Tokyo 10/28
Tuesday 4:35 pm

The song�@is almost over, so to speak, as I`m sitting in the lounge here at Narita about to come on home. This morning�es meetings went relatively well--Funabashi-san was a bit late, but I was very lucky to see him, Kato-san and Hoshi-san for a quick lunch, all members of Asahi shimbun. It was interesting how different they were. Funabashi-san was very nice--he looks at me as a sort of young foreign protege, I would say, avoiding saying anything serious and talking at length about various topics such as how untrustworthy Kan-san is (the leader of the opposition democratic party in Japan), how Koizumi is perhaps not truly dedicated to reform, and how nationalistic China is becoming. he had just returned from Bangkok, where he said that the smaller countries of southeast asia are disturbed at China`s growing influence, both economic and diplomatic and political, and were eager to keep the U.S. involved in the region. he said that they were somewhat disappointed at Japan`s lack of responsiveness to their concerns, and were now beginning to turn to India (!) in an effort to counterbalance China. a very realpolitik way of describing the way things were. Kato-san, by contrast, was far more voluble, treating me as an equal in a very non-Japanese way, saying very frankly how disappointed he was in U.S. foreign policy and how the U.S.-Japan alliance is in deep trouble because Japan is just the U.S.` ATM. he wondered if the U.S. was even trying to explain why the alliance is good for Japan, saying that the U.S. needs to do a better job of making clear what the value of the alliance is for Japan. he frankly said that Japan should appease North Korea, saying that stability there is most important and adding that the U.S. is being too aggressive and that bribery is the only way to prevent disaster. I argued some, but couldn`t persuade him. he insisted that North Korea wanted the U.S. to be involved in the region, and wanted a deal, unlike al-qaeda which wanted to destroy the U.S. he also told an interesting anecdote about a senior chinese scholar who, at a closed meeting in Japan, told the audience that iraq was a disaster for the U.S. policy towards North Korea, because either U.S. intelligence about WMD is not trustworthy as there still hasn`t been any found in Iraq; or, even worse, the U.S. manipulated intelligence about WMD in Iraq solely in order to justify the invasion. either way, he said, China could not therefore trust U.S. claims of WMD in Iraq.

finally, i had lunch with Hoshi-san. he was very nice, but unlike the other two who are more focused on foreign news, insisted on speaking in Japanese. so i didn`t understand quite everything, but he said some interesting things about Japanese domestic politics. he predicted the LDP would win, but would perhaps lose 15-20 seats, but said that the democrats were growing and more powerful. to sum up quickly, he also said that Koizmi was in fact not pushing reforms as hard now, ironically because he had defeated the older, anti-reform dinosaurs in the LDP party. thus, he didn`t need to talk about reform as much anymore to gain public support and backing, as they had been defeated. now, he is dealing with the various faction leaders and power-brokers to retain and increase his political influence, and thus reluctant to do as much reform. Hoshi-san said that the only true reformer, ironically, is Ozawa, the notoriously rude member of the democratic party who is not trusted by many in that party becuase he favors a more independent, more self-reliant Japan, especially in terms of security policy.

anyway, lots of babbling on my part. Let me just say finally that one thing i am particularly noticing here at the airport is the unbelievable difference between the way foreigners and Japanese dress. it`s affected me, for sure, i remain in slacks and a dress shirt simply because everyone else is always dressed up here. sunday morning, on my way to Sengakuji, the vast majority of Japanese on the subway were in suits with matching handkerchiefs and spotless shoes. and the women! in stockings and six-inch heels (only slightly exaggerating) despite the endless staircase after staircase they have to climb in the subway/train system. I really don`t know how they do it...make up too, and the men are impeccably shaved. basically, as i`ve mentioned, they are all thin too, so i`ve truly felt like a schlub most of my time here. one key exception--a few nights, when i`ve gone out to drink, and the drunk salarymen are staggering around with ties unbuttoned and red-faced exclamations pouring from their glazed eyes.

THE END!!!!!
- posted by Ben @ 11:34 PM

 
Tokyo 10/28
Tuesday, 9:08 am

The last day in Tokyo. I must say, it's appropriate out given my impending departure--a sort of misty, hazy rain that blocks the view from the window in my 29th floor hotel room and is a mild stimulant to head on out home....Let me just say for the record (and for people like Sean and Davey, and probably my brother), that my hotel room's bathroom here in Japan DID have an...er...funky, ultra-modern Japanese toilet in it, and yes, I undertook the bravery to use it, prompted not only by the ultra-polite Japanese used to describe some pretty unspeakable bodily functions but also due to the....somewhat excessively graphic pictures used to demonstrate how it functioned to those of us who are less than fluent at written Japanese.

So last night I went out to dinner with a couple of people from the embassy. we had some good yakitori, and the funny thing is that of the 3 of us I undertook to translate from the menu and order. Although everyone here gets Japanese-language training, most embassy people live in the embassy compound (everything in English) and work in the embassy (everything in English) and just out of ease and comfort go to many english-language social situations. not to mention that reading Japanese, at least, is something that many foreigners simply don't even attempt to do. it's understandable--most foreign services officers will spend only 2-3 years here, and then head out for another post, so taking the time to learn 2 alphabets plus over 1900 Chinese-based characters is just not worth it. even after years and years of study, I remain stuck at around a 7th or 8th-grade reading level here, and usually need a dictionary for complicated things, though basic things like menus and directions I can survive.

anyway, the weirdest thing we ate last night was probably the satsuma-age, a sort of deep-fried fishcake served with little bits of green pepper baked in. that was pretty neat, as was the deep-fried cheese wrapped in a sort of chicken/fish batter. yummy, but again as usual, not quite enough for me! I don't know if i've been giving too much insulin or just not used to the small portion sizes, but after dinner i had to wimp out and get a big ol' sweet red bean paste rice doughnut at a convenience store aroudn the corner. my friends were also kind enough to take me to a specialized Hello, Kitty! store which sold all sorts of weird stuff, where i was able to purchase some souveniers. regrettably, these didn't include the padded hello, kitty! decorated toilet seat-a bit too expensive.

talking more about yesterday, I should add that in my meetings the people I talked to were quite emphatic about certain things--such as, in countries such as Japan, the amount of coverage of things in the U.S. is quite extensive, almost unbelievable, and thus things that any important person says are widely covered. so when bush and/or Rumsfeld and/or Gephardt talk about protectionism, or pre-emptive strikes, etc., it immediately makes headlines here, making the job of public diplomacy difficult. people here understand that most american officials are speaking to an American audience, but still feel that Americans are somewhat arrogantly ignoring foreign countries' concerns. a few even told me that they wished they could vote in the U.S. election, because the results affect their lives far more than their local election!

this morning, i woke up relatively early and tried to pack up. I'm still unsure if evertything will fit--i didn't think i bought that many souveniers, but there is still a serious increase in weight and bulk of my stuff. I just hope i got enough stuff for everyone--well, don't take it personally if i neglected to bring anything for you! :) also this morning, i finally visited this hotel's fitness room, which not only was the smallest and least well-equipped of any in the three hotels i've visited so far but also had a 1000 yen (about $9) service charge! unbelievable. so i took a 25-minute bike ride while watching CNN and gazing out at the rainy Tokyo skyline. i guess part of it is the space issue--Seoul and Beijing are also crowded, but nowhere near as crowded as Tokyo, especially here in downtown Tokyo, where space is truly at a miraculously high premium.

I should end by saying that I wasted 30 minutes before going to bed last night watching Fuji TV, which had a special celebratory reshowing of a classic 1995 Godzilla movie. a true piece of nostalgia--those who grew up in WAshington will remember lazy rainy weekend days in the late '70s and early '80's where Captain 20 (from channel 20) would show Godzilla movie marathons. fortunately for all of us fans, there will be a new Godzilla movie coming out this december--the 50th anniversary of Godzilla!--that will also star famous sidekicks Mothra and mecha-godzilla.

well, my next note will probably be from the Tokyo airport. i have three more meetings this morning--with old Asahi reporter friends--so i'll get a good leftist point of view before i leave!
- posted by Ben @ 4:08 PM

 
Tokyo 10/27
5:15 pm Monday

OK, where was I...oh, yes. So anyway, before Colin went off to the movie, I insisted we take a picture of what I believe was the best example of Japanese-English confusion I had seen in Japan so far. It's the best picture of the trip yet--better than the great wall and better than the Sengakuji temple. It was a high-end shop, selling expensive clothes, with a huge neon sign that read, "White Trash Charms Japan."

After that, I headed off to Kichijoji, where my old friend Atena had just given birth to she and her husband's first child, a lovely baby boy! Atena had just given birth a day earlier, Saturday, but was already up and walking around and able to greet me when I visited the hospital. She even showed me to the nursery, where her baby and three others were lined up. apparently, in Japan, the custom is to not let the mother hold the baby or take care of it directly for 2-3 days--I don't know why. Also, Atena said that she went through labor for six hours and received no anesthetic and no painkillers. So I was amazed she was up and walking and so well-recovered, but maybe people just expect mothers to recover quickly in Japan. Atena was in a great mood, happy about the successful birth, and we caught up. Later, her husband and her husband's parents came to see the baby, and everyone was quite ecstatic. Obviously, it was a bit weird to have this wacky gaijin there, but I think Kentaro (her husband) and his parents were impressed by my polite language. if nothing else, they were happy i was there to be able to take a picture of all four of them in front of the nursery where the baby was. the baby remains unnamed; apparently, in Japan, you have two weeks to decide what the name will be.

I left out the fact that on the way to the hospital from Roppongi I got completely lost. I got on the subway OK, boarding the Hibiya line, and successfully transferred at Kasumigaseki to the Marunouchi line. But after arriving at Shinjuku, I was confused about which of the 13 Japan Railways commuter train lines to take. I finally boarded the Chuo line, but realized that it was a special express that didn't stop at Kichijoji station. So i got off at Nakano station, and tried to board the Sobu line train towards Kichijoji. Unfortunately, I got turned around, and ended up taking the Sobu line train all the way back to Shinjuku. So at Shinjuki I got off and boarded a Chuo line normal express, that fortunately did stop at Kichijoji. Yes, the train system is great, but it can get a little complicated.

After seeing Atena and Kentaro and the baby, I headed back into Tokyo to meet my old friend Mika for dinner. She just returned from Australia and was very kind to see me despite having just gotten back and having been bitten pretty badly by mosquitoes in Australia. we had fun talking about old times and she told me about working for a German software company in Japan. She had had a few bad work experiences, though, one of which being that 3 of her co-workers were fired earlier this year for failing to meet sales targets. Everyone was shocked, because in Japan you traditionally didn't get fired in any situation unless you did something seriously wrong. However, things are changing...and this is why so many Japanese, like Mika, are so afraid of reform. Everyone realizes that restructuring and reform are extremely necessary to help Japan modernize and recover economically, but people like Mika hear the word "resutora" (restructuring) and take it to mean losing your job. there are relatively few entrepreneurers here, so for older people, losing your job is a pretty serious problem, because it's quite hard to find a new one. Anyway, this was a theme I heard more today, during my meetings, where a few economic experts told me that although the major papers and experts pretty much all support economic restructuring, it is not clear if Koizumi is sincere about truly trying to do it (as many of the older members of his own party oppose change of any kind) and also many Japanese people simply oppose it as meaning the loss of their job to Chinese or Thai workers.

Let me add briefly a few words about the situation of foreign men in Japan. it is an unfortunate stereotype here that if you are a foreign man in Japan, you will marry a Japanese woman. here at the embassy, and even among the U.S. embassy employees in Beijing, many have Japanese wives. for some reason, especially if you speak some Japanese, foreigners are seen as particularly attractive by some Japanese women. I am unsure as to why this is, and although there is often ribald and inappropriate speculation, there is no clear reason why this is. generally, the stereotype is that foreigners are taller, richer, and perhaps most importantly more modern in terms of letting their wives work and live and not be so obedient and subservient. Certainly, equality of the sexes has come a long way here but has a long way to go. For example, while talking to Colin, I mentioned that one of our former Japanese classmates had come to Japan, married a Japanese woman who was a researcher in a lab here, but was ecsatic to come back to the U.S. because "she was sick of serving tea to her male co-workers in Japan and in the U.S. was finally able to do some research of her own." Anyway, a sensitive topic...

today was pretty busy, with several meetings at Asahi and also some other people, and some presentations and meetings here at the embassy. I was particularly honored to be allowed to sit in at the morning meeting with the Ambassador, who seemed very nice. The general consensus both here and outside the embassy is that the LDP and Koizumi will win the general election, but it still is unclear what is going to happen after that. For example, in a by-election over the weekend, the LDP candiate won--after only 27 percent of eligible voters turned out to vote. This level is pretty horrific, and is perhaps the clearest example yet of how many Japanese just don't care and see both major parties--the LDP and the DPJ--as incapable or unwilling to do very much of anything to improve the economic situation. On a brighter side, many people here at the embassy were emphatic in saying that the situation is much improved economically, and that the over ten years of economic depression are ending.

I should also add that I spoke to a senior person here about possibly applying for the analyst job open here in Tokyo, and he encouraged me to do so. He was very kind in saying that I should consider it, and that he thought it was a great idea, but that I don't need to decide for sure yet. So we'll see what happens, though the more I think about it, the more I am considering it. I mean, unless you are Buddhist, you only live once, and 3 years in Tokyo would not be the end of my life or anything...But we'll see.

OK, off to dinner with a bunch of embassy types. i can't believe i leave tomorrow. Literally, "what a long, strange trip it's been..."
- posted by Ben @ 12:11 AM

 
Tokyo 10/27
Monday 2:45 pm

Whew, just back from another meeting and what I feared most is happening--I'm falling behind in this little diary! Anyway, yesterday, after Sengakuji, I came back to my hotel to try to plan the rest of my day. Colin Butnick, who I knew last some 11 years ago from Japanese class at Haverford, came by the hotel and we hung out for a couple of hours in Roppongi before he had to leave to appear (in tuxedo, no less) at the Japanese premiere of Kill Bill. he is a big-shot financial dude, who travels a lot trying to figure out where to invest in Japan, and southeast ASia. he told some funny stories about trying to figure out how to sell his fund's stake in a Tapioca factory in northeast Thailand--the negotiations were particularly dicey because he didn't speak Thai at all and noone there spoke Japanese or English. So he isn't sure, still, how much money the stake was sold for! anyway, we wandered around Roppongi to the new Mori Building complex, which he said is still half-empty because although large companies keep building new office buildings, noone is there to rent them. we had some coffee and caught up; he's truly lived the dream, being one of the hotshot young financiers who has worked in Singapore, Hong Kong and now Japan but is apprently ready to come on home. he also said some interesting stuff about how Tokyo is the be-all and end-all of Japan--unlike America, where there are a number of cities which people are happy to live in, in Japan it appears that Tokyo is really the only place where it is at.

well, another meeting! i'll write more later about Japanese maternity hospitals, my friend who just gave birth, dinner with my old friend Mika and male-female relations in Japan...
- posted by Ben @ 9:46 PM

 
10/27 Tokyo
Monday 11:15 am

Well, for the first time during my little jaunt to Asia I didn't write in this little journal--I totally blew off yesterday. I certainly did a lot, and today is also busy, along with tomorrow, even though i leave tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 pm on the bus to Narita airport. Anyway, let me first talk a bit about the one sightseeing thing i did--at Sengakuji.

Sengaku-ji is a temple in the south of Tokyo which is very well-known for the people who are buried there--the 47 ronin, who are famous in the story of Chuushingura. In 1703, after their lord had been unfairly executed due to the connivings of a rival lord, they banded together and survived 2 years of unemployment and abandonment only to eventually join together and assault the evil lord, Kira. they cut off his head and officially presented it at the grave of their beloved lord, Asano, who had been forced to commit seppuku (hara-kiri) by the Shogun of that time. i'm not doing a good job of explaining this, but it's a very very famous story in Japan that really exemplifies what one expert called Japan's "nobility of failure" culture, i.e., to try something impossible and fail gloriously (or succeed, and then be forced to commit hara-kiri like the 47 ronin), is seen as extremely noble and honorable and praiseworthy. there are many other examples--Saigo Takamori, a well-known samurai who fought against the modernization instituted by the restored Emperor Meiji's government in 1878 or so; and Emperor Go-DAigo, who tried and failed to take back power from the shogun for the emperor in the 14th century. anyway, the temple was beautiful, and quite crowded, with various visitors burning incense at the graves of the 47 ronin who are beloved for their loyalty and sacrifice and determination. there was also a small museum, recently restored and rebuilt, that showed that the story is still extremely popular and well-known in Japan. there were even some macabre points, such as the well where the ronin washed the decapitated head of their enemy, Kira, before presenting it to the grave of their dead lord Asano, and the "blood-stained rock," the rock which was stained with the blood of the youngest of the 47 ronin when he committed hara-kiri. anyway, off to more meetings, but more later.
- posted by Ben @ 6:12 PM

 
10/25 Saturday
Tokyo 10:45 pm

Wow. pretty much my whole day has been conducted in Japanese, so i'm pretty wiped. I guess when last I left my loyal audience, i was off to meet my old frisbee buddies for dinner and drinks last night. so i met up with Inagaki-san, my old friend who arranged the dinner, at his swanky offices in downtown Tokyo, at Tokyo station, at Bloomberg. the office was hyper-modern--free food and drinks, weird lights and wide-open workspaces, massive windows looking out over downtown Tokyo, and even aquariums (aquaria?) with lots of beautful fish. so I admired his cubicle, and then we headed on out to Roppongi to meet up with whoever would come. as it turned out, there were 8 people including me and Inagaki-san, which was quite nice. dinner was not so great--crepes and cheese and french stuff at a french restaurant--but it was oh so terrific to see people i hadn't seen for four years (since the last time i was in Japan) and in some cases 10 years (since i left my year abroad). none of them were still playing frisbee, and i think most were already married; Inagaki-san's wife had their first child earlier this year, and Sachiko-san had her first baby earlier this year too. Aki-san's wedding was just last week, so i missed it, but saw some great pictures. they were all doing really well, it appeared, though as is standard here in tokyo they all were living far away from downtown Tokyo because it's simply standard practice--it's too expensive to live near to the main city (where my hotel is, for instance) and a hour-long commute is standard.

anyway, i understood about half of what was going on, but everyone was quite friendly as they caught up with each other and with me. the wine probably helped, but there were some interesting stories. Jyo-san works for his grandmother's home-weaving business and often visits a handicrafts NGO in WAshington, so hopefully I'll see him in a few months. and Chika-san, who i had a massive crush on back 10 years ago, has come back from two years teaching Japanese in the Philippines. she told some disturbing stories of being the only woman in this factory compound on a Philippine island and visiting local bars and seeing embarrased Japanese male managers scurry up and around when she entered so that she would not notice the Filipina "waitresses" they were...ah...negotiating with. she also said that the moths in the Philippines were far bigger than a human being's head, and thus terrifying.

anyway, it was lots of fun to hang out with them again, and Hamao-san (who also got married two years ago) said perhaps the nicest thing; loosely translated, "some other gaijin (foreigners) played Ultimate with our team, but only Ben made an effort to really be social and successfully join our 'nakama,'" which kind of means our "in-group." so i felt good about that. they all of course said that i should come to Japan and work at the embassy, but of course i remain unsure whether i should even apply.

emotionally, it was kind of strange to try to reestablish friendships after so long. i mean, it was great to see them, and i did feel part of their group (we went drinking afterwards a bit; i had a beer which was more than enough for me), but it's kind of sad to think about all the good times from 10 years ago here in japan and realize how long it's been.

anyway, yesterday and today i rode the subway and local train system quite a bit and let me tell you, the Japanese public transportation system is, no question, the best in the world bar none. subway and/or train stations everywhere that are spotless, trains that stop at the same place every time perfectly so that people line up on the platform in front of where the doors are going to open before the train even comes; electronic signs that tell you in both English and Japanese when the next train will come; crazy commuter labyrinths at places like Shinjuki and Yotsuya with dozens of platforms for subways, buses, train lines, express lines, etc., and a massive underground infrastructure that cannot be believed. for instance, the exit near my hotel opens to two seprate stations that you can walk between underground for almost a kilometer! and while you're walking, there are occasional signs that appear to say "Marunouchi line, 800 meters...Ginza line, 550 meters....Nanboku line, 450 meters" etc. so that you even know how far you have left to walk! absolutely unbelievable, and also unbelievable is how on-time the trains are. today was saturday, and in about 5 separate trips with numerous transfers i didn't have to wait more than 4 minutes at any stop. it was almost enough (ALMOST enough), to make me give up biking.

Anyway, the first thing i did today was decide to visit the Edo Tokyo History museum east of downtown, in Ryogoku over the Sumida river. it was an incredibly modern museum, with almost every sign bilingual, that had massive displays on the development and history of Tokyo (originally Edo). it was founded as the capital by shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was the basis for the more-or-less true story of the movie and book Shogun, and had over 1 million people as early as the 1700's. what was perhaps most amazing in the museum (aside from the old maps and dioramas and models and examples of books and currency and statistics) is how inventive and brilliant the merchants and townspeople of that period were. despite all the crap and oppression from the clueless samurai class, they had a flourishing publishing industry, had advanced trade and credit relations all over Japan, a flourishing rice and wheat market, and an incredibly organized (one might say, tyrannical) government, where each unit of ten families formed an administrative unit that had to be registered and supervised by officials all the way up to the Shogun. anyway, i got some nice tchotchkes and took a few pictures....

After that, i rushed to the train to schlep all the way to meet my host family from ten years ago for lunch in Musashi-sakai station. getting on the good old orange Chuo-line train sparked the nostalgia to a great degree. i had lunch with the parents, the Hirotas, and enjoyed some excellent barbecued eel as well as eggplant and pumpkin ice cream. Their son, Tetsushi, joined us a bit later after he biked all the way from Machida (about 25 kilometers) where he had had a tennis match. so i talked to Tetsushi about his biking adventures in Japan, which is anything but bike-friendly. I talked to the Hirotas for hours, so i can't say everything, but two quick things--
1. the father, Koichi, five years ago was transferred to a different Subaru factory, one about 2 hours north In Gumma prefecture. their daughter, Yukiho, joined him but the wife, Sayuri, and Tetsushi stayed in Musashi-sakai so that he could go to a better high school (i.e., one closer to Tokyo) and so that she could work at her job. so they see each other every other weekend or so. it's tough, but it's not too uncommon here--called "Tanshin Funin" and it's usually due to the fact that a father is transferred away from a city (i.e. Tokyo) but doesn't want to move his family to a worse environment educationally, culturally, etc. it just reflects how important one's job is here--though that too, like many other things, might be changing. I was told that the traditional polite language is dying out, with almost no young people using it even in the office.
2. The Hirotas are long-time supporters of the Japanese Communist Party, and i got the feeling that Sayuri especially disapproved of me working for the State Dept. of course, she didn't say anything, she just remained quiet while her husband, Koichi, was talking to me about how both major political partes in Japan (the LDP and the democratic Party) are the same in terms of supporting the status quo and being backed by large companies and how the mass media is purposefully ignoring the smaller parties (i.e. the socialists, the communists and the conservatives) so as to boost the prospects of the LDP and the democrats. he was against both Koizumi and Kan, and called for a more peaceful, more UN-based form of diplomacy that didn't use war. well, i disagreed, but politely, as at least they are sincere, if completely and excessively pacifistic. he fully agreed, though, that the communists will lose at least several of their 21 seats (out of 480) in the coming election.

the Hirotas also took me around my old university, ICU (International Christian University), which has changed in some ways but not in others. I felt very nostalgic, and we took several pictures in front of the main building there. i have to add, though, that it was a little spookier now that i knew more the history than when i first started there at the start of my year abroad in August 1993. next to ICU is a Subaru heavy machinery factory, where Koichi used to work. Before and during World War II, both complexes together formed part of the Nakajima aircraft company, which built Japanese Zero fighter planes and other military items at the factory. in fact, even now the entrance to ICU is called the "Kassoro," or runway, because planes used to take off there. there are all sorts of stories of hidden tunnels, mistreatment of Korean slave labor, and secret machinery hidden underneath the university--centering on several mysterious hills in front of the main university building. but after the war, Nakajima was forced out of business and changed into Subaru, which makes cars, and a christian group bought half of their factory and turned it into ICU, now a sort of oasis of greenery and trees and beauty in the middle of Mitaka's sprawling suburbs, full of well-meaning internationally-minded Japanese and foreigners who want to learn Japanese, like me, in a very Utopian and idealistic environment. Truly ironic...

anyway, an interlude:
Scene from Tokyo #1--Ben, meeting a very esteemed news producer, proudly produces his business card. before visiting Japan, Ben laboriously took the time to make Japanese-language labels of his title and paste them to the back of some of his cards. after looking at the card, with English on the front and Ben's Japanese translation on the back, the esteemed media expert asks, "oh, you are...an analyst in Asia-Atlantic news coverage?" Confused, Ben asks what he is talking about. it turns out that in his rush to get the cards ready, Ben mistranslated one character in the translation of "Asia-Pacific Analyst," so that it reads instead "Asia-Atlantic analyst." Ben was appalled, embarrased and lost a whole mess of face. safe to say that those cards are now safely in the garbage.

scene from Tokyo #2--at a lunch with prominent news editorialists, Ben was about to enter the traditional Japanese restaurant when he was distracted by trying to understand what one of them was saying to the other. Ben succeeded in remember to take off his shoes before entering the restaurant, but made the fatal mistake of putting on the guest slippers lying on the floor (designed for temporary use and intended to be worn when you leave the private part of the restaruant and go to the restroom). shocked and appalled, the waitress yelled at Ben to not wear the slippers after Ben stepped into the restaurant's private section. Again, Ben lost lots of face and immediately halted and took off the slippers. fortunately, there were no holes in Ben's socks for this meeting.

scene from Tokyo #3--i was reminded by my frisbee friends that the day they drove me to the airport when i left 10 years ago, there was a right-wing sponsored black truck loudly broadcasting screeds against foreingers on the way. these trucks are pretty common in Tokyo because, although everyone hates them and they are extremely loud and annoying, the police are reluctant to stop them from loudly broadcasting their pro-emperor, anti-China, nationalistic claptrap. why? one reason is that the Yakuza gangsters support these nationalist groups. a second reason is that the police are so terrified of challenging the right to free speech, in a sort of overreaction to criticism of their fascist tyranny during World War II, that they go too far in allowing annoying craziness that is basically a public nuisance to be broadcast freely. anyway, so on our way to the airport, the trucks were calling for all Gaijin (foreigners) to be expelled. so my friend Kinji opened the window of the car and yelled loudly, "yes, that's what we're doing! we're driving Ben the foreigner to the airport so he can leave! congratulate us!" quite funny.

scene from Tokyo #4--as i'm walking back to the hotel, in front of a bunch of bamboo trees in front of a modenistic scuplture just outside the subway stop, i see a woman in a traditional japanese kimono, with bright shining white Obi belt, yelling into a cell phone. another perfect image of modern Japan--though the kimono's influence is being swamped by the cell phone's in general, i would say, as traditions are disappearing (i.e. wearing kimonos, polite language, traditional sports like Sumo and Kendo)

scene from Tokyo #5--reflecting the almost pathological safety concern, as i was jogging i stopped at a red light. a truck was turning left, and i heard a woman's voice saying loudly in polite Japanese, "be careful! this truck is turning left! be careful! this truck is turning left!" i looked around, and realized that the voice was coming from the truck--it was an automatic recorded warning to be broadcast whenever it turned, because later on down the street i heard the same thing from a truck turning right. amazing.

finally, back to my day. the Hirotas put me on a bus to SEngawa, where i met up with my old friend Ryo and also our old friend Maruo-san. i met Ryo's girlfriend, who as they are living together is basically his fiancee and was charmed. for some reason the japanese was flowing pretty freely, so i think she was kind of scared and shocked at this chunky foreigner who was joking around and teasing her boyfriend and his friend Maruo. it was great to see them--we went to a sort of pan-asian restaurant near his house with nice rooftop dining so we could gaze out onto the city and had some good food, including some braised chicken, some beef soup and some rice cakes. i'm pretty tired, so i can't really go into all of the stuff we talked about, but they also said that i should apply for the job at the embassy because i'm young enough that i should focus on my career. but i'm still unsure. Ryo was in particular fine form--openly admitting he doesn't trust China and basically saying the exact opposite of the pacifist, communist Hirotas. anyway, i'll write more later about the dinner, though it was nice hearing about Maruo's twins and teasing each other about how old we are, about how interesting (or not interesting) our jobs are, and about how eventually, things work out for the best in every situation (Ryo hated his job, but found a better one at amazon Japan; Maruo was worried when he got his girlfriend pregnant five years ago, but they were able to get married relatively quickly and now he's pretty happy with her and their cute twins; and I...well, I was happy to be in Japan and see them for the first time in four years.) I should add at the very end that the owner of the restaurant, i learned, is Pakistani, and as we were leaving he asked me where i was from. he then asked, "boy, you speak japanese well...i've been here seven years...are you Arab?" ha-ha. i said i was American, and left amused that even in Japan, I can occasionally pass for anything...
- posted by Ben @ 6:45 AM

 
Tokyo 10/24
Friday 5:00 pm

Wow, another day done. Today might have been my busiest yet--6 meetings in one day, and i haven't even gone out yet to meet Inagaki-san (my old frisbee friend from ICU's frisbee team; ICU is the Japanese university where I studied from 1993-1994). anyway, where to start. Perhaps last night, where i was finally able to meet up with Kiichi-san and we caught up while wandering around Roppongi. he took me to a great Korean yakiniku restaruant, which means a place where you take raw meat and vegetables and cook them in an open fire in front of you. very good, except that Kiichi-san is a big fan of tongue and liver and made me at least try them a couple of times. i enjoyed the Marubi sections of beef, though, a lot. the garlic was pungent. anyways, after that we went out to an Irish pub nearby where a bunch of Japanese salarymen--all, of course, in black suits, white shirts and red ties--were toasting each other for some undetermined reason. it was fun to catch up with Kiichi, though i feel bad because he hates his job as a consultant here to the Tokyo city transportation system. he loved living in London--I teased him because his English had acquired a British accent--and wants to go back to be with his girlfriend, who is actually Slovakian. a truly international couple. but he was kind enough to walk me back to the hotel (as even one beer had made me a bit queasy).

this morning i tried to wake up a bit early and go jogging. my body didn't respond well to my first exercise in a few days, but it was worth it not only because i jogged about 2 km to the Imperial palace through Akasaka neighborhood and also the Kasumigaseki government buildings neighborhood, but because i was able to avoid the morning breakfast buffet and save taxpayeres some money and my body some calories by grabbing a few rolls at a bakery instead. the jog was fun, though the japanese going to work were a bit surpirsed by this schvitzing gaijin running through them. the imperial palace was beautiful--it's hard to explain, but it's basically a huge section of land in the middle of Tokyo that noone can really enter, though parks surround it that people can wander through (I did). in fact, i was lucky enough to see some Imperial ducks and some Imperial swans in the moat surrounding the inner castle section where the current emperor and his family abide. jogging back, i noticed something that always surprises me--Japanese people simply do not jaywalk. the street was completely empty outside the national diet building, but i was the only one to cross against the lights. i'm lucky two burly Japanese policemen (without guns, of course) didn't grab me and give me a stern talking-to. probably because i was sweating so much they had no desire to pollute their spotless uniforms.

as for meetings, i spoke to a bunch of people here at the embassy about the various tasks they do. i have to say, compared to Beijing, or even Seoul, this embassy does a lot with lots of resources. they have their own webmaster, for example, and librarians for the resource libraries in Tokyo and other places (Fukuoka, Osaka, etc.). probably the most interesting talk was with the person in the political division here, who gave me a really interesting, detailed and in-depth summary of the politicial situation as it stands just two weeks before the election. one interesting point--though the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will almost certainly win enough seats to form a government, the more liberal, more urban, younger Democratic Party will probably gain seats in the Diet, which may mean that the LDP will dump Prime Minister Koizumi despite his massive popularity. it's very strange--although he is popular, the conservatives and anti-market dinosaurs and old-guard people in the LDP really dislike him, so if the LDP loses seats, they can blame him and put in somebody charisma-less, anonymous and non-controversial. this would probably be a disaster for japan, which needs reform desperately, and for the LDP, which would probably lose more popularity if they get rid of the popular Koizumi, but politics is often anything but logical.

also interesting was an amazing lunch, in which i met with several Japanese editorial writers who talked about anti-Americanism, support for Koizumi and also views of North Korea. it's hard to overstate how huge distrust, anger and hatred of the North is here. the whole kidnapping issue, when North Korean leader Kim Jong-il admitted it last year, just solidified the whole country's belief that they must be tough towards Pyongyang. A few people have said that admission was Japan's 9/11--as in, it changed the whole tone of public debate over security and gave a huge boost to people who favor a more active security policy and more independent, tougher behavior towards the North. I don't blame them--imagine if it came out that Russian submarines and spies had been secretly kidnapping American teenagers off beaches for decades, keeping them in Moscow to train Russian spies in how to pretend to be Japanese. that's what has been happening here.

lunch itself was great--a whole collection of sushi, tempura, oden (pickled vegetables mixed with potatoes), some great miso soup with tofu, and chunks of soy-flavored beef. also interesting was how the reporters were curious about why Americans think there is so much anti-Americanism--i think the Japanese consensus is that the jury is still out as they wonder how the next administration will behave. I.e., has America really changed after 9/11to become more unilateral and aggressive, or is it just the Bush administration. they are certainly unimpressed with any of the Democrats so far, though, for sure. there was some disagreement over Iraq and whether Japan should send troops to help, but most agree that the alliance with the U.S. is vital and important and must remain. This is tied up, in a way i should explain more later in this blog, in how they feel isolated and completely separate from Asia. Given how Chinese and Koreans and even Filipinos, Thais, Indonesians, etc. view them, I have to agree. One TV commentator bluntly said on one of their new popular talk shows -- "Look, we need America! If Japan was on fire, none of our neighbors would even bother to take the time to piss on us to put it out." That also reflects the whole nationalism issue here--they certainly don't feel like they are part of Asia, per se.

well, off to dinner with my old friends at ICU! more later.
- posted by Ben @ 12:56 AM

 
Tokyo 10/23
6:00 pm Thursday

Well, what a busy day. I have my schedule in front of me but can't really go appointment-by-appointment through it because 1. I didn't take enough notes to do it accurately and, 2. i'm just too tired. i also am meeting one of my friends here for dinner in about 45 minutes, so i have to hurry up and get cooking on this blog. unfortunately, my schedule is kind of up in the air still in some ways--though i'm completely busy and fully scheduled throughout the rest of my time here, i just found out that one of my good friends had to go down to Shizuoka because her pregnant sister-in-law lost consciousness due to some sort of blood clot in her brain. truly tragic, and so i feel quite insignificant in saying i'll be disappointed if she stays down there and i don't get to see her. but everything else is going well.

i had a nice surprise this morning when i went over to the Tokyo American center, where they do various outreach efforts and seminars and talks to build cultural and political and economic exchange between Americans and Japanese. it turns out that also at the center is my old Asahi colleague Kathy EAgan, who joined the foreign service a couple of years ago. so that was good--we caught up and hung out a bit and she showed off their center's view of Zosoji temple. speaking parenthetically, i realize that i'm not doing as much sightseeing here. i think there are several main reasons. one is, i've seen the most important stuff here in my previoius visits. Second is, well, i've got so little time and a lot has to do with work and so i'm focusing as much as possible on seeing people and colleagues and friends.

it didnt' work last night, though. for some reason i am having trouble dialing cell phones here, so i never caught up with anyone and instead had a vaguely dream-like experience wandering up to Roppongi to withdraw money from an ATM that takes VISA and seeing the craziness in that ultra-hip, foreigner-infested blade-runner-esque modernistic place. so many bars, restaurants, elevated highways, massive karaoke joints, and beautiful people wandering around. let me add--after almost two weeks here in East Asia, i feel....
incredibly fat. i mean, really. everyone here is so thin! the women especially--not to mention that all the women here are, if possible, even more fashionably dressed than in Seoul. high-heeled leather boots up to the shins (or higher) seems to be de rigeur, though not as many women are dyeing their hair red or blonde these days as far as i can tell.

anyway, back to my meetings. i am coming to several conclusions. one is that Prime Minister Koizumi is, despite the perception that he is sucking up to America, incredibly popular. thus, his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) (as a great analyst once said, it's not liberal [very conservative and in favor of old-line companies and farmers], nor democratic [most posts are decided through negotiations through factions and the members don't really get to vote for party leaders], nor really a party [rather, a loose collection of constantly clashing factions]) will likely win the 11/9 elections that are upcoming. I was confused by this, but many have told me that people here in Japan WANT to suck up to the U.S., even to the point of sending troops and funds to help out in Iraq (although virtually everyone thinks the war was a bad idea and that the U.S. military was too hard on the civilian population), so that we will back Japan up against North Korea. one person here used the term "McCarthyism" to describe the mass hatred of North Korea. there is a real sense of fear and loathing so to speak, of the North and in general anyone who says anything vaguely positive about the North, or even sympathetic and conciliatory, is strongly attacked by the government and the right-wing and more or less shut up.

in addition, another major trend here, everyone says, is a swing rightward politically. even my old employer, the Asahi newspaper, is seen now as more centrist and less beholden to what one person here called its old "leftist fundamentalism," defined as anti-america, pro-pacifism, and focusing on economics. Many japanese, especially the younger ones, are increasingly nationalistic--worried about North Korea and the rise of China and willing to do more security-wise. This would include: buy planes to do in-flight refueling or even talk openly about pre-emptive strikes against North Korea or even send troops to Iraq in a clear quid pro quo so that the U.S. will help if something happens with North Korea.

That said, this growing nationalism is linked to a growing sense of anti-americanism, especially among the more rightwing people like Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara and the Sankei newspaper. virtually everyone opposed the war in Iraq, apparently, and most see the U.S. as more aggressive and bullying and unilateralistic than ever. But, they still want us around due to China and North Korea.

Thus, although the opposition Minshutou (Democratic Party) is running on a more leftist, more anti-American stance, as well as a stance calling for an end to the corruption and scandals and failied economic policies of the LDP (i.e. keeping banks and large companies solvent by using public money due to fears of massive layoffs and economic shock), which is popular among many in the cities. the LDP will probably win overwhelmingly again because people are worried about North Korea and don't trust the Minshuto. interestingly, one person at Japan's largest broadcaster, NHK, said that the Japanese media are INCREASING their foreign presence, with more reporters abroad and more staff focusing on foreign news. NHK has almost doubled its staff abroad in the last two years. this could reflect a new maturity among Japanese, but more likely, he said, it's because "japan is reliant on other countries and markets for its economics and security." this comment, i think, however true it might be, more indicates a lack of confidence and fear for the future here, rather than newfound maturity.

anyways, i'm off to meet Kiichi-san. i'm pretty tired, but hopefully i'll get back into it. i should talk about last night--after wandering through Roppongi bedazzled by everything, i finally staggered back to the hotel and had some italian food for dinner. when i tested, i was a bit low, which explains partly why i was wandering so aimlessly. but i actually had a great italian meal here of pumpkin soup, fried fish with tomatoes and green beans and of course Oolong tea to finish. for lunch today, some FSNs here took me out, and i enjoyed a typically japanese meal of karaage (tempura-fried chicken in a lettuce sauce) as well as udon and tempura soup. also amazing, though i don't know why, is how much better the rice here is. it's really noticeable, but it may be more that i don't know how to cook it!!!!

oh, i forgot. at lunch, a couple of the FSNs asked me, quietly, if it were true that i were replacing the ten-year veteran here who sort of supervises the media analysis job. He was incredibly bright (i met him today) and omniscent about things Japan, but he had mentioned he is retiring soon and going back to DC and thus they were looking for a replacement but hadn't found one. after our talk, he was impressed enough to say i should apply. so at lunch, coincidentally, the two senior FSNs asked if i were to be the successor! when i said no, and added that i knew nothing about it, they urged me to apply, saying that although they hardly knew me they were impressed by my Japanese and hoped i would. I was of course very complimented, and amazed by the invitation. it would be the perfect job for me--becoming more of an expert on the japanese media and focusing more on stuff for the embassy and japanese politics, media environment, etc. the only problem would be, it'd be for at least 3 years and it'd be here in Tokyo. so i'm thinking about it, but it would be a major, life-changing commitment, so i don't know....if you have any advice, email me at atanimir@yahoo.com! i then joked that i need to find a wife, and 3 years would be a long time to wait. one said that of course i could find a wife here in Tokyo! apparently, many Americans do...I then said, half-jokingly, well, it would be hard to find a Jewish wife here! without hestiation, one then said that he knows a japanese person who works at the Israeli embassy and he would find some Jewish women for me. i had to laugh....

well, more tomorrow. i got to go meet Kiichi-san!
- posted by Ben @ 1:56 AM

 
Tokyo 10/22
6:15 pm

Well, I am pretty bushed after a day of meetings, all business-like and interesting at the embassy and with prominent Japanese journalism types. I should add that things are going well, though the hotel is kind of cramped and not as nice as the other two i have stayed in. that said, the bathroom is extremely high-tech, and the flat-screen television in the room as well as the view out the window of Roppongi are both quite nice.

not much to say--i got into the hotel ok last night, and though exhausted unpacked and ventured down to the cafe level for a snack. it is going to be harder here for me to keep this online diary, mainly becuase the business center closes down at 9:00 pm and the fitness room shuts down at 9:00 pm too. but, the hotel is a five-minute walk from the embassy, which is very convenient, and the path there goes right past the, you guessed it, japan bicycle culture hall. i`ll have to stop in there at some point and check out what`s up inside. gotta support internatinoal biking solidarity!

i must say that the scenery around the hotel and the U.S. embassy is very strange...hyper-urban, even more than seoul, and certainly more than the suburban japanese life i was used to in Mitaka when i lived there 10 years ago. huge towering skyscrapers and almost no room to walk between alleys where cars squeeze by. but the people are nice so far, especially after i start to try to speak japanese. the people at the embassy who are japanese were actually quite impressed and said some very nice compliments after our briefing today, though my twisted and feeble efforts at using polite language no doubt appalled them. the other meetings went well too; met with a top television commentator who talked about growing public distrust of the media here and a desire for more discipline to stop feeding frenzies, and a journalism professor who talked about a sort of "new maturity" among the japanese people who have sort of "grown up" in terms of knowledge about internatinoal affairs, the importance of security and the U.S.-japan relationship, etc. one did say, however, an interesting joke about how leftists are calling Prime Minister Koizumi "geta no yuki" (literally, the snow that sticks to your shoes) given the way he follows whatever President Bush does and says (i.e. he is the snow on Bush`s boots). they also bemoaned the growing popularity of celebrity and entertainment-based news and talk shows that don`t really provide useful news, but rather just gossip and scandal and yelling. sounds familiar...one also said that young people don`t read newspapers or magazines as much, expressing worry about the state of the country`s intellectuals.

anyway, my old haverford classmate Colin blew me off tonight because i never called him back about tonight (too many meetings today; we`re going to meet next sunday). so hopefully, i will get in touch with my friend Ryo or Kiichi and see if they are busy. otherwise, i`ll walk around some, maybe hit the exercise cetner, adn go to sleep early, given how tired i am. oh, lunch! get this--for lunch, my very kind and proudly minnesotan control officer met our professor at a chinese restaurant with awesome braised shrimp and tofu in black bean sauce. and who runs this chinese restaurant, in akasaka just behind the national diet? famed iron chef chinese Chen Kenichi!!!!! i was so happy, and the food was so good....

ok, off i go.
- posted by Ben @ 2:12 AM

 
Tokyo 7:45 pm
tuesday, october 21

Well, i just arrived at Tokyo airport and my bus to my hotel doesn't leave for another 40 minutes--i just missed one, i guess. the welcome to Japan was quite typical--plenty of signs reading "Welcome to Japan" in English but the ones in Japanese say "Welcome back to Japan!" so right away, you know where you stand as a foreigner. of course, we figured that out ourselves in the line to go through customs--japanese passport holders only had to wait about 10 minutes each, whereas foreigners were stuck in a long, hardly-moving line that took about 25 minutes to get through. the worst of all national stereotypes were confirmed--British stood in the queue humorously complaining, chinese kept looking around to see how they could find a quicker way, koreans just looked scared to be in Japan, Americans just kvetched loudly, Germans stood in stoic indifference, while one french woman looked around, walked over the rope fence, and skipped the line, going over to one of the bored clerks in the Japanese passport section and loudly proclaiming she didn't speak Japanese and begging to allow her to go through. they did, to the disgust of the rest of the foreigners.

the flight was fine, i must say, with good fish and excellent service. problem was, the plane was half-empty--i would have thought that the flights from BEijing to Tokyo would be mobbed, but i guess not. it's possible that the SARS scare has ended most tourism from japan. it's also true that the Zhuhai incident might have stopped lots of travel too. many of the Chinese reporters we spoke to mentioned the Zhuhai incident as a key news story that the official media didn't cover at all but the new popular tabloid and Internet media did. AT zhuhai, a booming city in the southern special investement zone of shenzhen, a huge bunch of Japanese construction workers basically hired a bunch of chinese prostitutes and had a huge party--most Chinese called it an "orgy"--on the anniversary of the Nanjing massacre. not very smart public relations, and just the latest little problem in the sino-japanese relationship.

anyway, i'm pretty tired and start a full schedule of meetings tomorrow and won't get to the hotel until 10:00 pm, best case, so i'm a bit ticked off. but i think the airport bus is still faster than the train, as the train only takes you to Tokyo station and you have to take the subway from there with all of your baggage. the cost is the same, so i'm just sucking it up. and it gives me the chance to do this diary tonight and maybe save time at the hotel and not do it later. 100 yen for 10 minutes on broadband--not too bad.

Anyway, it's good to be in Japan, and i'm looking forward to seeing all of my friends from Asahi and playing ultimate frisbee here 10 years ago at ICU university during my year abroad and some other people. i'm just bushed, and kind of sick of hotel living. on a ridiculous note, i also desperately need to cut my fingernails and i don't know how to do it! guess i'll buy a little pair of scissors and just donate them to the U.S. embassy--somehow. also, though i'm diabetically doing ok, i was very high just before dinner and i can't figure out why, as i had a small lunch. well, better be careful, so i'm not going to give too much, at least until i'm in the hotel and in a more secure and food-rich environment. i dont' know, though, if the ANA hotel here will provide the fresh fruit--kiwis galore--like the Chinese hotel did. well, i'll write more tomorrow...
- posted by Ben @ 3:44 AM

 
Tuesday, 10/21
1:45 pm

Well, as I sit in Beijing airport's departure lounge, this skilled diplomat faces a single burning question--how many free Chinese chocolate cookies can he take from the lounge with him onto the airplane? anyway, today's meetings went well, though i was a bit stressed before the one with the public affairs officer, the senior dude in every embassy's information office. he turned out to be nice, though he had two main points, neither of which i really knew the answer to: why does his office and FBIS (the CIA-run Foreign Broadcasting Information Service) both have to do the same job; i.e. translating foreign editorials, and second, how is his office supposed to satifsy us if they receive increasing demands from the ambassador's office about local press coverage of his interests, and local country interests. both are good questions, which i tried to answer as best as possible citing the need for redundancy and the need for dual activities which are not quite truly the same, not completely. after that, i went off to my final meeting, and probably my best--a talk (at another starbucks) with a senior professor of journalism at China's finest university, Qinghua, who also hosts a talk show on China Central Television (CCTV). he had gotten a degree at Cambridge, so his english was perfect, and the talk was really interesting in terms of talking about how a senior, established journalist (i.e., him) who works at a government-run news service views the changes in china's media environment. he obviously wants change, but is also fully cognizant of the dangers with complete media openness. but he told some good stories--about a senior editor of a southern magazine that published a series of stories that were seen as too positive about the former prime minister, Zhu Rongji, who sort of is retired in disgrace due to his excessive support for economic reform. the editor was fired by the central national authorities, but he was swiftly rehired by a shanghai-based newspaper that sought to increase its circulation by being a bit brave in terms of covering politiical news. also interesting was his story about how new newspapers (he called them "tabloids" with a sort of half-ironic, joking look on his face) are eager to compete by covering scandals and other political news--but cannot do so in their own provinces or cities, because then the local authorities would close them down. So, for example, there is sort of a war going on between the newspapers of Jiangsu province, which exposed many scandals and corruption in neighboring Anhui province, and the newspapers of Anhui province, whose leaders are angry to see their local citizenry reading embarrasing news about them and whose newspapers are angry to see their circulation and sway falling as local people read Jiangsu newspapers. so now, Anhui leaders are pushing their local newspaperes to publish news of scandals in Jiangsu province--which, being far richer, has far bigger scandals and corruption to write about. finally, he spoke of a newspaper in the northeastern Liaoning province where they flagrantly supported one of 8 candiates for deputy mayor--listing long articles about him and interviews and pushing his name strongly. there were various reasons, but one key one was that they wanted him to be on their side to help if they had any future problems with the local government in terms of diversifying their economic interests (i.e. if the newspaper wanted to diversify their profit centers by buying cheap stores and local malls from the government, which is eager to privatize).

anyway, i ate a vaguely wretched meal of pineapple chicken and rice here at the airport, and am feeling good about going to Japan, though i am a bit sad to leave Beijing and, more importantly, growing more and more homesick in a way. the schedule in Japan is quite busy, and i just hope that they aren't as busy as Beijing's embassy. I must say, they had 4 senior U.S. officials visiting this week, and i often felt as if they just didn't want me around and that i was just a major bother--i mean, of course they were in bad moods because they were working 55-60 hours a week with no real thanks from the ambassador or the cabinet agencies in Washington.

scene from Beijing #1-
as i'm walking around last night to get a snack, four separate people carrying DVDs approach me, offering to sell the me "new, new" and "cheap, cheap" movies. i take a glance, and see that one is carrying Kill Bill, just two weeks after it opened in the U.S. Amazing.

scene from Beijing #2-
in front of the hotel, i'm walking through an intersection I almost run into a bicycle carrying two people going the wrong way, running a red light. traffic was absolutely insane--cars running lights, making left turns without even looking at the oncoming traffic, people walking through major highways, and most difficult, bicycles cutting through traffic at will, going against lights and a constant danger to run you down at any moment--without lights, of course, and without helmets. no need for that!!!

well, off to Japan!!!!



- posted by Ben @ 10:45 PM

 
Monday 10/20/03
8:45 pm

Wow. My legs are killing me from some walking today, and also from walking up and down the great wall yesterday. It is, indeed, a great wall. Anyway, there’s some sort of Canadian press conference here tonight, so they are charging me just to use the computer, so I might be shorter than normal.

I had meetings scheduled all day, so I got up extra early this morning to get breakfast and then walk down about 10 minutes to the subway station. I took it down 3 stations to Tiananmen square east, so I could do some sightseeing, even though the museum was still closed. Finally, after 4 days here, I think I have a vague idea of how the city is laid out—with the forbidden city of the emperors at the center, just north of Tianamen square, and Mao’s masoleum, the People’s hall (where the communist party meetings are held) to the west and the museum of the Chinese revolution to the east. Anyway, the subway was pretty clean, pretty comfortable, and darn cheap—just 3 yuan per trip, which is less than 50 cents. However, only two lines exist as of now, though they’re frantically trying to build more before the Olympics in 2008. anyway, exiting the subway, you are standing in a vast plaza, with tianamen just to your north, with a massive painting of Mao gleaming between two rows of characters calling for the long life both of the people’s republic and of the world’s workers. Hundreds of Chinese were standing around taking their pictures in front of Mao—as much as we might dislike it, the fact remains that this is the spiritual and emotional heart of China for most Chinese people. I wandered inside the Tiananmen gate briefly, just long enough and far enough to see a group of Chinese soldiers doing their morning exercises and check out a collection of historical bronze cannon, cast by the Jesuits back in the 17th century in an eventually failed attempt to save the Ming dynasty from the Manchu invaders who went on to found the Qing dynasty.

Anyway, back on the subway to my meetings, both with young, hip, modern Chinese. They talked about market competition, the need to open China to western ideas, the success of the Internet and how 20 million people use one portal, Sohu.com, every day, and the need for good, marketable and interesting content that Chinese people will actually want to read. The guy we met for lunch, from a new economic magazine, looked just like a French intellectual, with long disheveled hair and a loose shirt and full of praise for Sartre, the Atlantic Monthly and the New republic. Lunch was pretty good, at a Szechuan place with deep fried sesame-coated nuts, a spicy white fish, and roasted duck (I love duck!). but more entertaining was this guy, who kept talking about the need for youth and new ideas and a massive change in Chinese society. He was “on our side” so to speak, but such fervent idealism is a bit frightening even if it is in favor of things you support.

After afternoon meetings at the embassy, I then met an old grizzled china hand (a western reporter) for drinks. He was far more cynical, saying that the young Internet-based people I’ve been meeting are the winners in china’s economic modernization, but that there are far, far more losers and they are at some point going to be quite pissed off at the selfishness and lack of all public concern the winners of china’s economic revolution are showing. You see it here in Beijing—rich Chinese traipsing in the latest fashions down the street while a dirty, thin man pedals a massive bicycle carrying garbage in back. But you see the same thing in Washington, too….

Also today I had a chance to hit the silk market near the embassy, just briefly, but it was pretty crowded, with tiny stalls all selling clothing knickknacks and the typical tchotchkes. I did try to bargain a bit, and was guilted/trapped into buying one ridiculously overpriced item that I can’t believe I spent so much money on, because I’m sure it’s not really silk, but oh well. The woman at first wanted 580 yuan, but I bargained her down to 160 yuan. I’m sure that what I bought is actually worth about 10 yuan, but I had to at least try the experience.

Anyway, for dinner I walked to a nearby restaurant here in the diplomatic district. It’s weird how the entire neighborhood here around the hotel is full of embassies—just across the street is Romania, with the U.S., Gabon, Bangladesh and Greece on the next street. Each one is surrounded by a fence with a young, ramrod-straight-standing elite Chinese soldier standing at attention in front, without moving. Such discipline. Supposedly, the Chinese never trusted the foreigners and so stuck them all out here together to keep them separate from most Chinese and easy to keep track of. Of course, what that meant is that this area is now among the richest and most exclusive in Beijnig, with the Beijing international club down the street, plenty of Russian and U.S. and French restaurants, and even a Hagen-dasz and a Baskin-robbins. Anyway, for dinner I went to this place alone, which was weird, and had some amazingly salty but tasty barbequed fish along with deep-fried seaweed in sesame oil. Amazingly salty, but amazingly tasty. So that was fine by me!

OK, a couple more meetings tomorrow but I’m going to try to get some biking in before I start to pack up.

- posted by Ben @ 6:05 AM

 
Sunday 10/19/03
8:40 pm

Well, I finally lost it a bit tonight. Not publicly, or embarrassingly, but I had to take a rest—not deal with people in any way. It’s partially my fault—I kind of gave up yesterday, realizing that I don’t know how to do anything or speak to anyone here, and decided to sign up for a private tour guide for today—going to the Temple of heaven, the dirt market, and what has made everything worthwhile today—the great wall at Mutianyu.

But getting back from all this today at 5:30 pm, added to the cultural difference of having people at your beck and call—here at the hotel, in any store, in every museum—I am not dealing with it very well. It’s hard to explain—but some of the expats here have described to me how annoying it is when there are servants/waitresses/museum staff always available. Here at the hotel, which is of course 5-star and excessively fancy (my laundry charge today was inexcusable, but I can’t exactly complain), there at least 3 employees whose sole job is to dress up in a suit and stand around waiting for something to do and/or guests to order them around. And in any store etc., people’s attention is so excessively focused on you. I don’t think it’s because I am a foreigner, though that helps. More I think is a cultural tradition here—and in Asia in general—that labor is cheap and having people around who you can give orders to and demand attention from is a sign of high social and economic status. As my guide said today when I asked why the bottoms of every tree visible from the expressway to the great wall was painted white—“well, it is a special medicine to protect the trees from being eaten by insects, but also, it looks pretty and labor is cheap.” Of course, I should talk—but after yesterday, I figured it was worth some of my private funds to go a little more luxury—especially to the great wall.

Anyway, after another excessive buffet breakfast, I went off on the tour, starting at the beautiful temple of heaven. Another example of what I was talking about above—a huge complex, tens of acres inside a huge city—all designed for two animal sacrifices a year by the emperor to the god of heaven. Now, of course, it’s a park open to the public, with many old people hanging out practicing dancing, playing musical instruments or Wu Zhi (Go) or Mah Jong. The central building was quite magnificent, a round 3-storied structure on a sort of plateau from which you could see lots of Beijing. My guide was friendly enough, though as a government employee, I didn’t (and couldn’t) completely trust her. Also at the temple, she suckered me into visiting the imperial teahouse, where the finest (quote-unquote) teas from imperial times were kept and now rich tourists are fleeced. But it was worth it—a beautiful Manchurian staffer served me several different types of teas, in various beautiful containers cups and bowls. Only after about 20 minutes did I realize that the whole point of this exercise—which I did find interesting—was to sell me the aforementioned teas/bowls/dishes. So I did buy a tin of Lychee-flavored tea for about $15. not too much.

After that, we ventured to the massive dirt market, which had many foreigners but also many Chinese bargaining and selling in a huge open area, just recently paved. The guide seemed surprised that I wanted to visit such a “not-pleasant area,” but we took about an hour touring the book stalls and going through some tiny tchotchke stands. Much was beautiful, and all was overpriced, given my foreignness and the fact that I had a translator (the guide) with me. But I did buy a couple of Mao posters—I like the irony of bargaining in a Chinese stall with a Chinese person in such a capitalist manner to buy a poster of Mao—who hated bargaining and markets of any kind! A sort of post-modern revenge, I suppose, though of course my guide quite honestly pointed out to me that I was hardly the first person to think of such an interpretation. She was a bit embarrassed when I asked about a couple of posters I did NOT buy—a series of ones of a famed Chinese hero who, during the Korean war, quietly sat and allowed himself to be burned to death following one battle instead of screaming or fleeing the fire, thus exposing his presence to the American helicopters and informing them he and his fellow comrades were around. Also, one in Chinese favoring the “brave Palestinian people’s struggle for liberation.” I would have sympathized with that one a little bit more if I hadn’t noticed it was printed before 1967, i.e. before Israel won that war and took over what we currently think of Palestinian territories from Jordan and Egypt.

I guess here is where I should discourse on something that I’ve been thinking about on and off for a few days—especially following Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir’s comments at the Organization of the Islamic Conference a few days ago that Jews “rule the world” and invented the concepts of capitalism and socialism and human rights and democracy to make themselves more powerful and have made other countries and peoples their puppets. As has been reported, Mahathir’s comments received a standing ovation from the assembled Islamic leaders, including putatitve allies of the U.S. such as the new president of Afghanistan and the Indonesian president. They claimed they were applauding the speech because Mahathir also called for “Islamic unity” and for the world’s Muslims to use their brainpower—like the Jews—to achieve success in today’s world. I think of this because, before lunch, the guide asked me if I had any dietary restrictions. I said I didn’t eat pork. She asked if I was Muslim. I said, no. she seemed confused, and then said ah, you are Jewish! When I nodded, she immediately noted how many Jews fleeing Europe had hidden in Shanghai during World War II. Then she mentioned the famous Jewish community of Kaifeng, which existed for hundreds of years but is now almost completely assimilated into the general Chinese population. This is, of course, I’m sure, mostly a matter of the Chinese tourist agencies telling their staff to mention these things so that Jews view China more positively. Because, just like in Japan, the truth is that most people here in Asia who know of such topics agree that Jews DO have a huge amount of control over the world, and are extremely powerful, and thus not people to be feared, but rather complimented and treated extra-nicely and an example for Asians to aspire to. The guide today, for instance, said to my face, “Oh, you must be very smart! All Jews are very smart, and rich.” Apparently, the official Communist newspaper ran a special story a week or so ago in which it noted that 30 percent of nobel prize winners were Jewish, and thus we ARE extremely powerful, stressing the importance of education. I heard a similar comment or two from prominent Koreans when I was there last week. So maybe I should hide it, but part of me would rather people meet a real live Jewish person who isn’t that rich, and certainly not that smart, but pretty much an American like any other.

Anyway, enough with that. After the Dirt market, we drove about 1 ½ hours to the great wall. Not like I could see much of the countryside from the expressway, but enough to see how vast and enormous development projects in and around Beijing are mushrooming faster than ever. Especially with the Olympics coming in five years, everything must be renovated and finished now, Now, NOW! Example—currently Beijing has two subway lines—they’ll have 23 by 2008. currently Beijing has 3 completed ring roads (like our beltway)—by 2008, they plan to have 6. so lots of old buildings, including old hutong neighborhoods with poorer people, are just going kaput.

Ah, the great wall. I’m pretty tired, but I should just add it is far more impressive than I could have possibly imagined. We parked, climbed up some kitschy touristy booths selling lots of crap, and took a cablecar to the top. From there, I walked for about an hour to a guardhouse about a kilometer away. There are massive blockhouses with beacons and a 2nd floor about every 100 feet of the wall, which is about 30 feet high along most of its length, though many parts have collapsed and not been renovated. It’s simply awe-inspiring to imagine how it was built so far from anything, on top of mountains from the coast all the way west into Gansu—thousands of miles. And of course, ironically, it never really worked—the Qing dynasty swept in from Manchuria to conquer China despite the wall. I took lots of pictures, but the scenery and views were amazing and the mountains, with birds flying around below, and…wow. Particularly amazing is how much effort it took to walk along it. It follows the contours of the ground, so when the mountain rises, so does the wall, with steps to climb up. So I think I got a good aerobic workout walking along on it.

While up there, the tourists were not too numerous, maybe because it was a bit later in the day. I met one American woman, from Denver, perfectly nice, who said her tour group had said it was ironic this “wall to separate people now brings them together,” as many groups from all nations visit it. She called it a “wall of fear,” and I thought about that. Certainly, it was fear of the northern nomads (Mongols, Manchus, Turks) that prompted the Chinese to build it, to stop raids and pillaging, but such fears were perfectly understandable and probably widely shared among Chinese peasants who slaved their whole lives farming only to see their crops, their oxen, often their daughters and occasionally their lives carried away by nomads who could ride horses and fight far more skillfully.

To me, it brought to mind thoughts about China itself. After the wall, I could see why Chinese governments are so enraptured by mass projects—damming the Yangtze river, or Mao’s crazy idea of industrializing China by making every family smelt iron in their backyard—a true project that wasted untold effort. If Chinese peasants, working under imperial decree, could build the great wall, what can’t they do? If building a wall across 2000 miles has been done, why not change your environment whenever it suits you in any massive way desirable? It also brings to mind thoughts about China’s view of itself. Obviously, educated Chinese, like my guide, know that they need to develop further, improve education, etc. to truly “catch up” to the west. They also despite the imperial past, even while taking pride in their amazing cultural, architectural and artistic achievements (even if they were all for the emperor, not for the public or even the richer nobles). But in their hearts, I can’t help but think that even younger educated Chinese believe they truly are the center of the world and that eventually, their more successful neighbors (South Korea, Japan, even Taiwan) will understand and accept this again. The Manchus once conquered China, but they’ve been assimilated, and the Tibetans are currently undergoing the same assimilation process—like it or not. Chinese culture, to many here, is so superior that even conquerors will eventually join the local culture—as many peoples in China’s past who invaded and founded their own dynasties already have—the Ch’in, the Jin, the Khitan, etc. for example, I asked my guide about China’s historic capitals—‘Bei’jing (Bei means north), ‘Nan’jing (‘nan’ means South), “Xian” (“xi’ means west) and asked half-jokingly where the eastern capital was. She responded that Tokyo means eastern capital, calling it “dong”jing (Chinese pronounciation). Any Japanese person, hearing this, would immediately become very, very, very nervous.

Enough meanderings. So we drove back from the great wall, got caught in a bit of the notorious Beijing traffic, and they dropped me off. For dinner, I was simply tired of sightseeing, and just wanted to collapse. So I went on down to the cheapest restaurant in the hotel, was virtuous enough to avoid the buffet, had some excellent Nasi Goreng with beef satay Indonesian fried rice, and read for about 1 ½ hours, alone. Fine by me. Now I’m off to get some more exercise, maybe hit the bike room, and finish this excessively long post off. More meetings tomorrow, but I hope to explore the Beijnig subway at some point to see Tiananmen square and the Chinese people’s history museum—get the Communist liberators’ view of things.

- posted by Ben @ 6:28 AM

 
Sunday 10/19/03
1:30 am

OK, well, I shouldn't have been such a baby. Camille had left me a message to meet her after dinner at a bar for drinks for a birthday party with some of her friends. But she said she was wiped out exhausted, and didn't want to go out to dinner in any way, shape, or form. I should add that most of the Public affairs staff here are crazy overworked, as there are so many visitors from Washington who need hand-holding and carefully planned out press assistance. I should say, the senior visitors need hand-holding, but so do their advance staffs, which is often more work. 3 certain cabinet members plan to come to China within the next week or so, and there just isn't enough staff to plan out the trips, deal with reporters, write them speeches, etc. it's also true that certain trips change details at the last minute, repeatedly. So anyway, Camille had to go home early tonight to prepare, and I was bushed too. But I'm leaping ahead…

For dinner, I decided to try one of the places a friend had recommended-the best duck in Beijing! I actually do love duck, so I grabbed a cab, made sure I had the address written in Chinese for me by the concierge here, and ventured off into the far eastern reaches of Beijing. When I arrived, it was packed, and there were the following simultaneous actions—
1. a French group in front of me who was waiting patiently, but were standing directly in front of the hostess’ desk.
2. a German guy behind me who kept asking why the line wasn’t moving, why noone was being seated and if this place was worth all the time this was taking.
3. a Chinese guy who stormed through the line, grabbed the list of names of people waiting, and commenced to yell angrily at the hostess, who answered back just as loudly. The reasoned debate was soon joined by other Chinese people waiting in line.
4. finally, a rather large Chinese matronly woman bore down on me, shoved me aside precipitously with her lacquered nails, and also began to berate the hostess.

Given all these events, I decided that I wasn’t about to try to eat alone there. So I started walking south, towards the bar where Camille had said she and her friends were going to be. I came upon a fatal choice—a hobson’s choice. It was late, and I was tired and hungry. Across the street was a TGIF's, looking for all the world like a piece of Reston or Laurel transferred to China. On my side of the street was a Chinese restaurant with unclear specialties, but several fish tanks full of fish. I decided to stay with the native food, and keep TGIF's far away. Actually, I really enjoyed the meal, though ordering was difficult because the waitress couldn't understand me and I couldn’t understand the waitress. Not to mention that I was one of like 3 people in the place and thus there was a constant stream of waitresses and waiters checking up on me, seeing how I was using my chopsticks or just plain staring at me with amazement. Anyway, I ended up pointing at a couple of likely looking dishes—I know one had the world “beef” in it—and hoping for the best. 3 things eventually came—a beef dish with red peppers that was pretty good; a fish soup with seaweed and tofu that wasn’t good; and what was perhaps the tastiest protein dish I’ve ever had—succulent, braised and exquisite slices of blackened duck in some sort of BBQ sauce. Yum. I inhaled that in about 20 minutes, and thus fortified, walked the rest of the way to the bar to meet Camille. So although I missed the “best duck in Beijnig,” I guess I was on the “duck-cookers’ street” and had something that I liked almost as much.

On the way to the Centro bar I passed several construction projects. Unlike in Washington, where almost all construction workers are Salvadorans, in Beijing they are almost all poorer Chinese from the western provinces. They come to the city for jobs and money, natch, but often they are in the city illegally—in China, one needs a residence permit to move to certain “privileged” areas, like Beijing. So it’s true—they actually are just like illegal immigrants, doing the tough manual labor on the cheap, but as Chinese citizens they are a growing problem because more and more are coming from the arid, dusty plains where farming is so difficult to the booming cities, where the infrastructure is by no means ready for them.

I met up with Camille at the Centro, and learned that we had been mistaken. We were supposed to meet Edward and Summer and Alex at the Central Bar, but had misunderstood. So we arrived at the central bar—again, within the massive complex of the Workers’ stadium. Upon our arrival, as we were walking, we saw certain strange glints in the trees. A bird? A plane? No. the bar, which had just reopened, had hired two Chinese women to dress in what I can only call disco ball chain mail, standing outside the restaurant next to statues designed to resemble the terra cotta army figures of the first emperor, Qin Qih Huang Di. I mean, they had masks and skintight body stockings on—each covered with tiny reflective mirror-type shiny glass. They were really like walking disco balls, and a big hit at the bar, where an expat was celebrating her 30th birthday party. Yes, don't worry, I did have my camera, and certain vaguely incriminating pictures were taken.

So we danced a bit, and heard from Alex about his dog-eating experiences and his Tibet travel experiences and his job at the Beijing office of the worldwatch institute – where relations with provinces to protect the environment are often more important than relations with the increasingly less-powerful and centralized central government in Beijing. But after midnight, I was exhausted, and headed home, dropping Camille off on the way. Amazingly, the expat crowd at the bar was pretty young, i.e. on average younger than me, and all things considered heavily British, I'd say. Or maybe Americans just usually go to different places…

Well, on to the great wall tomorrow!!!!!!!!

- posted by Ben @ 10:55 AM

 
Thursday 10/18
7:02 pm

Hm. apparently, i cannot view my own blog here in Beijing! I can only post and thus publish to it...
could the chinese authorities be blocking internet access to the blogger site? they occasionally do block sites such as the WAshington post and CNN and new york times, but a website with blogs? hmmm...i wonder if that's true...well, i hope you all can read all of my crap anyway, even if the teeming masses of china cannot...
- posted by Ben @ 4:00 AM

 
Beijing 10/18
Saturday, 6:20 PM

Wow. After going to bed so late last night, I woke up at 8:45 am this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, not that I tried too hard because I realized I should get an early start to see the things I wanted to do today. Not to mention that as I was getting dressed I made the fatal error of turning on the television only to realize that “the time machine” was on. This movie definitely is not very good, and sean and I agreed it belonged on www.seanthecritic.com. But for some reason it enraptured me for about 15 minutes or so before I tore myself away for another excessive buffet breakfast. At least this morning I held myself to two plates of food, with special attention to the fried won-tons and the tea-flavored dim sum.

After getting a taxi to the forbidden city, I got out and stood in the midst of a ginormous plaza, filled with Chinese-speaking tour groups in innumerable measure, each of course with their little flag. They didn’t have tours for the forbidden city, so I instead rented an audio cassette tour guide. Funny enough, the English-language voice was Roger Moore—it was a bit weird to be wandering around all these ancient palaces and marble steps and splendour with james bond talking into my ear. Anyway, I could go on for hours about how beautiful and majestic and sheerly over-ornamented the forbidden city is in person. I could also go on for hours about how crowded it was along its main path—at one point, trying to get to one side of a veranda, I was literally pushed backward 3 meters by a scrum of 3 4-foot tall 60-year-old Chinese ladies. Also interesting was how ornate each gate to each new part of the palace was…and the massive marble walkways, the carvings, the bronze lions, the roof carving and decorations, the sundials, the bronze turtles and cranes (both apparently symbols of majesty), the painted dragons, the flying eaves, the calligraphy on the gate labels, the thrones, etc. I also took the time to tour a collection in a side part of the palace of ancient bronze work from the Chou (1000 – 400 BC) and Shang (1600-1000 BC dynasties, which had been kept at the forbidden city even though the forbidden city itself was built by the Ming dynasty’s third emperor in 1420 and then expanded by the Manchu conquerors of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).

Also, I enjoyed very much the beautiful back garden, with massive cypress and other trees that had been shaped and sculpted to be in various amazing shapes. The fish in the royal garden’s ponds were also amazing, as were the artificial hills of weirdly-carved rock. There was also a brilliant collection of artifacts from the Qing dynasty--these included massive jade necklaces, huge carvings of scenes out of huge pieces of jade (kind of like big, green, translucent dioramas) and a pair of elephant tusks that were at least each 10 feet long.

Everything was magnificent, if a bit overwhelming, and I have to say that having seen the Korean palaces first, they are like…well…not even a pale imitation of the real thing in Beijing. Certain details—the red carvings in the wood buildings, the raised walkway for the emperor/king only along main paths, the tiny carvings of animals at the corner of every roof—were the same, but the scale and expanse of the palace here in Beijing really made the Korean palaces look like kindergarten. I can only imagine how inadequate the palaces in Hue, Vietnam or Shuri, Okinawa must look like. I mean, I’m a democrat, and thus not a real believer in imperial line of succession tyrannical crap, but even I was quite impressed by the forbidden city’s endless string of palaces.

Afterwards, I hung out on the bridge over the moat and plotted my next move. I decided to try to see the Lama temple, which a friend had recommended, and got a taxi to take me there after turning down numerous hucksters who were trying to persuade me to go on a tour of the hutong alleys around the forbidden city.

The lama temple was far more interesting than I expected, and I unfortunately had to rush a bit at the end because it closed at 4:30 pm. I should add that just in front of the lama temple, I ate lunch in a tiny noodle place that seemed a bit panicked to have a real live American there. I was starving, and just pointed to something that had the character for “noodles” in it, hoping it woudn’t have pork. Well, I hope it didn’t, but it was delicious—kind of like Udon in japan, but thicker and more wheat-flavored noodles with a meat gravy sauce and sliced scallions. The waitress basically was amazed I could use chopsticks, and even more amazed that I was there—another waiter had to remind her to bring me tea, which should be served without question or delay in any self-respecting Chinese restaurant.

Anyway, after lunch, I walked on over to the lama temple, dodging a clueless French family that was speaking loudly (in French, of course) about “Ou est le temple lama? C’est le temple, non?” I got an audio guide here too, which was truly useful as I went through the temple’s vast and beautiful Buddha statues, embroideries, engravings and temple buildings. It was built in the 18th century, and was a part of an interesting policy of the Manchu rulers of China at that time. The Manchus certainly were not Han Chinese, but to keep their Chinese subjects happy they emphasized their respect for traditional Chinese culture, such as literature, writing, art and Confucian thought. They also were avid supporters of a style of Buddhism called Yellow hat, which was popular among the Mongols, the Tibetans and their own people. In fact, the Lama temple is of this school, and thus has a huge building with a collection of tribute/gifts from the historical panchen and dalai lamas of Tibet to the Manchu overlords in Beijing. Thus, now, these buildings are symbolic evidence to prove that Tibet has always been part of China. More interestingly for me, the lama temple is one of the only ones in China where all the labels/engravings/etc. are in four different alphabets—Manchu (which is all but extinct, since they have been engulfed and assimilated into Han Chinese culture) , Mongolian, Tibetan, and traditional Chinese. The idea was to emphasize the unity of China by having all four alphabets—so that the Manchu leaders of the Qing dynasty could reduce nationalism. For the most part, this was successful. Anyway, another example of this was a huge four-sided carved stone, which had a lengthy Buddhist scripture written on it in all four alphabets—one per side.

Most beautiful, though, was probably the massive 18-meter-tall gold-plated Buddha statue at the back of the temple. It had a surprisingly mischevious and friendly face, and was not the thin, emaciated Buddha you see in Thailand or Burma. No, it was a solid, muscular, barrel-chested Buddha—looking a lot like a Tibetan. I guess it’s true—peoples make their gods to look like them, whether it’s a picture of a blond Jesus in a Norwegian church or a swarthy, barrel-chested Buddha in a temple based on a Tibetan form of Buddhism.

I should add that there were large numbers of Chinese praying in this temple—burning incense, clapping hands in front of the Buddhas, and tossing coins and money in front of various stone bell vases and holy receptacles. The amount of overt religiosity was higher than I had expected, and might indicate a sort of new neo-hippie “Tibetan culture is cool” mindset that I think there was a new york times article about a few weeks ago.

Embarrasing moments from ben’s day

#1- in the rear of the forbidden city, at the museum of Qing dynasty relics, you are required to put on soft, paper slippers over your shoes—I guess to reduce damage to the stone paths and stairs. Unfortunately, they are very slippery—and the marble staircases are slippery too. So I fell down one right on my tuckus in front of a guard. He did his best not to laugh, but I did enough for both of us.

#2—at lunch, when the woman brought my bowl of noodles, she forgot to bring chopsticks. Looking concerned about my ability to use them, she did bring them and watched me avidly as I opened up the paper seal, took them out, and began spooning noodle into my mouth. She started to laugh helplessly. I was confused…I was using them right, I had cleaned them beforehand, I had not dropped anything on the table or my sweater, I…was using them backwards, eating with the wide blunt ends instead of the pointy ends. That was truly embarrassing.

Of course I’m leaving a lot out, but I’m truly exhausted and don’t yet know what I’m up to tonight. I feel a bit abandoned, as I don’t know anyone here and have now been traveling for over a week. Camille said she would call me about dinner—but it was 6:15 pm when I left my room to type this in at the hotel business center and there were no messages. Summer and Alex invited me to a bar tonight, if I was free, but they hadn’t called either and I can’t exactly wander through every bar in Beijing looking for them. So we’ll see…but I am a bit lonely, especially because I truly cannot speak this language at all and even enough of the letters/characters are different that I can’t really write anything either. Well, if people are still reading this rambling, good on you! perhaps tomorrow I’ll wig out about how I’m ruling the world according to the Malaysians, and about my Sunday tour to the great wall!

- posted by Ben @ 3:57 AM

 
Beijing 10/18
Saturday 3:00 am

OK, so, I can’t believe I am disciplined enough to be here this late to keep this diary up to date. Actually, I can be pretty anal/compulsive, so maybe I can believe it. I have a good excuse—after visting the 4th bar/club tonight, I got back by 2:30 am, but when I tested I was 37—for the 2nd time today. Not a good sign. So I chugged some orange juice and some glucose tablets and a leftover bar of Korean chocolate flavored with almonds and ginseng I had bought at the Seoul airport with the last of my won (Korean currency).

OK, so, Beijing. Where to start. I spent most of the morning at the embassy, after once again eating waaaaaaaaaay too much at the hotel's breakfast buffet. I had to try everything—so I did. The baked goods were great, especially the croissants with lychee slices piled on top. The veal sausage (no ham for me, which is not easy in china, where eating pork is most natural of all meat products) was decent, as was the oatmeal porridge. But the rice congee was kind of disgusting. Particularly awesome were the fried wontons (fried wontons for breakfast! Excellent!) and the dim sum rice cakes. After arriving at the embassy, I spent most of the morning in meetings. My contact officer, Camille, who is a real wonderful person who has planned out a great trip for me, took me out to lunch at a Chinese cafeteria which was actually kind of disappointing—I ordered the beef with pineapple, but there was more green pepper than either of the main ingredients, and there was no rice with the meal—it turned out that I missed the starches later. After lunch, we went off to the first of our meetings with Chinese press people. Problem was, the motorpool car didnt show up. Although Camille was pissed off, as she had confirmed it earlier this morning, it struck me as a typically Chinese experience. I.e. even when people here try, certain concepts don’ quite get across—and often these concepts have to do with service. even when the driver finally arrived—15 minutes late—instead of apologizing and rushing us to the appointment, he got into an argument over whose fault it was he was late and then, another car arrived—it turned out that they had sent two cars, the 2nd after Camille called them to complain, neither of which arrived on time. So the driver went over to yell at the driver of the 2nd car, and we ended up being even more late.

Anyway, we went to a Starbucks nearby—the Chinese offered it as a meeting place—I think they figured we would love a western place like that. They both worked for a major chniese newspaper, and to sum up their comments in 3 points—1. growing competition in China's media environment means they must increasingly give their young, affluent readers what they want to appeal to market forces and win subscribers and readers and advertisers since government subsidies are falling; 2. young, affluent, educated people are pissed off at the U.S.’ arrogance and want to read commentary/editorials that are critical of the U.S.; 3. as they assured us, people in china are anti-U.S. government, not anti-American. Well, I guess that's better than nothing, but it is pretty funny for the Chinese people to think just we are being imperialistic and hegemonistic when their official maps (as I saw in the china airlines in-fligth magazine on the way over to China from Korea) showed every single last one of the Spratly islands, down to off the coast of Indonesia and Vietnam, as definitively inside China’s borders. Those 3 points were emphasized by the deputy editor of another major Chinese newspaper, who we met later. He was very nice, and his newspaper's new huge office building showed how much $ a more independent, more popular newspaper that appeals to sports and entertainment can make here in China. He also showed us to the newspaper's website office, where a bunch of young t-shirt-and-baseball-cap-clad Chinese techies maintained a major website for the newspaper while slogging down Coca-colas and watching NBA highlights. The deputy editor apologized for the largest decoration in the room—a huge poster of Che Guevera. So obviously, capitalism and modernism can coexist, especially in china, with romantic revolutionarianism. Unfortunately, during the meeting i began to fade out, and realized that i was a bit low. making the excuse of having to go to the bathroom, i tested and was 37 for the first time today. I inhaled a starbucks sugar muffin i had saved from the earlier meeting and went back to this meeting, just in time to hear the deputy editor talk about how important it is for him to maintani market share and growth by learning more about his specific reader segments and interests. this major chinese newspaper, pubished originally as the communist party organ of the Beijing municipal government, is now more concerned with profitability, seizing market share and growing productivity as well as seeking new market niches. well, some say that's progress, to quote Midnight Oil.

For dinner, I was able to crash the trimnonthly BBQ at the ambassador's residence—good timing for my trip! I was able to meet several of the embassy staff and snag some truly American food—a hot dog and a burger. I even met the ambassador, who seemed to be a perfectly decent guy (and a former frat brother of President Bush and old business buddies with Commerce Secretary Don Evans). I know, many would think that being an old frat brother of President Bush shouldn't qualify you to be ambassador to Beijing. But he also was a businessman in Hong Kong for 15 years and speaks fluent Chinese. So it's good enough for me.

After that, Camille and I and two of her embassy buds wandered back to the hotel bar for drinks. After describing the troubles they were facnig with their aa-eee (that’s what it sounded like; it means their housekeeper/cook/servant), the couple left, and Camille and I were joined by two of her friends. We swiftly departed the hotel bar (which was kind of quiet) for another bar, about a ten-minute taxi ride away. This was ultra-modern, with tv screens, a DJ, many expensively-dressed individuals and a décor that could only be described as half-IKEA, half Rococo. From there, we embarked on a journey to a new nightclub, Nightman, where other friends of Camille’s had free tickets to enter. The cab driver apparently tried to swindle us for double the fare, not that I would have noticed, but a Chinese-speaking friend argued with the driver and won back our 14 yuan (about $1.20). she said it was the principle of the thing.

Nightman was somewhat empty, and as we entered, we stepped between two rows of women in traditional hong kong pink dresses who bowed us in. in the first bar, upstairs, there were two women singing karaoke pretty well actually to a bunch of techno remixes of classic ’70’s songs such as “just call me angel in the morning,” some abba, and other hits. Meeting up with Camille's friends, we then proceeded into the main dance club section. It’s hard to describe—a bunch of Chinese hipsters sprinkled with a few foreigners on the 1st floor, with winding transparent walkways above opening towards a stage where a screen showing hong kong music videos alternated with a gentleman who, dressed in leaves and underwear, danced for our (but I think mainly his) amusement. Finally, after a few minutes of dancing there, the floor was ordered cleared so that two bartenders could do a sort of cocktail act, juggling flaming bottles of liquor and performing other acts of derring-do, after which they had two women dressed in ill-fitting white skirt outfits hold bottles of chivas alchohol to give away as prizes. we bailed, because we wanted to dance, and headed off to Vic’s, a massive new glass-enclosed structure that has just reopened as one of the best dance clubs in Beijing. Truly ironically, it’s located just inside the workers’ stadium, so half-dressed Chinese girls, Russian prostitutes, Chinese hipsters, random drunk foreigners and us proceeded past the huge Maoist statue of two workers holding scythe and hammer reaching to the sky into the club. The downstairs was packed, though we walked through so that Alex, Summer’s boyfriend from England, could get his free drink. Edward, Summer’s gay roommate, mixed with the crowd and said hi to some friends. Summer, who works at the embassy and is friends with Camille, peered about looking for dance space and occasionally turned her head to make sure I wasn’t lost (Camille had gone home, after Summer had promised to keep me alive in Beijing). And me? I looked around at the glass, the Chinese guys dressed in form-fitting hip-hop athletic gear (a group of three at the top of the stairs was particularly striking—one was in all Timberwolves gear, one in all hornets gear and one in all spurs gear), the Russian prostitute dancing on a stage just above my head, the Russian pimp shouting at the crowd, several drunken foreigners pawing a Chinese girl, and an incredible amount of dancing. It was too crowded for us, so we went upstairs, finding a relatively open hall where we could boogie. Edward was talking with a friend of his, and Alex and Summer and I danced a bit, though I was starting to fade.

Scene #1 from the dance floor—
Ben, watching a half-conscious foreign woman lying on a couch between a Chinese guy (with his hand inside her tank-top) and a white guy (with his hand down her jeans), leans over to Alex and Summer and says, “You know, Summer, you're very lucky to have Alex here. Some women obviously need two guys to satisfy them.”
They both laugh, and Alex says in his mellifluous Sheffield accent – “Ben, you say the nicest things!”
I answer, “Hey, I'm a professional diplomat!”
Foreign woman staggers awake and stumbles off to the bathroom, leaving disappointed white guy and rapidly-collapsing-into-sleep Chinese guy on the couch.

Scene #2 from the dance floor—
Alex and Summer appear disappointed that Edward is busy talking with a friend and isn't dancing with us. Noticing this Ben, who earlier in the evening had told Edward that if he were only on his team he would be severely infatuated with him, grabs his sweater and begins to swing it around his head, making lassoing motions to pull Edward onto the dance floor. Smiling, Edward easily avoids Ben's half-hearted fishing attempts. Ben, swinging the sweater more aggressively, then knocks over a glass on a ledge, sending shattered glass all over the dance floor. Laughing, Alex and Summer help Ben kick the shattered glass shards under the couch—where none of the aforementioned ménage-a-trois notice anything amiss.

Luckly for me, the taxi home didn't cheat me—score. So just a few more things—

There are so many bikes here, and most of the major roads have huge actual bike lanes, with separate bike traffic lights to try to avoid accidents. Of course, no bikers obey these lights—especially the ones pulling massive wagons full of cement or fruit, so cards must dodge them carefully. Many people have told me that traffic in Beijing is the worst in the world, or at least worst in Asia. Alex explained that the cultural revolution wiped all sense of traffic responsibility out of every Chinese, and that now they all believe in survival of the biggest—trucks push cars aside, who push rickshas aside, who push bicycles aside, who push pedestrians aside.

There are a number of beggars here in Beijing. At one point, a dirty, ill-clad little boy walked next to me for a block, making motions with his hand on his mouth to show how hungry he was and looking truly destitute. But what can one do? After I slowed a bit out of misplaced sympathy, 3 other people, seeing me as an easy mark, shoved the boy aside and started flashing counterfeit DVDs at me, whispering “cheap! New movies! Cheap! New movies! New! New!” I swiftly left them behind.

Finally, there is an amazing amount of construction in this city. Cranes everywhere tearing down old neighborhoods of poorly built older dwellings, called hutongs. Massive new skyscrapers rising into the sky. Deep pits off major roads. but in general, the city is sprawling. There doesn't seem to be any main downtown, like in Seoul or New York, and no one walks anywhere (in general). Though I did run into at least one person who works at the embassy who does bike to work.

Lotsa luv! Tomorrow, if I can wake up early enough, is for sightseeing. Hopefully I can do the temple of heaven, the lama temple and the forbidden city in one day.
-ben

- posted by Ben @ 12:48 PM

 
Beijing
Thursday, 10/16 10:20 pm

Hello! I can't believe i am for the first time in the capital of the People's Republic of China! though i have the sinking feeling that if the people knew the heights of luxury i am currently in, they would not be very happy. i tell you what, if this is the revolution, then dress me up in a mao jacket, hand me the little red book and i'll embark on my own long march!

so if everyone in Korea is talking about the political situation and the referendum, then everyone here is talking about China's space effort. Already, the pilot is being described in hagiographic terms, and it's massive front page news in every newspaper i've seen (i can read a little Chinese, because the characters are similar to those in Japanese, and one chinese paper had a "special edition" on nothing but the launch, while beijing youth news had an adoring photo and a lengthy article about the pilot, china's "new hero." anyway, i'm not panicking yet, but it was interesting how the AP story carried in most korean english-language newspapers quoted Hong Kong people being proud of China and calling the space launch a "victory" for Chinese, while the same story quoted two Japanese citizens warning of the chinese "threat" and how China's "rise" is now putting Japan in the back seat. but at least the U.S. did a good job of PR--it just so happens, apparently, that CNN carried a story showing a bunch of U.S. astronauts in space currently offering their congratulations to the chinese pilot. and, hey, what a conicidence, the only american astronaut quoted was Colonel Edward Liu, obviously a Chinese-American. good job.

anyway, customs and quarantine clearance here in Beijing airport was amazingly easy, though the embassy did send a car to drive me back to the hotel, which is in beijing, not quite downtown, but only abuot a 20 minute walk from tianamen square, or so. though the level of technological service is a bit lower than the Korean hotel (i.e. no computer with continous internet in my room!), i have my own personal "butler" (at laest, that's what he called himself when he walked into my room 15 minutes after i did) and a basket of fresh fruit to welcome me to Beijing (yum, fresh kiwi!) as well as two maids who came in to "turn down my bed." I didn't undersatnd what they meant, so they giggled, walked in, adn turned over my blankets, left a couple of chocolates on the pillow, and walked out. i guess labor IS cheap here...which is helpful, because both the business center and the gym are open 24-hours. i don't have to be at the embassy tomorrow until later in the mornnig, so i think i'm off to try a brief bike ride in the gym. the flight here was good--they served a sort of dinner, though i'm happy to believe that is the last time i will ever have to eat kimchi-- and the funny thing about the airport was the huge number of posters/advertisements starring Yao Ming. also, on the way in--bikes EVERYWHERE! I saw more people on bicycles in 5 minutes on the big 3rd-ring-road here (like the beltway) (!) than in 4 days in Seoul. but just as many people talking on cell phones, as far as i can tell.

well, all work and meetings tomorrow....off to exercise, and then bed!



- posted by Ben @ 7:09 AM

 
thursday, 10/16
4:28 pm

well, i just snuck back on. the japanese businessmen behind me were apparently terrified of typing on a computer keyboard that had english AND hangul korean writing on it.

anyway, at the morning meeting at the blue house they also finally served me a traditional korean dish that i enjoyed--i've been pretty critical of korean food so far, and i'm sorry about it, but this was amazing--it was like bubble tea, but the little cubes were of flavored jello and the tea itself was aloe tea, with sweetener! really good, served cold--i think we should start up a tea store to sell it in the states. anyone with me?

anyway, after the meeting i went off to the brand-new seoul museum of history. everyone there was very nice--in fact, it was free museum week so i got in free. score! there were some interesting, if overly technical, exhibits on the development of Seoul, which has been the capital of Korea since 1394, from the start of the Jyosun dynasty. there were interesting old books on traditional korean medicine--jesse, you would have enjoyed the forensic drawing of a man with all the major nerves identified and an appropriate loincloth covering anything that might be inappropriate for confucian sensibilities. there were also many old maps, most in chinese characters so i could at least read a bit of them. those readers who remember my fascination with Okinawan history will be gratified, as i was, to learn that one of the old Korean "maps of the world" (from the 16th century) had a huge Korean peninsula in hte middle, surrounded by tiny other countries--one of which, off to the southeast (lower right), was indeed labeled "the ryukyu kingdom." it would have been nice evidence for my thesis about Okinawan sovereignty and the international recognition of ryukyu's independence, but oh well. there were also a huge bunch of touring school kids who kept running up to me, shouting hi, and then running away. at one point one ran up and said to me rapidly--"hi! how are you? my name is..." and started to back away. frustrated, i walked over to him with my hand outstretched, and i haven't seen anyone look so scared as this kid in a long time. finally, i caught up to him and as his middle school friends watched with horror, I...
shook his hand, smiled and bowed. so that was a nice little thing to do back to them.

after that museum, i rushed off to the 11:30 am english-language tour of the deongguk palace, with the piwon mystic garden. it was truly beautiful, and the buildings were gorgeous, and it was nice to finally learn something from a person during my sightseeing. i think Sean, Davey and ohters would have particularly appreciated the little bit about the king's royal lavatory, above the kitchen, so it was warm when he had to...disrobe...and which was directly above a little room so that all of the king's...er...royal expellings could be properly and ceremoniously disposed off by the appropriate servants. but there was also a beautiful pond, with an old building overhanging it where the king could meditate, and a few cars--some of the first in Korea, which the last king of korea received (a cadillac for him, and a daimler for his queen) in 1908, just before the japanese toppled him. anyway, i'm rambling on, but it was nice. then, i took the subway back to the hotel, but on the way, feeling low, tried to buy a mikan (east asian tangerine) from a fruit-seller on the street. he not only refused to accept 100 won for one (about a dime), he gave me two gratis. after i ate them, fortified, i braved the subway back to the hotel, overpaid for a lunch that i had hoped would be crispy beef, but was actually just some soggy beef in bamboo shoots with jasmine tea, and rushed to the Deongkuk palace across hte street from the hotel for about 40 minutes before i got on the bus to go to the airport. this palace had a great statue of King Se-jong, and some interesting buildings that combined asian and western influences, as it was the palace the last king's father lived in after returning from the russian delegation where he had hid during the russo-japanese war of 1905.

anyway, i've got to run again! but next post will describe my interesting encounter with airport security, and their lack of receptiveness to my supply of needles and diabetic implements and their confiscation of two bike-repair wrenches that i mistakenly forgot to remove from my backpack before leaving for asia. I schlepped them all the way here, and now they will remain forever here in Incheon, Korea.

- posted by Ben @ 1:40 AM

 
Thursday, October 16
4:20 pm

well, i obviously underestimated the power and spread of Korea's massive internet investment. here i am at the new Incheon airport, with 2,600 won left in my pocket, blogging just in front of the gate which i will board to go to china! there are some indian dudes across from me checking out some new Indian bollywood flick's website, and a couple of annoying Japanese kids screaming next to me. and a quiet, business-like korean who is very methodically typing something with great attention.

anyway, today started relatively well. got breakfast, checked out, and headed off by taxi to the blue house. had a good meeting there, where the press official who talked to me was quite the true believer in President Roh Moo-hyun's policies. i understand that politiicans' aides have to stay firmly on message, but i guess i'm just surprised to see it in such action in a foreign country like Korea. but they certainly understand the power of the media here--and of email. this gentleman explained to me that his office wanted to speak directly to the people, so they are going to start emailing people directly what the president wants to say, in other words, bypassing the media to talk directly to the people. well, they're kicking me off. more stories later!

- posted by Ben @ 1:23 AM

 
10/16 thursday
7:20 am

so i'm taking this last chance in Seoul to write a bit more. 3 quick things--

another scene from Seoul--i'm walking along the street, full of hipsters and businessmen, and a huge panoramic public flatscreen is playing movie previews. I look over and notice that it's playing the coming attraction for Underworld--leather, kate beckinsdale, guns. I look down from the screen and see a whole bunch of koreans--several preteens, a younger couple, a businessman in full suit, and an older grandmother--all watching the screen with rapt attention and in stark interest. I say to myself quietly, "guys, don't bother! it wasn't that good!"

i also should briefly describe some of the TV i was watching while i fell asleep last night--asian mtv. it mixes music from japan, hong kong, china, korea, etc, but the most striking thing is how absolutely and completely the U.S. has vanquished these ancient proud cultures. it's quite disturbing (or surprising) to see a video from Hong Kong with two young asian guys in white suits with top hats singing cantonese rap while wandering around their big house, with pool, making broad hand movements that sort of combined Sean Paul and RUN-DMC, and pulling down their sunglasses from time to time to check out the hot chinese bikini-and-halter-top-clad hoochie mamas dancing around in large groups, in the pool, in the limosine, etc. in other words, just like American videos. then, the next video is a japaneese girl band--6 young waifs, all gotten up in wigger ware, several with hair extensions and all showing flat asian belly, singing half in english "touch my heart, touch me please" and half in japanese "i can't survive without you, a single year would be an eternity of torture" as they writhe around on stage. next was a chinese boy band, with 6 young skintight-jeans-clad toughs running from police, around hong kong, jumping over and through innocent people and claiming, in english, to be 'bringing it hard" and "rocking the joint." so anyway, pretty funny....i''m not even mentioning the korean videos that play on huge screens here, showing young korean girls writhing in dubious amounts of clothing and young korean boys crying...
about something, i don't speak the language.

last, my diabetes is not going so well. i neglected to mention that the reason i had a donut last night was that i was extremely low before my dinner appointment--perhaps all the walking up stairs. anyway, i woke up at 4:00 am this morning and felt like crap. i tested, and was very high--250. so i gave a moderate amount of insulin and was able to get back to sleep. when i woke up a few minutes ago, i was still a bit elevated--163. obviously, this is all despite the biking i did last night and i didn't eat anything after dinner at all. so i''m puzzled--maybe there was hidden sugar in the korean-style meat pie last night, but i feel like that, after my actual plane trip went so well, my body and diabetic pump are now getting some revenge and quoting star wars back at me -- "that's great, kid, but don't get cocky!" so i guess i'll try to eat less, exercise more, and test more often if i feel even a bit weird. anyway, off to a meeting at the blue house--in Korea, that's where they call the president's house--and then some sightseeing before beijing!
- posted by Ben @ 3:13 PM

 
10/15 Wednesday
10:20 pm

well, i don't think i'm going to post anything brilliant tonight. today was probably my hardest day--tons of meetings and presentations at the embassy, talks with PA people, and two personal meetings with resident foreigners who actually konw what the hell is going on here in this country and speak and the language--extremely rare, i would say...

anyway, i must be honest and say that part of the reason i had a headache all day and felt like crap was probably not a 3-day delayed jet lag, but diabetic issues. for the 3rd day in a row i woke up with a blood sugar in the 40's, which is about half of what it should be and a bad sign of something. so i staggered into and out of the shower, ate some more sweet rice balls, and overate at breakfast for a 2nd straight day. I then embarked on Seoul's awesome subway to the U.S. embassy public affairs office. i must say--the Seoul subway is not particularly crowded at all, as far as i can tell. there, i observed the morning press review process and explained what my office at the state department does. answered a few questions, showed off all of our products, and i think generally things went well. interestingly, the Korean staff at the embassy were very forthright in saying that the old-line traditional newspapers (Joongang Ilbo, Chosun Ilbo, Dong-A Ilbo) are kind of behind the times, and in comments echoed elsewhere talked a lot about the new internet-only news sites, seen as more receptive to readers and open to input and more progressive generally. these sites are a major reason why the current president, the vaguely left-leaning Noh Moo-hyun, won the election last year over the more conservative choice. apparently, the sites are also somewaht anti-American, to an extent, so analysis and observation of them is increasingly important.

Anyway, after the morning meetings, i went off to the main embassy to discuss economics. interestingly, the key effort by the Korean govt right now to promote economic growth is not just trade (South Korea is already the U.S.' 6th-largest trading partner) but also infrastructure development to become the "hub" of Northeast Asia. apparently, Incheon (near Seoul, kind of) is trying to challenge Shanghai as the major trade and shipping hub. i don't really think it can work, but it follows President Noh's efforts to reform the country's trade and financial and structural systems, open up the labor markets to reforms and generally, for a leftist, pursue some very progressive and open trade policies. this follows from the strong support he has from young, urban consumers, and why the more conservative agricultural and large business interests that love protectionism favor the oppostion. anyway, a very brief comment on a complex subject.

back to the Public affairs office for lunch with some of the staff, which went well. the food was, however, again...well...disappointing. we had bibimbap, in addition to small appetizer plates of garlic spinach-like leaves, mushroom soup, plenty of kimchi (3 types!), slices of friend spam (pork, so i declined), and my favorite--acorn powder jelly cubes! i'm serious, that's how they described it--and what it looked like. the bibimbap itself was a few lonely shreds of beef mixed with turnips, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, rice, hot sauce, a fried egg and various other indeterminable items of the vegetable family. so i was not incredibly satisified...

lunch was also interesting because the Korean staff from the embassy i ate with said that the reason that the U.S. wasn't good at selling things in Korea was poor marketing, not necessarily the high taxes or tariffs. as an example, they said that the most popular "it" couple in Korea--the Ben and J-Lo of Chosen--were given free trips by Singapore Airlines to an island near Singapore for their honeymoon. that sparked massive interest and a 'singapore boom' among Korean newlyweds. similarly, Euro carmakers have been able to increase their sales both by aiming at the luxury segment and by making a popular Korean singer, Chang Nara, the honoary swedish ambassador to Seoul. thus, she has a saab, and thus, saabs are suddenly hip. I suggested that GM or Ford hire Chicago Cubs player and Korean citizen Choi Hee-sap to drive a massive SUV up and down Seoul streets to boost sales--they laughed, and said that just might work. so, if anyone from an American car company reads this and implements that strategy, please send royalties!

leaving the embassy to take the subway to my next appointment, I walked down the street to see something that I think is very rare in the world right now--a Pro.U.S. military rallly. a number of older citizens waved american flags and signs calling for Seoul to send troops to Iraq to help the U.S. i was surprised, and many younger people on the side of the street gazed on with bemused amusement and sort-of idulgent tsk-tsking. but i was impressed.

anyway, after my evening meeting at the Asia Foundation's beautiful house, where they have offices and where for the first time i took off my shoes and put on slippers in the traditional Korean manner, i was totally exhausted. i took the subway two stops--too exhausted to walk--to the seoul finance center, and wandered into the mall, grabbed a donut from dunkin donuts (which are everywhere!!!!!!!!! ) and met my old Haverford friend Cliff Emery's former roommate, who now works for the EU embassy here in Seoul. it's confusing--it's not really an embassy, but an incipeint attempt at making the EU diplomatically relevant. but, from what he said, they aren't really yet.

he and i ate dinner at an irish place and i sampled the korean version of a meat pie. not too bad, but the pastry had a disturbing aftertaste of cardboard and the beef was a bit too spicy to be truly british, i think. this intelligent individual also emphasized the generational split that is a real clear conclusion of my trip here--talking about a friend's visit to the DMZ on the border with the North, he said that his middle-aged friend toured the area with neutrality, that his older parents refused even to look into North Korea, afraid that the north border guards would shoot them on sight, and that his teen-aged children ran around as if it were an amusement park. the young here just don't see the threat from fellow Koreans, who are unfortunately starving...

back to my room, and having not used the fitness center yet, i dragged my weary carcass over to the 16th floor of the building next-door and biked 10 km for about 30 minutes while gazing out over Seoul at night. i can't believe this is my last night here, and just hope i can come back. i have two meetings tomorrow, but hope to do some sightseeing afterwards. problem is, i have to check out by noon. so we'll see how i figure everything out. anyway, my next post will likely be i Beijing!
-ben


- posted by Ben @ 6:50 AM

 
10/14 Tuesday
8:50 pm

Wow, what another crazy day. I must say, I am exhausted and feeling a bit lonely and isolated--it's tough, because while i was with people all day, i still feel like i'm wasting valuable-foreigner-in-Seoul time, but I've walked and wandered and wistfullly wiggled through Seoul all day, so right now i'm sipping green tea in my room and watching monday night football on Armed Forces network. so sue me.

woke up relatively late--i really thought i would get plenty of sleep, but unfortunately as i was falling asleep last night i scanned the tv one last time and found "that 70's show"-- had to watch it. why do i love that show so much? it's not that good...a real puzzlement. anyway, i ate the hotel buffet breakfast--an absurd price for an absurdly large amount of food. fruit (the grapes here are so much better than in Washington, i think there must be some strange genetic screw-up in the U.S.), pancakes, eggs, and of course the asian options--barley soup, tofu, kimchi, breakfast pickles. so i finished and then grabbed a taxi to head off to the U.S. Public affairs office. it's in southern seoul, across from the Yongsan U.S. military base. Yongsan is part of the reason the Koreans are so resentful about the U.S. presence--it's huge, and sprawling, and takes up acres of land inside their most important and largest city. but of course, when the U.S. military announced they were going to consolidate their forces and pull some back out of Seoul, some Koreans decided that meant that the U.S. was abandoning Seoul and preparing to reduce their presence. so you just can't win when you're the hegemon...

anyway, the morning meetings went fine and then i headed out to the main U.S. embassy for more meetings. security was amazingly tight, crowds of Korean police standing around the embassy that has fences and security gates and inspections of all cars entering the building. so the U.S. doesn't look particularly friendly, but what else can you do? there are threats and demonstrations, and you certainly cannot allow sympathizers with North Korea to interfere with embassy operations.

speaknig of North Korea, today i met a south korean politician who is anything but sympathetic. he represents the older, more conservative generation of south koreans who are sick and tired of all these young dedicated reformers who seek to overturn generations of south korea's system. of course, this system is somewhat oppressive, oligarchical, coercive, and militaristic. it's also the system that has created south korea's economic growth--the most rapid rate of development in the history of humankind--40 years from poor starving post-korean-war ruin to advanced, computerized, high-tech advanced society. he also spoke of the young generation in terms that made them sound like traitors--and to be honest, i was somewhat empathic, more so than i should have been, because i can relate.

anyway, enough korean sociology. back to the embassy for more meetings after lunch, which was at an overly expenisve sushi restaurant with fresh fish, fresh mushroom soup, fresh soybean soup, bean paste cubes, and turnip porridge. it was better than it sounded, but my body obviously isn't used to it, because i suffered through some Kim Il Song's revenge all afternoon. but i got my work done, and bravely was prodded by the Korean nationals at the embassy to take the subway to the antique shopping district. i think i was tired and perhaps somewhat dehydrated, because although the subway impresed me greatly (all announcements were trilingual in japanese, english and korean; very clean; well-mannered riders, not too crowded despite it being rush hour, and relatively easy to understand), the antique district (ilsadong-gil) was not so great. i bought some postcards, but otherwise, there were lots of small stores selling tcotchkes that i couldn't imagine buying. the porcelain and lacquer was nice, as was the Korean paper, which was truly unique--colorful, thick and ridged in a unique way--but the hordes of japanese tourists and the small store after small store of 'wanna-be antique ancient korean tradition' got me down after a while. i wandered on, through some small alleys, into an entertainment and bar district. interestingly, i learned due to a small sign hidden among the street stands and clubs why these small alleys between big streets are so lively and active whereas the main streets are so relatively deserted. during medieival times, commoners/non-nobles avoided the big streets. why? because when nobles came along on horse or palanquin or both, all the commoners had to stop, kneel, and prostrate themselves. being logical, hard-working people with things to do, the commoners eventually started to avoid the big streets, staying as much as possible in small alleys which weren't wide enough for noble entourages. anyway, i took some more $ (50000 won, about $42) out of a bank machine--thankfully, i was lucky enough to find one that had english-language capability. i then ordered dinner at a small jaapnese restaurant. i was hoping for some comfort food, so was avoiding the teppanyaki and chicken soup and cold noodle soup and noodle/garlic/beef stir fries. so, i went into a place and pointed to the picture on the menu that showed a collection of deep-fried items around a bowl of ketchup. looked good! the waitress tried to argue with me, but i couldn't understand so she just shrugged and went off. i should have listend, but didn't understand anyway, so i amused myself while waiting by watching a random collection of Koreans in traditional dress carrying drums marching by playing music and singing. i have no idea why, and i'll never know, because i couldn't ask anyone in the resaturant! of course, i'm sure that some of the Koreans spoke japanese, but the quickest way to make a Korean dislike you is to a. mistake him for a japanese; b. make it clear that you, as a foreigner, chose to study japaneese instead of korean, or c. publicly make it clear that you would prefer to speak japanese rather than english, even though you are clearly non-Japanese yourself.

anyway, the dinner came--and what had looked like fried oysters were...fried potatoes. what had looked like fried clams were...tater tots. what had looked like fried shrimp were...french fries. yes, it was a potato appetizer platter. i was so tired i just sucked it up, laughed at myself, and ate it all. i guess the waitresses at the restaurant are even now talking on their cell phones about this crazy foreigner (must be irish!) who happily ate nothing but potatoes. walking home, i got so hungry that i purchased some sweet-bean-paste flavored rice balls, which were pretty good! so not the healthiest dinner...

a couple more things--at lunch, i was wandering through the hotel down to the sushi restaurant when a stocky mongol-looking dude came up to me in the lobby. he looked about as comfortable in his suit as i would in high heels, and half of me expected him to grab my business bag, smite me with a mace, whistle up his horse and ride off out of the hotel down the subway steps, yodeling Mongol war cries throughout. fortunately, instead, he gave me his card and indicated he just wanted to say hi to the politician i was eating lunch with. it turned out he was the ambassador from the republic of uzbekistan. apparently, Korean companies are investing everywhere throught asia, especially in countries that most americans would prefer not to deal with--central asia, vietnam, myanmar. workers are educated, hard-working, cheap and, most important, docile. the way i've heard businessmen talk here, korean investors/businessmen might be the most hard-headed and disinterested in human rights in the world.

not to mention.....shall i say...inappropriate. one said that he preferred to invest in vietnam and Thailand--becuase the "ladies were so pretty." i decided it wasn't my place to enforce morals, and simply smiled and listened quietly to him talk about how the ladies in southern vietnam are "too money-hungry" but the ones in hanoi are the best because they are "so pretty and friendly." he goes on trips to these places a lot, and, given his wedding ring, i didn't ask how he knew so much about these "pretty ladies."

well, another excessive posting. it would be nice if someone is actually reading this. but it's late, and i'm bushed, and still feeling a bit queasy. so i'm turning in...another day of tough meetings tomorrow, including my first main presentations to embassy staff about media reaction. hopefullly, i'm prepared.
- posted by Ben @ 4:11 AM

 
10/13/03
10:25 pm

Whew, what a busy day. I went to four tourist spots (not counting one palace that was closed), and can tell you one simple thing about Korean cultural spots--they have all been destroyed by the Japanese twice--once during the 1592-1600 invasion, and once during the Japanese colonization period. Thus, unfortunately, most of them are rebuilt and, despite beautiful chinese-inspired dragon and blue tile motifs, somewhat pedestrian. that said, i greatly enjoyed the folklife museum and the Gyeongbokgung palace (very separate and different from the Changdeokgung palace, which is different from the Changgyeonggung palace). yes, pronouciation is quite different from each other--and difficult for this clueless american. In Korean, the "b" and "p", "d" and "t", and "n" and "ng" sounds are all in large measure indistinguishable. and i can't read the hangul alphabet at all. in fact, i feel somewhat like a colonialist running dog--i speak to random Koreans in japanese, as more speak it than english, and the older the signs and palace ingravings are here, the more likely they are to be written in chineese characters, and thus more likely i can read them. anyway, here's the short version of my schedule today--met with former foreign minister for breakfast, visited Changgyeonggung palace, visited moon temple, visited Tagpol park (home to the massive october 1 1919 korean demonstation agaist japanese imperialism. another example of good intentions leading to bad results--Korean students figured that wilson's 14 points in favor of self-determination meant that they would be freed from japanese imperialism. Oops--they were completely wrong, and the japanese imperial govt crushed them mercilessly, and the U.S. didn't--or couldn't--do anything), then lunch, then schlepped off to gyeongbokgung palace (very pretty, with koreans dressed as Jeosun dynasty soldiers standing guard), then the national folklife museum, then asia foundation reception at the Shilla hotel, with many pro-U.S. koreans and many important american guests, and other american moochers such as me. the ice sculpture was quite pretty, though.

random scenes from Seoul--

a senior former Korean official going into a 10-minute harangue about why the Japanese cannot be trusted and why they are culturally inclined to crush weak counterparts and genuflect before strong ones.

the worst lunch i have ever eaten--i decided i would avoid the mcdonald's, or even the pizza places around, and instead have some traditional chicken soup. oh my g-d--it was awful. kimchi and weird mushrooms and turnips in a steaming bowl of a whole chicken, bones and all. i spent far more time picking bones out of my meal than enjoying it--and the kimchi side dish was frankly inedible to this garlic-challenged foreigner.

4 separate couples in traditional western wedding dress getting pictures taken at the Changgyeonggung palace gardens. I wondered how the women were surviving walking through the muddy gravel paths in their long wedding dresses, unti i realized they were walking holding their skirts high up--over their jeans-and-birkenstock-clad legs.

the moon temple--a tiny, hidden round temple hidden on a stone plaza between the Seoul Lotte and Seoul Plaza hotels, just behind a parking lot. it was where the last few emperors of the Jeosun dynasty made annual sacrifies to propritiate heaven, and had beautiful stone drums. of course, it was torn down by the Japanese occupation to build a hotel, and was rebuilt a few years ago.

the fact that in order to walk anywhere in Seoul, you are REQUIRED to go underground--most subway stations are actually just massive underground walkways so pedestrians can avoid major intersections--which is good, because there are no crosswalks for many major streets. I went into one of these underground labyrinths walking back to the hotel from the Gyeungbokgung palace, just past the statue of Admiral Yi sun-shin, and came out after walking for 15 minutes in an underground shopping arcade just next to my hotel.

Ah, i'll end with admiral Yi sun-shin. he is, along with King Sejong (who invented the Hangul Korean alphabet, thus liberating millions of Koreans from having to memorize chinese characters and thus rightfully recognized as perhaps the greatest Korean ever), probably the most renowned and loved figure of Korean history, for his valiant fight against (guess who? no, not the Philippines, not the French, not the Russians...right! you guessed it...) the Japanese. without insulting our america-centric version of naval history, Admiral Yi was truly the first to invent what we called "ironclads," which he called "turtle boats." he won many victories against numerically superior Japanese fleets during the 1592-1598 invasions of Korea, but died in battle in 1598. also vitally important for Korea, which has surprisingly strong regional differences (not just north and south, but regional within each korea as well--different kimchi types, different shoes, different traditional hats, etc.), admiral yi grew up in three different locations and served as naval commander of separate provinces as well, so he is a truly national character.

i haven't even mentioned the reception, really, though there were many interesting people there, including a Korean professor at a Anglican university who spoke the most beautiful british english and who appreciated my random attempts at humor and a reporter who proved very interesting in analyzing the various national characteristics that make reporting in asia such a pleasure..and a pain.

finally, i end by noting that right now, CNN international has just showed a crushing victory by Britain's rugby team. for the record, their perhaps best player is named...
Ben Cohen.
and he doesn't make ice cream.
from an international world,
-ben


- posted by Ben @ 6:21 AM

 
10/12 9:45 pm

So i've just survived my first walk around Seoul. Everything so far has gone great--I got into the cab in DC at 10:45 am on saturday, with an Iranian immigrant who made very clear to me during the whole drive to Dulles exactly how everything wrong the world--from Pakistan to Palestine, from Iraq to Iran--was Great Britain's fault. Those imperialist, colonialist English bastards. So that was interesting. I then enjoyed the business class lounge at Dulles and drank diet virgin cola for the first time--not too bad. I must say that the plane ride itself was great--I highly reccomend flying business class if you have to spend 14 hours non-stop in a plane. Had two excellent meals of Korean food--great seaweed, given that it was vaccum-packed--and the woman sitting next to me was a Korean-American who had grown up in Incheon and had seen the U.S. army under McArthur invade during the Korean war in what many call the greatest ambphibeous landing ever. so she was one of the "old-school" Koreans, i guess, who still is grateful to the U.S. when i landed in Seoul, after getting about 5 hours of sleep on the plane bookended by watching the disappointing Italian Job movie, i was SHOCKED at how modern and clean and efficient everything was at the new airport. web kiosks everywhere, with young and old Korean hipsters signing onto their email accounts while sipping coffee and talking on the omnipresent cell phones. the bus to the hotel went fine, and i checked in and then decided to take a walk to get some exercise and make sure i went to bed late enough to confirm i'd adjusted to the time change. walking around was...stunning. mind-blowing. I guess Tokyo is like this, but certainly not New York and definntely not Washington. at any given time, here in downtown Seoul near city hall, i can see about 4 video screens playing commericals, high-rises, advertisements and shops in 3 alphabets (english, japanese/chinese, korean). I went through an underground shopping district, which was a bit older-looking, with many little shops (every third one sold ginseng). i came aboveground in the young hipster shopping/entertainment district of Myongdong, and the number of high-heeled teens in their expensive clothes, leaning on either each ohter or their surly, dyed-hair boyfriends was massive--and every single one of them had a cellphone. very crowded for a sunday night, and there was certainly no shortage of money, hipness or attitude. i finally wandered into a japanese-themed restaurant and had some fried fish with takuwan (picked cucumber) and miso soup and rice. it was pretty good, though none of the young servers spoke english or japanese, and certainly not Spanish, so communication was a problem. at least they didn't panic at seeing a foreigner, though because they were giggling as i walked out, i guess i shouldn't have left a tip. i got a little lost walking back, but fortuantely here in Seoul there are signposts wtih maps every few steps on every major street. just like in japan and Bangkok, many streets don't have names, so addresses are, much like handguns, seen as unnecessary. Anyway, the most amazing thing is that i have a laptop with non-stop internet in my room, so everyone is nonstop connected in this country, obviouslly.
Well, to bed. i got a few meetings tomorrow, but i do hope to do some sightseeing; there are a few palaces around and i think i might venture into the subway!!!
- posted by Ben @ 5:36 AM