March Madness

There weren’t too many American traditions I missed while we were living overseas. My family tried to embrace the local culture. Both Japan and China have such rich histories and interesting holidays that I rarely felt a void – except in March.  Since both my wife and I are part Irish, St. Patrick’s Day has always been a big deal – green clothes, green food, green beer, Italians pretending to be Irish, etc. However, the reality was that I had no trouble temporarily forgoing St. Patrick’s Day in exchange for holidays like “Bunka no Hi”, Tomb Sweeping Day, Chinese New Year or even “White Day”. What left a void during my more than decade long sojourn in Asia was the absence of “March Madness”. 

 

"Go Irish"

The statistics from the blog tell me that about half my readers live outside the US and come from over 40 countries so perhaps an explanation of “March Madness” is in order. No matter what you have heard, baseball is NOT America’s past time nor, according to a recent deception sweeping the land, is NASCAR. Basketball is - and not the boring brand played by spoiled multimillionaires in the NBA. I am talking about college basketball and more specifically, the season ending conference and NCAA tournaments.

 

 

March Madness sweeps the land – the reset button is hit. Even teams that have lost twenty games during a long, cold winter still have a chance at glory if they suddenly find their stride as spring approaches. The rest of the world may stop for a couple of weeks every four years during the World Cup - March Madness is an annual event, too important to be left to even or odd years. The impact is far reaching. People who don’t really care about basketball are drawn in, office productivity declines as workers skulk around office corridors with their “bracket sheets” hidden between file folders so they can fill them out as they pretend to be taking notes in a meeting. Others bring down the US GDP by spending time figuring out how to watch their favorite teams via live streaming on their computers at work. Pizza sales soar but the food industry upside does not compensate for the lost hours across the rest of the economy.

Since I am no longer working for the employer I had during my ex-pat years, I can come clean on the fact that several times during my years in Asia, I arranged trips to the US in March for two reasons: a chance to ski a couple of days and catch part of March Madness. The “productivity police” never knew because there was always some meaningless conference I could sit through in the US in order to get my skiing/basketball fix. St Patrick – forgive me.

During my years in Japan I became a sumo fan. Our local tournament, the Osaka Basho, takes place for a couple of weeks in March. I loved attending the event or watching on TV. Sitting near the dohyo (sumo ring) was exciting. My daughter was almost sent to her eternal reward when an airborne wrestler landed in the spot she was sitting shortly before I pulled her out of harm’s way. She thought the shower of sweat that landed on us was "very cool".

 

Osaka Basho circa 2002 - my daughters with young sumotori

Unfortunately even Sumo could not fill the March Madness void. Now that I am back in the US, you won’t see many stamps in my passport dated March. I am waiting until April to go back to Asia.

Continuing Education

Over the last ten days I had the good fortune to visit Shanghai and Tokyo. Now that I am working with different companies; logistics dictate that I stay in hotels close to their offices so I no longer tread my old, familiar paths in either city.

While I am enjoying working with new faces and seeing new areas of the two cities; my old relationships are still important to me. In Shanghai, dinner was arranged with my former team. A colleague agreed to pick me up but as he had to travel across the city, a traffic jam forced a change in plans. My phone rang and Philip (my often mentioned former driver) was on the line; “Sir, I am picking you, please be out front in 5 minutes, OK”. A few minutes later, a small blue car pulled up with headlights flashing and a smiling face behind the wheel. As usual, Philip was in a good mood and had plenty to say: “how did you pick this hotel?”, are you a VIP here? “which card did you use?”. Philip always had a keen interest with my status with various airlines and hotel chains.

 

 

On one occasion I was flying back to China from the US via Frankfurt on Lufthansa. I had to bring back several items we couldn’t get in Shanghai so I had to check a bag which I rarely do.  The bag didn’t make it and I wasn’t sure I understood what the baggage agent was telling me. I called Philip, who was waiting outside customs, to straighten things out. A couple minutes later I had a lost bag claim in hand and made my way to the exit. Philip greeted me and wondered out loud why I checked a bag in the first place. He drove me to the departures area instead of the highway. “Philip, why are we here?” He replied; “you need to go to check-in with the paper they gave you”. Knowing better than to challenge Philip, I went to check-in and explained the situation to an agent who, thankfully, was fluent in English. She apologized for the inconvenience, promised my bag would be delivered to my home the following day and handed me an envelope. I got in the car and opened the envelope which contained  2,500 RMB (over $300 at the time).  Philip wanted to know what was going on. “You mean the Germans (Philip tends to view everything from a national perspective) gave you RMB 2500 instead of your bag” he said in an angry tone. “No Philip, my bag is coming tomorrow”. Philip considered the situation for a nano second and then said, “you are really a VIP, the Germans lost my ex-bosses’ bag more than once but they never paid him and he was a German”.

 

We arrived at the restaurant – it was great seeing everyone from my old team – I left Shanghai 26 months ago and the company 4 months ago yet, it was as if nothing had changed except Philip was drinking beer. He said he was happy he could drink with me for the first time ever because his wife was with him and could drive them home. It was also the first time Philip had seen the old team since his departure from our former company in November.

 

After a few days in China, I moved on to Tokyo. Prior to leaving on this trip, I was invited to attend an “OB dinner” on my second night in Tokyo. My only understanding of the term “OB” in Japan was out of bounds on the golf course. Apparently this was another gap in my English or at least my Japanese English (Japanglish).  By return email, I asked about the term “OB Party” which means a gathering of people who had retired from a company – aka “old boys party”. In this case, the oldest of the old boys was my first mentor in Japan. He turns 80 later this month. Murai san has been retired for a few years. I never miss a chance to eat, drink or play golf with him. His current focus is shooting his age on the golf course. He has a good chance. The average age at the dinner was about 75. An incredible amount of knowledge and experience sitting at one table, I was honored to be there.

During my days in Tokyo, I attended a “Green Energy Expo” at the largest venue for such events in Tokyo. It was a great chance to catch up with industry contacts from Japan and the rest of Asia. Many people I hadn’t seen since my job transition, were eager to know what I am doing. One old friend who speaks very limited English listened to me explain that I was working as a consultant to multiple companies. I explained again in Japanese and he smiled and said in English with a big laugh: “you are the lithium fixer”. I knew it was a compliment even if the movie origins were questionable.  

The next night, I had dinner with another retiring mentor who started explaining doing business in Japan to me when we met in New York almost twenty years ago. He was with a man 30 years his junior who will take over the company within a few years. I have always been impressed by their relationship which to me is the definition of the mutual respect between older and younger workers - one of the many things that makes Japan such an enjoyable place to do business. I mentioned having seen my 80 year old mentor the night before and the reply was “Oh, you went to an OB Party” – the gap in my Japanglish vocabulary rearing its ugly head again. As we said goodnight, I mentioned that I was looking forward to losing another golf bet with him on Saturday which is exactly what happened.  While I settled my bet, my mentor reminded me that this was the last time we would playing while he was still with the company. I got his personal contact info and invited to my home course when he comes to the US. Our goodbye handshake was longer than normal and the bow was deeper. The younger gentlemen took me to the airport. Although currently I am not doing business with his company, the relationship transcends commercial gaps. We set another golf date for when he visits the US in May and a tentative dinner appointment for my next trip to Tokyo in April.

Although I come to Japan now under different circumstances than before; the balance of new relationships and old make the “next chapter” richer than the last.

 

Snake Eyes

One of my favorite aspects about life in China was the holidays – especially Chinese New Year (aka “Chun Jie”, “CNY” or “Lunar New Year”). As an American it was hard for me to appreciate the importance of holiday – like combining Christmas, Easter, the 4^th of July, and Thanksgiving while adding the TV spectacle of the Super Bowl into a one week holiday.

We are about to begin the “Year of the Snake”.  Not my favorite of the 12 zodiac animals, give me the dragon or the tiger any day, but you have to take the good with the bad.

 As I write this, literally hundreds of millions of people are making their way home for the holiday. If I hadn’t experienced the travel chaos just before the holiday, I would never have believed what goes on as the lunar New Year dawns in the Middle Kingdom. Travel on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in the US is nothing compared to what people do to get home in China.

Our first Lunar New Year experience was in 2006. We skipped town and went skiing in Japan. Clearly, I did not understand what I was missing. We had only been in China for five months and, after having a driver that held our car for ransom, had recently hired Philip. The family ski trip was a tradition, leaving the country during a major holiday seemed like a good idea and I wanted Philip to be able to have the holiday time with his family.

We loved skiing in Nagano but were anxious to get home to pick up the puppy we had adopted a few weeks earlier but had left in the care of the shelter until we returned from our ski trip. We went directly from the airport to meet our newest family member. Shanghai seemed back to normal. We thought Chun Jie was over but, as usual, things in China are rarely as straight forward as in they are in America.

Philip was still struggling to learn English but tried to explain that Chun Jie was really a 15 day event and we still had a chance to celebrate. He insisted that I buy 1,000 red firecrackers. When I asked why, I learned about what Philip called “good lucky”. “Sir” he said, “we must light in front of house and then ‘good lucky’ will come”.  Philip is always so enthusiastic, I usually just said “ok” to whatever he proposed. On the last day of the Lunar New Year Celebration, the family assembled in front of the house to light the firecrackers. Philip solemnly told us that after lighting the firecrackers, we could not clean up the red paper until the next day or else “no good lucky”.  We rolled out the firecrackers and as I was lighting one end of the long line, I looked up and noticed the front door was open and our 18 week old puppy was approaching. Too late – the noise had started, red paper filled the air and our little bundle of fur yelped and sprinted for the door. I guessed that “good lucky” was only for humans.

Chun Jie, 2007 was a classic. We knew what to expect and enjoyed every minute. I bought an official box of fireworks which cost more than most locals made in week. Normally, Philip would have made the purchase for us but in this case, he told me what to say in Chinese and let me know that I should buy the fireworks for my house. I accepted the “rite of passage”. Philip watched me from the car and when I proudly returned with the goods, I received a minor tongue lashing for not negotiating a better price.

We set our box of fireworks off early and I was impressed. At least for a few minutes, until the real fireworks started and continued across the city for most of the next 24 hours. We walked around the area amazed at the light show and noise. When we got home, we found our now full grown puppy cowering in a corner. Scarred by the experience of the year before, Yuki (Japanese name for our Chinese puppy - which is another blog post) never got used to fireworks.

In 2008, a week before CNY, snowstorms hit many areas of the country that rarely have more than a few flakes. Shanghai had the most snow recorded in decades. I was supposed to attend a meeting in a city about 90 minutes west – the last bit of business before the country shut down for the holiday. The government had closed the highways to the west but the secondary roads were still open. The weather had locals in a slight panic as people prepared to board trains, planes and buses to get to their homes which in some cases were more than a thousand miles away. Having grown up near Buffalo, NY- I considered the Shanghai “Blizzard” to be a light spring snowfall and let Philip know we were still going on our day trip. It turned out to be a long day.

Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. I had no way of knowing what was going on in the sleepy towns we were forced to pass through due to the highway closure. The mass migration home for Chun Jie had begun – hundreds of people were making their way to small bus and train stations in each town along our route. Of course, the people walking in the road were not empty handed – gift giving is an important part of the holiday. Juggling their luggage and packages, the heavily burdened travelers did not have time to watch out for cars clogging the roads they were walking on. The cold, ice and snow did not help the situation. The drive took four hours rather than 90 minutes. We arrived at the office in time for a late lunch followed by a two hour meeting. As we prepared to make our way back to Shanghai, snow began to fall again.

Trying to retrace our route to get home proved difficult: more snow, more people and darkness to hide the infrequent signs marking the road. We finally realized we were lost when we entered a small town we didn’t see on the inbound trip. Fortunately the ever resourceful Philip had thought to provision the van with the favorite American junk food in the land – Kentucky Fried Chicken and plenty of drinks. Philip stopped and asked for directions; soon we were headed down a dark, narrow road. A road where I was to see one of the most amazing sights during my eleven years in Asia. Out in the middle of nowhere we came upon a man walking down the middle of the road – large suitcases in each hand and a satellite dish strapped on his back.

To me, this man embodied the “can do” spirit of China. As we slowed to safely pass him, the man did not look left or right he just held his ground in the center of the road. We were so amazed at the sight, somehow we didn’t think to stop and give him a ride. I could only speculate that he was walking to catch a bus to start his trip home. A man working in the industrialized eastern part of the country, providing for a family that he saw once or twice a year. I think of the “dish” man every year as Chun Jie nears.

After seven hours on the road, we finally arrived at my house. Eleven hours in the van round trip instead of three. I was tired but glad that the weather had enabled me to see the determination of people making their way home.  Providers that make incredible sacrifices for their families. Puts my “first world” problems in perspective.
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Added a day later: From my perspective too many people in my home country hear the rhetoric about "communist" China and judge the entire country by what a tiny minority of "rich, old, Chinese guys" do. China isn't so much communist as one party - there is a difference although as a practical matter it doesn't matter much to people like "dish" man.
Forget that cruise next summer, book a ticket to Chengdu by way of Shanghai and see for yourself.