Izakaya in Tokyo

I just got back from a few days in Japan. I highly reccomend everyone to visit as it's a fascinating country with great food, sights, and people. We spent a couple of days in Tokyo and then headed down to Kyoto, which is the country's cultural capital. Kyoto was nice. You can't throw a rock there without hitting some sort of temple or shrine. We had a great time just walking around the city visiting temples and castles. It was a great way to get a taste of traditional Japan. I'm a city person though. I'm most interested in seeing the big cities of Asia and interacting with locals, so for me Tokyo was the best.

A significant part of my mission on exchange is to establish contacts in Asia, so I checked in with a Japanese classmate from the UW to see if he knew anyone in Tokyo who would be interested in eating/drinking with a random gaijin. It just so happened that a few of his co-workers were interested in such an encounter, and so we arranged to meet for izakaya.

Our hosts sat us down in a restaurant that we never would have found as tourists, and began to review a menu that looked as though it may have had about a thousand items on it. I was instructed by Sakuto-san that we first were to order nama-chu, or a medium-sized beer which didn't seem so medium-sized to me, as our hosts took care of ordering food.

The first of the many small dishes of food that came out to the table was a platter of raw horse meat. I'd eaten horse before on my trip to China, so I was not so taken aback, but the expression on the face of the Canadian guy from Pepperdine who was traveling with me was absolutely priceless. Our hosts laughed at the pause we took when the horse arrived and we had a few pieces. It was quite delicious actually. After that there were probably another 15 dishes that came out, all delicious, along with bottles of sake and shochu. By the end of the two hour parade of food and drink I felt like I had great friends in Tokyo.

After izakaya it was time for the second party. We left the restaurant and walked a few happy blocks to a place called Kennedy House. By this time it felt like the language barrier that was clearly present at the beginning of the night had faded away. It's very interesting how this happens after a few drinks; I've experienced it a couple of times now. We arrived at Kennedy House to find an awesome 60's (or 6T's as the sign said) cover band. I was blown away by their Beatles renditions, and when they played the Beach Boys' Kokomo I almost jumped out of my chair. The finale was a well-known Japanese song called Cherry Blossom, which was sung with sign language by a women with an incredible voice. It was so beautiful. Seriously. I almost cried.

And that was the night.

Eating and drinking with colleagues and business partners is extremely important in Asia. No business takes place without first establishing relationships. I take experiences like this lessons in international business, and this sort of real cultural exchange is 100x more authentic (and interesting) than anything we experience back home in a classroom. Having been through this a couple times now it was very interesting to be able to pick up on the tradition and structure that is embedded into these sorts of events. For example, we were seated around the table according to our positions as guests and hosts, and then by rank. The younger Japanese at the table, who were referred to by the others as freshmen, never took a bit of food or drink for themselves without first offering to their seniors. When we exchanged business cards I knew to give and take with two hands while bowing, and to examine the card for a moment before placing it into my front (never back!) pocket. Watching my Canadian friend attempt to go through the whole process out of context really helped to show me just how much I have learned over the past year about Asian business cultures.

Maccau

Okay two posts in a day is totally cheating. Sorry.

Last week we went to Maccau for a day. The city is known for gambling and prostitution, but I think it gets a bad rap. It was actually a very beautiful place with tons of stuff to take pictures of. We took a self guided walking tour out of the Lonely Planet which took us on about a three mile walk around a bunch of cool Portuguese architecture. We saw some amazing churches, a cool fort (complete with canons) that overlooks the city, the ruins of an old cathedral, and ended up in a Portuguese restaurant that was absolutely amazing.

After dinner we stopped in a casino for ninety minutes of gambling. I won $1000 HK on a slot machine in about twenty minutes and then cashed out. My jackpot more than paid for the day. It was only about $125 US, but there's something very gratifying about walking out of a casino with a crisp thousand dollar bill.

Pics are on Picasso.

Follow the Rock

This week was the last week of classes for the first Fall term. Most of us who are on the quarter system back home are now pretty much finished, as we arranged our classes so that all of them were crammed into eight weeks. This intense academic schedule has led to sort of a work-hard-play-hard type of situation for the exchange students who are all trying to get as much as possible out of school while still taking advantage of Hong Kong.

So when classes are out for the week, a tradition has developed to go straight from our downtown classroom to our favorite bars in the Wan Chai neighborhood, which is a 2$HK cable car ride away.

Wan Chai is a crazy place that often offends Western sensibilities. The watering holes vary greatly from raunchy strip club to sports bar to French, so you really have to be careful about which door you go through. Our system for avoiding awkward situations is simple: Follow the rock.

Several weeks ago we met up with a few friends at our normal starting position in a place called Heat. We start there because the guy from Anderson has befriended Heat's Aussie owner and somehow got the 2-for-1 drink specials expanded to the top shelf. (China bottom shelf is bad news.) Our wonderful friend from Irvine had been out walking around as she waited for us to get out of class and reported that there was classic rock being played around the corner at a place called Amazonia. After a rousing game of never have i ever, (where I learned that I am quite a normal guy) we left in pursuit of the Rock. What we found was quite possibly the most kick-ass cover band ever. Six Chinese guys, horns in the air, belted out songs that every American knows by heart in twenty minute sets. We sang along to Queen, Bon Jovi, GNR, AC/DC, and Neil Diamond to name a few. Before we knew it it was 5am, although I don't know who discovered this as the band was playing as though the night were still young.

Rituals and Context

Last week was Mid-Autumn Festival. This is a traditional Chinese holiday based on the lunar calendar that has been largely given up on the mainland but is still a big deal here in HK as well as in Taiwan.

On Monday there was a Mid-Autumn party hosted by the MBA office. It was your typical MBA gathering with future business leaders milling about with beer and plastic plates of food. I had interesting conversations with a finance guy from Germany, a women interested in ops and logistics from the mainland, and an American guy from non-profits. The food was fabulous as usual.

At some point during the party it was decided that it was time to light the lanterns, which is a traditional part of the mid-autumn festivities. I followed the crowd out onto the patio and observed while the Chinese students lit their disposable paper lanterns and walked around holding them on sticks. Everybody was so happy. People were smiling, laughing, and taking pictures of themselves holding lanterns. This was totally over my head. Don't get me wrong, lanterns are cool and all, but with absolutely no cultural context I had no connection to the emotional side of the ritual.

The following night we skipped class (mistake) and went to find the fire dragon ceremony. We'd heard that this was a famous performance that was culturally significant, and it sounded really cool. Every student on campus was going home for the holiday so the queues to get on the buses were incredibly long. We decided to take a cab into the city instead. We piled 5 deep into a cab and set out for Tin Hau, where we knew the fire dragon to be. We rode for about 15 minutes before hitting the gridlock. It was like Seattle x 2. We sat there for a long time. The driver sort of laughed at us when we tried to ask him about alternate routes that may not take as long. Everybody in HK was out, and the tiny size of the city was very apparent.

We finally made it to Tin Hau an hour later and stumbled into a carnival. In typical HK style there were thousands of people there. Again it was over my head. I'm not really sure what kind of carnival doesn't have rides or games or candy. A Chinese mid-autumn carnival apparently. Thousands of people were just milling about gathered around several stages with guys giving speeches or something. I assume they were speeches because there were no singers or magic tricks. There were also hundreds of lanterns hung overhead and a few very large lanternesque sculptures that were lit up. Every so often the full moon would peek out from behind the clouds and people would point and say stuff.

Eventually we realized that this was not the fire dragon ceremony. We asked someone where it was and he happened to be going there so we followed him. The fire dragon was made of what looked like very coarse rope. It was probably the length of a city block and was carried on poles by dozens of young men. The head also appeared to be made of some kind of rope and was very elaborate but not colorful at all. It wasn't actually on fire, which was too bad. It did, however, have thousands of lit insence sticks attached to it's head, back, and tail. To the sound of drum beats and a guy yelling into a megaphone, the fire dragon came running through an alley into a small square, and then circled and danced about. The huge crowd responded with cheers to the guy on the megaphone. I wish I could give a better description here but I have absolutely no idea what was going on. To me, the scene just looked like a bunch of happy people doing something odd.

On a physical level, I guess this is what rituals are. Lighting lanterns and eating cakes with your friends and family is in fact much less odd than bringing a tree into your home and covering it with bits of plastic and decorations that you normally keep in a box in your basement. This is what my mom has been trying to tell me when I poo-poo customs. (head scarf anyone?) It's not about the act. The act can be in fact silly. And that's just fine I guess.. If your into that sort of thing.

After the fire dragon we went to an awesome Hunan restaurant and the English guy paid the French guy $12 to eat a really hot Chinese pepper. The French aren't accustomed to such things. It was very funny.

Not Fog

Every year in the Fall, the winds shift direction. They change from blowing warm tropical air up into HK from the South China Sea to blowing slightly cooler air down from the mainland.

Surrounding HK a few hundred miles to the north are a few Special Economic Zones (SEZs) which are very favorable to foreign direct investment. It is in these zones where many multi-national firms have set up in order to take advantage of the Chinese labor market. This region is often referred to as the "world's factory floor" as these SEZ's are where a large amount of China's exports are produced.

The winds shifted last week and are now blowing down from the north. Along with the cooler air (which I appreciate a great deal) the northerly winds bring with them some pollution, a by-product of the intense manufacturing taking place close to here. To see the discreet change in the air that has occurred only over the course of the last few days has been a pretty profound experience for me. I've been to Beijing, so I've seen pollution before, but this pollution is different. It's not a result of millions of people driving cars and burning coal to cook and keep warm. It's not the result of massive construction efforts or a huge metropolis sustaining itself. This pollution is a result of the cheap manufacturing of goods mostly headed for the West.

Below are two pictures of the same little group of islands that can be seen from campus. They were taken about two weeks apart, both in the middle of the day. See if you can tell which was taken before the winds shifted and which was taken after.

(not fog.)

1408

Bumped into a couple of exchange students today who were on their way out to see a movie. I had just got out of 7 hours of class so decided that some mindless entertainment would be fine.

They had already decided to see 1408, a crappy horror movie where John Cusak does his normal thing as a cynical yet brilliant underachiever and Sam Jackson does his normal thing as piamp. The movie proceeds according to your standard locked-in-a-haunted-place-and-can't-get-out formula with a lot of really sudden noises to make you jump. I absolutely hate movies like this.

It was worth my fare though and I'll tell you why. (Stop reading here if you plan to see this piece of shit.) John Cusak is holding a representation of his daughter, who had died previously of leukemia or some other tragic disease. The ghosts are of course messing with his mind at this point and she dissolves into dust after saying a few creepy things. On his knees amidst her ashes, Mr. Cusak passionately cries out something like: "NOOOOO... I CAN'T LOSE YOU TWICE!!" It was the tear jerking line of the movie, a cheap emotional trick, (come on.. dead children?) and the absolutely predictable point where the protagonist decides that he's mad as hell and sure as beans will find a way out of this mess.

To our surprise, the audience erupted into laughter. We Americans looked at each other and shrugged. It was meant to be the saddest thing Hollywood could think of. One of those cases of cultural ships passing in the night.. I guess that's why you go abroad.

Last Man Standing

Yesterday was Annie's birthday. There's been drinking going on among the exchange MBA's since I've been here, but last night there was a good excuse to really go crazy. We drank for a bit in the dorms in order to blunt what we expected to be an expensive bar tab and then headed out to Causeway Bay at about 9.30pm.

A few of us were hungry so we stopped in for Thai food on our way to the bar. It was by far the best Thai food I have ever eaten.. So authentic that the pad thai wasn't called pad thai. We bought two large servings of fried noodles, a huge plate of chicken skewers with peanut sauce, shrimp spring rolls, and some French bread for about US$30. It was a ton of food for cheap.

Someone had found a bar with a karaoke room and we were allowed to bring in our massive bags of take out. Now here's the kicker. With nine of us we were able to negotiate an open tab.. all you can drink.. for about US$20 each with the birthday girl drinking for free. And they meant it. We had iced buckets of Carlsberg, a bottle of vodka, and a steady stream of colorful shots from the bar brought to us in large trays.

Needless to say we trashed the place.. And by we I mean the frat boy from California. I shudder to think about the outcome if there were a $20 all-you-can-drink bar in the US. I don't think that the damage was totally unexpected though. Toward the end of the night the boss of the place came in and had a few drinks with us. He seemed happy to have gui-lo (honkies) in the bar and not disturbed at all about the state of his karaoke room.

Eventually the cops came and we had to leave. I'm a little bit fuzzy on why law enforcement was involved, but I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with us. It was very late at this point and the cornucopia of alcohol consumed was catching up with people. The French guy and I were the only ones still functioning, (He claims that Sinatra's My Way is a French song btw which a total lie.) so we herded what was left of our group into a cab and back to HKUST. I'm pretty sure everyone made it back to their rooms although some had to be carried.

Here's a short series of photos that almost tell the story.

Americans Suck

I took this picture on my way to class tonight. As you can see I was in a very fancy mall. I mentioned this in a previous post, but now I understand it a bit better. You can't not go to malls in HK. You have to walk through malls to get where you need to go. They are integrated with the subway system and are basically like normal sidewalks. This is how you cram so much capitalism into such a small place.

Class tonight was really bad. Some of my American exchange student colleagues have a tendency to put ignorance on display. I find myself often embarrassed by a complete lack of sensitivity and courtesy. I experienced this on my trip to China last Spring as well. It seems some American people are incapable of acting like guests.

For example..

During a lecture about the developmental history of China, the prof asked us with a smirk if we had ever heard of Kung Pao chicken. The French guy was lost, but all of us Americans surely had. The prof went on to explain that Kung Pao was a Chinese explorer in the 15th century who traveled around the world on behalf of the emperor. After a trip to Africa, it was decided that his travel was too expensive and that China, as the richest country on earth, basically had no need for the outside world. Thus began a 400 year period of isolationism from which China awoke to find itself no longer an economic superpower compared to Western countries.

As the professor began to talk about the events that shook China from this isolationist state, namely the opium wars with Britain, the American kid from UCLA Anderson raised his had and actually asked:

"Who was General Tso?"

Where's Waldo?

This is a picture that Cortilia took the other day. It says a thousand words about me walking around HK.

Really Big City

Yesterday we made our first real expedition into Hong Kong proper. It was amazing. The trip went something like this..

We left from HKUST on the 91m bus at about 1pm. It was one of those double decker buses like you see in London. The girls thought it would be cool if we sat up top, and I secretly agreed, as looking out bus windows in Asia is one of my favorite pastimes. I can't really be sure, but I think that in HK mostly kids sit on the top levels of buses. At least on this bus, everyone up there was under the age of 16 and wearing a school uniform. There were almost no seats left so I stumbled to the back bench. The ceiling was really low, I am not graceful, and the bus was already moving, so it was awkward. Surrounded by tiny Hongkongese school children, this was one of those moments where I felt like I wasn't really blending in so well.

We arrived shortly at the Po Lam shopping mall which has an MTR station (a green station) beneath it. I was snapping pictures of the apartment buildings that towered above us as we walked up to the mall. There are massive apartment building skyscrapers everywhere in HK. The kind of building that are so tall they make you dizzy if you look up at them. We have zero apartments of that size in Seattle.

We emerged from the MTR at the Wan Chai station. Annie forgot the power chord for her Dell laptop back home in Seattle, so she did some research and found a computer store in HK where she thought she could get a new one. We found the place in a mall on a huge floor of tiny stalls all selling computers and electronics. The tiny stall we walked into was probably only 75 square feet. The walls were lined with computer components and different types of chords. Honestly I thought it would be a futile exercise actually to find the exact right part, but sure enough they had a Dell branded power chord in stock of the exact specifications required. Never underestimate Hong Kong's ability to get you the right good, of Annie's ability to do research on the internet.

We decided to hike up to Central from Wan Chai so that we could check out the heart of downtown and locate the building we would have to return to later for our Econ class. (HKUST has most of it's night classes downtown in order to accommodate part-time students' work schedules.) I was completely blown away by the scale of the city. Every building is huge and elaborate in some way. It seems like the HK's architects have been engaged in a pissing match for decades over who can build with the most style. Style is a big thing here. Not in a bad way either, it's just in the DNA of the city.

We found a restaurant in the guide book and sat down to eat. The place was bright yellow with crazy mirrors on the ceiling and flashing lights embedded into the decor. We ate rice with scrambled eggs and shrimp, vegetable curry (with a fried egg on top), and fried rice noodles with beef satay. It was fracking delicious. Not that I was on the fence or anything, but that lunch was what made me know I love HK.

We needed cell phones to use during our time here. We headed back to the MTR (a red station) and took a quick ride over to Mong Kok in Kowloon. When we emerged on the other end it took a few seconds to get over the immediate sensory overload. Ladies with large signs were trying to hand us fliers, there were people everywhere, and colorful advertising and shops filled our fields of vision. We checked several cell phone vendors looking for cheap phones that weren't too crappy. Heidi tried unsuccessfully to bargain. Eventually we got tired and went to Starbucks to get a boost. Once caffeinated we made our way through a row of tents full of really cheap goods.. mostly stuff for women I guess.. belts, jeans, watches, jewelry, etc. Annie bought a wallet and bargained successfully utilizing the old i'm-walking-away-now tactic. I think she saved two bucks on her $8 wallet. Was it Chanel? nvm. We eventually found cell phones and paid the list price. Oh well.

It was getting late and we still had to get to class. We got back onto the MTR (a blue station) to Pacific Place in Admiralty. We felt lucky when we got off the train and realized that the station was actually connected to the building that our class was in. We felt confused when we emerged from the station into that building and found ourselves in another shopping mall. Apparently malls make up the ground floors of lots of building in downtown HK. And not crappy malls either.. We're talking Gucci caliber malls. After taking a series of zigzagging escalators we eventually found our way to the elevator that brought us to our classroom. And what a classroom. If only the UW would treat us so nice. There was coffee, tea, ice water, and Mentos set our for us, and the huge pane glass windows looked out at the Bank of China building which was doing it's crazy nightly light show. I must admit I felt a little important.

Class went on for four hours. The subject was econ in China. It was interesting and the prof was a very funny Shanghainese guy.

After class we got back on the subway, got off at Hang Hau, and caught a mini-bus back to UST.

The pictures that I took (in chronological order) are here.

First HKUST Snapshots

Some photos of the campus.

Smoking harms your children.

Okay.. I tried to be calm about this but 24 hours in it's wearing on me. The whole damn campus is non-smoking. Had I known this I would probably be in Taipei right now.. Seriously.

That said, I made the hike today to the nearest ashtray/tobacco vendor just off campus and discovered that the Honkongese have the most brilliant scare tactic warning label.

Big Man on Campus

I thought that it would be beneficial to have my flight to Asia take off at 2am, as I figured I would sleep through the hellishly long flight and wake up almost in Taipei. This plan did not take into account the fact that airplanes are designed for midgets and are impossible to sleep on. So I arrived here in HK at about 9am (~5pm Seattle time) having had almost no sleep.

It was actually not a problem to get from the plane to the taxi to HKUST to my dorm room. I was settled into my tiny room by about noon. I walked around the campus a bit looking for a discreet place to smoke (the entire campus is non-smoking) and maybe a place to eat. I was so out of it that all I really found was a bunch of really humid air and some sweaty clothes. By about 2pm I could take it no more. I decided to rest my eyes for a bit and was out for the night.

I got a chance to walk around and take pictures this morning before everyone else woke up. The campus is amazing. It's a little city carved out of a tropical mountainside overlooking Clearwater Bay. It's organized vertically up the side of the mountain. All directions are given according to the 'lift' that a campus destination is associated with.

I'll post more pictures when I figure out how to make my American electronic devices work.

Ghost in the Shell

We're done with our part of moving out of the house. Keith and I spent today bagging and hauling out junk from the upstairs, closets, and basement. It was odd to throw our belongings over the guard rail at the dump and to watch the bulldozers knead them into the huge trash heap. The trophies that we won as little leaguers looked out of place down there.

I will say goodbye to Mom, Dad, and the house tomorrow morning. Then I can turn my attention to preparing for my trip to HK. My flight leaves at 2am Saturday morning.

Home Again.

Silicon Valley is now in the past. I have one week to both prepare for my new life as a shacked up 2nd year MBA heading out on exchange, and to bring an end to my old life as a 20-something local who always has the family home to fall back on.

I picked up Keith on my way up from Cali, and we are charged with cleaning out the house that we grew up in. This will be a long and emotional task, but as it becomes more real I'm realizing that it's a good thing. There are many happy memories at 6759, but frankly none lately.

HK is now only 4 days away. My head is still sort of spinning from the abrupt end to my internship and trek back to the Northwest, so I have a felling like the international travel thing is not going to really sink in until I am on the plane.

Hotel Zico: So long and thanks for all the macadamia nuts.

It's been a blast, but after 75 nights, boy am I happy to say goodbye to the 221. Checking out in 30 minutes. I'll spend a couple hours at work and then it's time to say goodbye to Mountain View. Woot!

Never mind that last post..

I take it back. They do work. A lot.

I am a very bad blogger. Three posts on my way down here and during my first week in the valley, and nothing since. I have probably alienated my fans with this radio silence.. I feel bad about about the posts' cynicism as well.. That was the homesickness talking. Sorry about the cursing.

A few points on life as a PM Intern in Silicon Valley.

The other day somebody accidentally (i assume) left the keys to their Lexus in the breakroom fridge. Someone made a comment about how the Lexus driver must be 40 years-old or something. You know.. losing their mind with age. It was news to me that 40 is old, let alone senile. That's the madness of this place. People run around chasing the dream, obsessing over the latest tech and the value of their stock, then lose their minds after a few years. It takes a real passion for technology to succeed here without going bonkers. The competition among and within the companies is intense and unrelenting, which produces some amazing technology and a ton of wealth, but not without psychological cost.

Research only gets you so far. Even if you had the budget to plop down $5k for every IDC and Gartner report relevant to the business questions that you are trying to answer, you still could find holes in your analysis large enough to drive your colleague's BMW SUV through. In b-school we have appendices at the end of our case studies that contain data from which the quantitative answers can be derived. I liken this to business tee-ball. In the real world, people constantly make judgment calls. In order to not make stupid decisions, talking to people who have informed opinions is so very important. Yeah sample size is small.. Yeah those people have vested interests.. Yeah this is not hard data.. But the shocker for me this summer has been that often hard data is a myth, even when there are millions of dollars on the line.

I gave 10 presentations this summer. Audiences were not passive as they are in b-school, where a large audience sits quietly for 15 minutes, asks lame jargon-laden questions during the designated Q&A period, and gives you a round of applause at the end. In a few of my read-outs, most of my points were challenged in real time. When I presented to the engineers for example, it took 30 minutes to get past the second slide. I found that the business value of these sessions was not in my presentation itself, but in the discussion that came out of it. The ideas that were formed and the mindshare that was established over the course of my presenting across the organization will be the enduring mark left by my time here.

And.. living in a hotel sucks. The 25 pounds I gained over the course of the summer are empirical proof.

they don't work

not sure how this place makes it. the people in the cubes next to me sit and bullshit 2 hours for every hour they work. i know more about them after 4 days than i know about some of my extended family. this is the new economy i guess.. the american way.

1st work day

and oh yeah i went to work today for the firs time.. it was kind of crappy but i guess that's what first days are always like.. the extraordinary number of acronyms will put my intense training as a video gamer to the test. woot.

beach fuckin volleyball

you know you have a job in silicon valley when there's a beach volleyball court in the parking lot. who plays beach volleyball anyway? what kind of dork would be caught dead doing such a thing? i for one don't know, but now that i have a camera on my cellphone i will be sure to keep the loyal readers of this "blog" up to date on this phenomena.

and they're off

yep. count 'em.. that's seven mcchickens thanks to a mistake made by a mcdonalds associate just outside of salem oregon. this is where we found ourselves at about 4pm due to delays leaving seattle and some really shitty traffic. after satisfying our annual urge for a mcdonalds gut cramp, two tanks of gas, and about twenty cigarrettes each, we finally rolled in to garberville, cal at about 1.30am. unfortunately for us, this was some sort of significant biker weekend in northern california so all of the hotels in town were booked. with no where to sleep, we decided to push on and make the tracherous drive up the hill to the school where keith will be living and working. his employer assured him the day before that a key wold be left to keith's new dorm room. unfortunately for us, hippies often forget things, and this was one of those instances. there was no key left for keith and we now found ourselves in just about the most remote place that i have ever been at 2.30am without a bed. i set my alarm for 6am and crashed in the car. keith found an unlocked classroom to crash in. after finishing off our last extra mcchicken i fell asleep.

i said my last goodbye (of many over the last couple of days) to k at about 6.30am and made my way down the mountain. i saw 5 deer; the same number as i had seen on my way up the night before. suddenly it was california hot and before i knew it i found myslef on the golden gate bridge.