Monopoly

Talking about Monopoly, you may not know it is the only game that I paid to install in my iPhone, and I still play quite a bit over weekends with the three players with artificial intelligence.

You know, many people consider Monopoly not a enjoyable board game - it just lingers on without anyone going to bankrupt. In reality, if you follow strictly the original rules, which could be found in the set or on-line, the market follows an exponential growth, with the bubble bursts in around an hour.

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I must declare there is tinge of obsession to Monopoly for me. I had a set when I entered secondary school - it was a present from a distant auntie. At that time, my family was living from hand to mouth, and the board and houses and paper money and all the pieces received a big cheer. I still remember it cost HK$180 - when HSBC was selling below HK$5 per share (before splitting).

Soon after I received the expensive gift, I realized my auntie, who used to be not much more well off than my parents, made her money by leverage trading in the gold market. In fact, she also bought herself a new car, many purses, handbags, and clothes.

The problem was, the gold market crashed and remained stagnant in the following years. The car, purses, handbags, clothes, and what not, all vanished into thin air. (To me, they seemed to have traded back to the Community Chest in the Monopoly.)

Behind the game of paper money, going on there was actually a game of real money - in flesh and blood, literally.

I learned a lesson.