lit up! But before he could order, I who had no knowledge about shark fin soup in particular, but did know in general that $25 is too much to pay for a bowl of soup at lunch, said, “No. Don’t order it here. It’s too expensive. We’ll see it on another menu another time for a better price.”
We never saw it on another menu, anywhere, at any price. His opportunity was lost because I focused on the absolute price of the bowl of soup instead of recognizing the relative price of the soup to the total cost of the trip. Worse, I didn’t allow for the “lost opportunity” cost. I didn’t realize he would not have any more chances, at any cost.
He grew up into a fine young man, and suffered no (obvious) lasting effects from having been denied a $25 bowl of soup. But over the ensuing years, our family has never forgotten the lesson. When we wonder if we should do something intriguing or go somewhere enticing—but it’s scary, expensive, exhausting, or a hassle—we evaluate it through the Shark Fin Soup filter.
Scarcity drives up price in the market of things. The law of supply and demand doesn’t exempt rare opportunities, although sometimes the “price” we have to pay for a singular experience is not limited to money. We may have to overcome waves of anxiety, exert enormous amounts of energy, or hurdle numerous roadblocks. Ultimately, after considering the costs, we may decide that the opportunity really isn’t worth it. And that’s OK. But at least now we pause and consider.
Maybe Shark Fin Soup was worth even more than $25.
