A Friend from Japan paid me a visit over the weekend. She has been a resident of Tokyo for seven years.

We bantered about life in Shanghai and Tokyo,[Hong Kong Company Formation, Incorporation, Business Registration] and agreed that home prices and rents are similarly high in both metropolises.

For instance, my friend pays the equivalent of around 5,000 yuan (US$806) a month in rent for her five-meter-by-four-meter flat in bustling Shinjuku commercial district.

The astronomical rent for such a cramped abode is probably rivaled only in Hong Kong, a city full of pricey "bird-cage" apartments.

While my friend's rent obligation shed light on the living expenses in Japan, it was not the most startling statement I heard about home prices that day. That evening, I browsed a local web portal and read a news item about a business roundtable held in Beijing.

The story boils down to this: after almost a year of relative silence, "Big Cannon Ren" opened fire again.

For anyone who hasn't heard of "Big Cannon Ren," it is the moniker of property developer Ren Zhiqiang.[Hong Kong Company Formation|Hong Kong Company Registration] Over the past decade this gaffe-prone businessman has been known for his provocative views on home prices.

Some memorable observations include, "I build homes only for the rich," and "Home prices are not high at all," which brazenly defy reality, common sense and public emotions. His pro-development speeches earned him the resentment of mortgage slaves and wannabe homeowners.

This time, at the roundtable, the "big cannon" fired a salvo even more jaw-dropping than his previous barrages. When two female tycoons complained about steep home prices, Ren retorted, "A bra is just a small piece of fabric, but it costs several hundred yuan. In square meter terms, it's way more expensive than a house."

Inscrutable logic

One has to admit that these pretentious business occasions always need an audacious speaker such as Ren to fire up bored audience and keep them from dozing off. He has an uncanny ability to articulate ideas with inscrutable logic. What exactly do these two items - a bra and a house - have in common that led him to think he could mention them in the same breath?

I don't know if offense is intended in his rebuff, but the bra talk is indecent to the face of female managers. Ren seems to have no qualms about spouting anything that comes to his mind, even if it is unpalatably vulgar.

But the real point is, does his bra theory make any sense?

If we do follow his linear yet silly logic, yes, because at the size of a couple of small bricks, a bra is costlier than an apartment.
But if we go by total surface, it is not remotely comparable to an apartment in, say, Shanghai, which, at 100 square meters, could fetch over 3 million yuan.

And did it ever occur to him that houses, [Hong Kong Company Registration Guide]as an investment option, can appreciate in value while bras are not durables, so lumping them together is like talking apples and oranges? Didn't he feel silly about making the comparison, which might have been an attempt at humor, but a poor one?