The Law of Scarcity When Living in Japan

When you pass a Subway sandwich shop, do you enthusiastically head inside, happy to be able to eat such a rare treat? When I'm in Japan I often do, since there aren't any of them in my home prefecture of Gunma, located about 100 km northwest of Tokyo. When I make a trip into Japan's capital or to the U.S., I'm always happy to have a Subway sandwich for lunch, because it's something that I can't eat whenever I want to back home. Really, there's nothing in your life that wouldn't become extremely valuable to you if you were suddenly transported to a place where it was unavailable, and I am much fonder of things like Raisin Bran or Pop Tarts or Lite Beer from Miller than I would otherwise be, since they're things I can't get easily at home. I first learned about this phenomenon when I went to live in New Zealand in 1975, which was before a lot of the foreign chains started doing business in the country. As I recall, there was one McDonald's and one Pizza Hut, and they were a godsend to an American family living in a new place.

Subway sandwich shops actually seem exotic when there isn't one near you.