The Green T. House

Dinner at the Green T. House, the hot restaurant in Beijing we’re told. Check out the seat backs, they are about 6 feet high. The place looks like a scene out of A Clockwork Orange, very weird and funky. Spooky music, strange images projected on the wall. Bizarre art. They made a big deal about the presentation of the food. One course was served on tree bark. The picture doesn’t to it justice, but I was informed shortly after taking this that there were not pictures allowed. So, this was the best I could do. It was a lively evening with a fair amount of wine.

Funny moment on the cab ride back. Kurt was in the front seat, Fred and I in the back. Kurt was trying gallantly to get into a conversation with the cab driver, even though it was clear he didn’t speak a word of English. There was some hysterical talk show on the radio, with a lot of Chinese chatter and sound effects. “Is this a hot talk show?” Kurt inquired. No response from the cabbie.

After a couple of other fruitless efforts, Kurt then said, in all earnestness, “So, you get much bird flu around here?” The cab driver just seemed puzzled.

The Forbidden City

Here’s the group in front of the massive photo of our beloved leader, Chairman Mao. We had just toured the Forbidden City, which is a kilometer long with countless halls with names like the Hall of the Peaceful Benevolence of our Heavenly Intergalactic Emperor. Our tour guide explained that half of the forbidden city was for purposes of housing the Emperor’s 3,000 concubines. Only the Emperor and the eunuchs were allowed in that part of the city. There was much jocularity about being responsible for 3,000 concubines and, I’m sure, not original joke uttered.

Where we are standing is facing Tiannemann Square. It is striking, but obviously not surprising, that the most historic event to have taken place there was unnoted. In the cosmopolitan environment that is Beijing, it takes an act of will to keep in mind the tumultuous politics below the surface of Chinese society.

Children of Mao

After the Wall, we went to lunch at a factory that makes vases and “pottery” with some elaborate system using copper. We got a tour of the actual manufacturing process, which was very labor intensive. The product was mostly produced by hand. We watched the workers drawing intricate designs on the pottery, which went through a blast furnace 6 times before it went on the shelf.
This is a picture of Fred and Rob watching the process.

The workers ignored us, and it looked like pretty tedious work, but I was comforted by the fact that many of them were wearing small headphones. Also, according to the tour guide, they had complete artistic freedom on the colors and designs they would apply to the product. The job may have been more satisfying than it seemed.

Mostly, I was struck by what a throwback this factory seemed to be. The tour guide seemed to have stepped out of a 1950s Communist propaganda movie, a lot of rah rah stuff about the amazing process that produced these high quality vases and knick knacks. Mao would be pleased.

We then went to the Forbidden City, a spawling complex of halls and palaces. I’ve got some good pictures, but for some reason, I can’t upload them right now. I hope I’ll be able to do so if I get to the FH office tomorrow.

Stay tuned.

The Great Wall

A group of us boarded a shuttle bus at 8:30 am for a trip to the Great Wall of China. It lived up to its impossibly high expectations, an unbelievable site. Imagine building a wall from New York to Los Angeles. Now, do it in the 3rd Century BC over mountains. I think it was build by aliens.

Of course, it’s pretty touristy, but that does not take away from its grandeur. I don’t have a lot of time, right now (we’re off to dinner at the Green Tea Restaurant), but I wanted to get this posted.

Now, see below for proof that I was actually there. That’s me with Fred Rohlfing, Jeremy Stewart and Rob Allyn.

I’m having serious problems posting pictures, but there’s much more to come. We went from here to the Forbidden City.

Tokyo to Beijing

The trip from Tokyo to Beijing was relatively uneventful. Getting out of Tokyo was a bit of a chore. You have to wait in four lines before getting to your gate; a line to have checked bags screened before getting to ticket desk, a line at the ticket desk, a security line for carry-on and an immigration line. As I walked down the stairs to the gate, who do I see at the bottom of the stairs but the senior leadership of the firm gathered, Bill Anderson, Kurt Wehrsten and Fred Rohlfing. I’d been at the VIP lounge having a few cocktails, but that sobered me right up. Fortunately, having just flown from Chicago to Tokyo, they were more groggy than I was.

Caught most of North Country on the flight. Boy, what an ending. Had me choked up.

Japan Air has a very cool feature. As we were preparing for landing, the pilot announced we were heading into turbulence and the flight attendants should take their seats. I hate that announcement. Then on the the TV screens a starscape appeared with some very new age music in the background. It was very relaxing, like something you’d see in a health spa in New Mexico. I assumed it was some kind of tape loop that they show when you think you’re goinng to die. So, I was grooving on the image, waiting for the turbulence, watching stars go by, some big, some small, steadily crossing the screen, when up appears the lights of a city on the horizon. Turns out this was a camera on the front of the plane and those were real stars. So we were able to watch the entire approach, as the pilot sees it, with this tingling music as accompanyment. Very impressive. I’ve never seen a landing from that perspective before.

Upon our arrival, there as a representative from the hotel waiting for us at the end of the gangway. She took us under her wing and I’ve never been through an airport more quickly. Zoom, right through immigration, zoom, right through customs, checked bags waiting for me (these other experienced travelers had only carry-on). I swear we got from the plane to the hotel shuttle in less than fifteen minutes, including a rest stop. Nice to be traveling with the big boys.

Then the coolest thing ever happened. I took out my Blackberry, which didn’t work in Tokyo (I’m told our technology is too primitive for them). Just for the Hell of it, I sent an email to my son Danny who had left for Spain the night before. I just reported that I was in Beijing and asked if he had landed. Within seconds, I got the following message back:

“Yeah, we just landed in malaga, and I’m actually still sitting in the plane, its pouring here.”

What a world we live in that we can communicate instantly across the planet this way. I love technology.

So, today I’m off to the Great Wall. Stay tuned for some good pictures.

Where’s Tokyo?

So, I set out this morning to discover Tokyo. Sadly, I never really found it. Couldn’t get past the feel that it’s simply a big city with people that look different. I walked about 20 minutes to the Imperial Gardens. I’m sure these gardens are stunning when Spring is in bloom. But, right now, they are pretty brown. And, while I suspect there is some historical relevance to the site, it was not communicated well. As a result, I was hard pressed to find anything worth photographing. I did take a picture of a swan.

Very beautiful, no?

Then, I wandered over to a 13th century fort, reportedly one of the highest sites in Tokyo. I tried to imagine myself as a ruling shogun 700 years ago occupying this site with Geishas at my beck and call. No luck, it didn’t move me at all. And Geishas just look wierd.

So, I started to make stuff up. I saw a stand of bamboo trees with a mysterious figure skulking in them. See the helmeted guy on the right? I think he’s one of those dead enders still fighting World War II. He had a bead on me, but I slipped away quickly.

Then the real adventure began, taking the Tokyo subway back to the hotel. It’s a very sleek system and I have to say, while I was very confused and bumped around aimlessly looking for someone who spoke English, I did, in the end, navigate my way back.

Not exactly the cultural excursion I had in mind. But what are you gonna do with two hours to spare?

On to Beijing!

The Business

We visited Fleishman Hillard Japan today. It is a very nice office right on the Sumida – gawa River. Very nice view from the offices. We were treated with the typically extraordinary Japanese hospitality. I presented a slide show on our global public affairs practice. In deference to the region, I added to my usual quotes from the U.S. Constitution and Aristotle, quotes from Confucius and the Buddha. Who’d have thought that they were advocates of the practice of public affairs?

FH Japan office head Shin Tanaka is very enthusiastic about growing his public affairs activities and judging from the people in the room, Ryo Kanayama, Sho Sakai and Mieko Iwasaki, he has the means to do so. Part of their presentation included a very sophisticated analysis of recent elections the performance of our client, the DPJ party. Shin was particularly interested in Rob’s presentation on Vox Global and saw many opportunities both in and outside the political world to use their capabilities.

I concluded the meeting by presenting the U.S. House of Representatives platter, the American flag pins and a key chain to our guests. It was readily apparent by their reaction to these gifts that they hadn’t received such largesse from Americans since MacArthur gave them back their country. They were equally grateful.

Getting back to the hotel was a bit of a challenge in that I had only slept aout 4 hours over the course of three days. A bit of weaving.

Then came dinner alone with very little English on the menu. While I’m warming up to Sushi, I think two meals in a row is enough, so I went for Tempura. The prices seemed very high, but I thought I might be doing the exchange wrong. I picked the cheapest thing on the menu. It was as series of appetizers that weren’t particlarly filling. I was waiting for the main course, but it never came. The meal was over. The bill was 8,000 yen, which I learned later is $70! Incredible. No wonder you don’t see may fat Japanese people. Highly priced and small portions, great anti-obesity program. The other part of the program discourages cab rides. I learned later that my cab ride from the airport was 29,000 yen, almost $300, more than the cost of my hotel room.

So, it’s now 2 pm and I’m wide awake again. I’m sure I’ll be dragging tomorrow by afternoon. Gonna have to get over this stuff somehow before Beijing.

I’ll be touring the environs this morning and I hope to have some more interesting pictures than white guys talking to Asian guys.

Tokyo Fish Market

We visited the Tokyo Fish Market this morning. Left the hotel at 5 am. What a scene. Vast amounts of fish being shuttled around by men on little trucks. You proceed at your own risk. If you don’t get out of the way, I imagine you end up on a hook somewhere being inspected for freshness. Every living thing from the sea is represented in all their bloody and slimy glory. It is stunning to think this goes on every day.

The pictures are in the area where the auction takes place. We got there just as the auction was ending. That guy standing still in the middle of all the activity is Jeremy Stewart. My other colleague Rob Allyn joined us, as well.

Tokyo at Night

Tokyo at 2 am from my hotel room. Badly jet-lagged. Can’t sleep. Going to be a looong day.

Japan or Bust

2:56 PM 3/15/2006

This is an offline post, so the date above is different from the blog post date. This will be typical of posts during this trip, since I may not be able to be online frequently enough to post regularly.

The trip started inauspiciously with a malfunction on the tiny jet that would take me to Chicago where I would tranfer to my Tokyo flight. After sitting a while the pilot announced that there was a problem in that an indicator light had “exploded” and they had to clean up the broken glass in the cockpit. That’s right, he said “exploded.” Don’t they train pilots to avoid words like that when talking to passenger? Jeez.

Well, it was clearly more that an indicator light, since we sat for an hour. I was getting deeply concerned about making my connection until I realized I had a bonus hour given the different time zone. Even so, they were boarding the Tokyo flight by the time I got to the gate, so it was pretty close.

Right now, I’m sitting next to a sleeping Japanese man. He looks like the camp commandant in Bridge Over the River Kwai.

We won’t be chatting much.

Here’s something cool and new. In business class, they give you Bose headphones for the audio/video options. Nice. I’ve plugged it into my Ipod, so I have my entire music collection with me and am able to listen to it with crystal clear sound. It even drowns out the screaming baby in the next row. I’m listening to Elton John’s Tiny Dancer. Sweet.

I wonder what the poor people are doing right now?