The ban on business trips and rare late night shenanigans in Hong Kong have forced my banker friends to experiment with trying to live something approaching a normal life.
At lunch this week, I was bemoaning my boring stay-home lifestyle, hoping to commiserate with friends still working from home and rarely venturing out. But instead, one of the chaps excitedly told me about how he has been binge-watching Netflix, discovering for the first time a service he previously just used as a way to keep his children occupied.
As he gave me a play-by-play of a Ken Burns documentary, he sounded like Archimedes having a ‘Eureka’ moment. I didn't mention that I watched it three years ago, when it first aired.
Yet another friend, with a similar level of enthusiasm, described his first burger-making experience ─ “from scratch,” as he emphasised.
I was momentarily intrigued, until it turned out that he had just learned to grill a beef patty on the hob and put cheese on top.
But what really upsets me is that, even though I too have been eating burgers and watching Netflix at home, I have done nothing but increase my waistline. My friends, on the other hand, have miraculously lost weight, thanks to the break from eating on the run in hotels and airport lounges.
Now that is a real accomplishment. Later that evening, I whipped up my new favourite cocktail and drank to that from the comfort of my couch.